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I’ve been putting off a review of these modules because covering all three is a lot of work. And a great way to make that worse would be to split it into three different posts. So that’s exactly what I’m going to do. First up will be M269, with a breakdown of what’s encountered on the module, how I feel about the various sections, and then an overall reaction to the module.

Note that I’m not going to discuss actual programming here. M269 happens to use Python as its language of choice, but that’s just a vehicle to demonstrate algorithms. University is not the choice place to learn a progamming language, and the concepts in M269 are language-agnostic.

M269 starts by considering the concept of abstraction, and multiple ways it can be used in computing. This is excellent, and fills a major gap in M250 caused by the language choices employed by Java. It’s a gap that made M250 more difficult to study, so that might be a reason to consider taking the two simultaneously … But then you’d have two different programming-heavy modules using different languages, and that could prove confusing, especially come exam time. The conventional wisdom is to take M250 the year before M269, and I wouldn’t disagree with that.

From abstraction, it considers (abstract) data types. I think a lot of the instruction here implies without stating that there’s a natural link between the shape and definition of your data, and how you can use that data. It’s explored more explicitely in some MOOCs I’ve done, and it feels useful. Still, students who pay attention will find the connection. Using the data leads to solving problems (such as searching and sorting) using algorithms, and then evaluating between multiple useful algorithms. This provides the context for discussion of algorithm complexity. So far, so good. This is covered in many introductory-level computing MOOCs from other universities. Frankly, I didn’t find the OU model particularly compelling, aside from laying the foundations of abstraction. But it wasn’t much worse than other methods I’ve encountered, except that it’s rather dry. It’s not as fun or entertaining as MIT-OCW, HarvardX, or UBCx MOOCs, and contextless programming challenges (aside from the iCMAs) aren’t engaging as they’re encountered in the materials. On the other hand, I found the Big-O (being changed to Big-Ω for future presentations, and the module actually explains the difference) discussion more academic than I’d encountered, which I found really useful.

The module also covers formal logic, and it does this beautifully. My dad used to lament that Geometry was the closest that students got to formal logic in school, and thanks to computer science that’s no longer the case. The largest, gaping problem here is that there’s no feedback to students on this portion of the module. Along with computability, this is assessed only in the exam, and detailed feedback is unavailable. This does a disservice to students, but one that’s likely welcome to both the majority of students and tutors alike … It seems like a lot of work for everybody.

I never got a word from my tutor, aside from a bizarre marking on a TMA. The TMA asked for changes to an existing function, and I was able to get the job done without changing the inputs and outputs, which is essential in a multi-programmer environment. She criticised me for not making a completely different function which couldn’t be used as a replacement. Fair enough. But I was able to get help from other tutors, and the tutorials from these other tutors were always engaging and enlightening.

I think there’s a lot that M269 does right, but there’s a lot that freely available MOOCs do better at an introductory level … M269 was a bit basic for a second-stage module. It does some things, like formal logic, abstraction, and complexity, better than those MOOCs, but it’s not as engaging. And for an eight month module, engagement is critical. It’s a good and important module, but it could do with some fresh, colourful paint.

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Results have come in for the 2019/2020 academic year. This is a strange year for results, because they’re not necessarily based solely on the efforts of the students. For modules with cancelled exams (as opposed to those which substituted an EMA or did a home-exam alternative) students got an adjustment to their OCAS score in line with how module students have done on their OES relative to their OCAS over the last three years. As students typically do worse on their exams than on their coursework, in practice this means that students get a deduction of their OCAS based on previous years’ students.

It hasn’t been pretty. There are a lot of unhappy students, and some quite understandably so. Students of M250 are reporting deductions against their OCAS by as many as 10 marks, so you may have needed an OCAS of 95 to get a distinction. (Note that these figures are not verified, just social media chatter.)

My only module to fall into this category was M269. My OCAS was 95, and I got an adjustment down to 93.1 for my module result. Somebody else said a 5 mark difference cost them a distinction.

For TT284 and TM257, I had a standard EMA (with TM257 being informed by a very non-standard day school alternative). I didn’t do as well as I’d have liked on either (91 and 89 OES respectively) but I just couldn’t focus for anything in lock-down. And to paraphrase someone on the OU STEM Discord server, it reflects my effort level fairly.

Anyway, long story short, I’ll take three distinctions and run this year. It was never going to be easy doing three modules in the same year, so I’m grateful to have done it during a pandemic.

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I’m not overly enthusiastic on the portmanteau “Coronacation” as it implies that by working from home to keep ourselves and others safe during a pandemic, we’re not really working. We’re working. We’re pulling double time. There’s no longer any difference from our work and home lives, so work seems to intrude at all hours. Those who aren’t able to work are also working trying to get work. Plus we’re nearly all inadequate educators, now.

But I’m using the word differently, to describe trying to have a vacation from university while still in the latter part of the full (or nearly?) lockdown stage. I’m done with uni for this academic year! In fact, I submitted all my EMAs last week and have been recovering. And with three modules, I need a lot of recovering! I’m not ready to do full module reviews, yet, but figured I’d get this part out of the way.

I only gave myself a few days to do the TM257 EMA because it’s halfway done by the time the day school (or alternative thereof) is completed, and it’s in my wheelhouse, to boot. Mistake! Well, I mean, not a huge mistake. I got it done with a week to spare. But it was surprisingly tough.

The research question was shockingly broad. Like, people throw the phrase, “How long is a piece of string?” around, but imagine that was an actual exam question. Yeah. It was that broad. By the same token, though, it was great from both the perspective of learning networking details, and self-education. Regards to the module team, it was a top-notch question, and I enjoyed it. I also would still be in a blind panic over it if I hadn’t reached out to my very excellent tutor. I have never been so supported by a tutor as I was over that question.

The last question wasn’t difficult, but it fooled me! After I submitted it with some niggling questions at the back of my head, I was just gathering some documentation on the solution for my own notes, and something jumped out at me. My allegedly systematic approach had pole-vaulted over a step, and it would have cost me at least 4 marks and possibly a couple more.

All told, I’m happy with my submission, and am expecting somewhere in the neighbourhood of 84 to 97 marks on the EMA. The worst-case scenario is that I’m a border case.

(For the record, I finally figured out what I’d done wrong on the day school scenario. The question was written in an “okay” manner, it was really on my own shortsightedness that I missed it … And if it were me, I’d have deducted 4 marks instead of just 3.)

For TT284, the EMA was fairly straight-forward. The practical stuff was dead simple if you’ve done it before, and definitely doable if you hadn’t. In fact, if you can get an HTML form to work with a reference book beside you, you should do well on the EMA. The report side was mostly difficult in making choices; about what to discuss, which aspects to put forward, that sort of thing. In fact, I possibly didn’t answer the question for 1b, so I may resubmit that, but I did hit many points that an answer should have.

I feel I did somewhere between 86 and full marks on this one, but we’ll see.

Technically, I’m not quite on my Coronacation yet, as I’m going back now to look over M269 materials for units 6 and 7. On one hand, I’m glad I didn’t have the exam, because I don’t know how much time I would have had for primary study and revision this year. On the other … I’m really loving these blocks! I’m glad I’ve got a few months to catch up on them without deadlines, and can just enjoy the learning.

Within things that are in my control, my module results on M269 will be based entirely on our OCAS marks, but will not simply be our OCAS results. They’ll be applying an adjustment based on previous module cohorts’ exam results relative to their OCAS results. Regardless, I’d be surprised if I didn’t get a distinction from this module.

None of which matters! I’ve crunched the (fairly complex) numbers, and realised that so long as I get two distinctions at stage 3, nearly every path leads to the same degree classification. As long as I pass my three modules this year, it’s all the same in the end.

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I got news over the weekend about the OU’s decision regarding what to do about module results for modules with cancelled exams. Results will be based solely on the OCAS (or coursework assignments) portion of the module’s assessments, and not the OES (or exams and end-of-module assignments) portion. Since I’m done with all of my TMAs for the module (all of my modules, really), that means I’m done with the M269 module, apparently, as that was my only module with an exam this year.

I had my last TMA marked and returned last week, too. It came back at 93%, and I think it was marked quite fairly. I disagree with the interpretation of refactoring code versus changing the inputs required for a hypothetical modification to a function in a question, but it’s not a big enough deal to challenge on. (My opinion is, if you’re asked to change something, you only refactor the code unless it’s made explicit that different inputs and/or outputs are required. It should be able to behave in the exact same manner under normal operation unless it’s specifically stated that it’s okay for it to behave differently. I thought that expressing this in my answer would be enough, but it wasn’t.) And I definitely got away with some minor definition inconsistencies.

As the TMAs all have equal weights applied to them, my OCAS, hence my M269 result, is 95.5, so a distinction.

I woke up yesterday nearly ready to end my whole degree. I just couldn’t see any path forward to study five chapters of my networking module (TM257), a block of my web design module (TT284), get an online final exam done for TM257, a plan for my EMA done for TT284, all in two weeks, and then finish up an EMA for each TM256 and TT284, and revise for an exam for M269. You’ll note that only the very last item is removed from this list, now, but it’s enough. It will give me the breathing room I need to get the whole thing over the line.

I still haven’t enrolled for next year, though. I don’t know if I can take it, yet. I’ll have to see where I am after results for my other two modules come through.

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Or: Taking working in isolation to a whole new level

Since some updated governmental guidance on the COVID-19 response, and a new (but completely normal) cough from our nursery-aged child, my family has been in self isolation, about a week and a half. Then last Friday most of my coworkers joined me as the schools were closed, then finally on Monday basically everybody did.

When the schools closed, there were major upheavals for all the universities in the nation … Except the OU. It had some small changes to make, such as the cancellation of face-to-face tutorials and day schools, email-only support from student services, and paper TMAs sent in the post rather than electronically won’t be marked until after schools are opened again.

But for the most part, it’s business as usual for the Open University. It is always. Open. Which is good and bad. Good that my studies won’t be directly impacted, but bad because they are now being severely indirectly impacted. I’ve gone from being a full time parent, full time employee, and part time student to being a full time parent, full time employee, full time home schooler/substitute live-in teacher, and 3/4-time student. And it’s brutal. I have no time for anything. Work is especially difficult, as I’m keeping remote-working resources running which were never intended to support absolutely everybody working from home.

And, of course, if something has to give, it’s university. It’s important for many people, but for me it’s literally just a hobby. (I’ve had more expensive ones which weren’t as fulfilling.) I gave myself a week to get through the TMA for M269, which would normally take a day and a half. I was up until 2 AM last night finishing it up for a due date of noon today. And I never went back to polish it up. It might just garner me a mark of 80, which would be an all-time low. For a subject I’m really good at. That’s how difficult it is to find a spare moment to focus on anything right now.

Other new hobbies include worrying where our next meal is coming from (in a literal sense, as I’ve struggled to find food delivery slots while isolating, and even family members helping have been unable to find basic provisions for us) and playing Which Civil Liberty Is Being Revoked every evening.

On the reals, though, people are running headlong into protecting everybody’s physical health due to a very real danger of death. Nobody seems to be mentioning that mental health is being completely ignored, and it can be just as deadly to some people. Take asking for help as seriously as you take washing your hands if you’re one of those people. And treat emotional security blankets as valuably as actual toilet roll.

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TMA03 for TT284 is due today, and I just started it on Tuesday. Nothing like blind panic to keep your coding skills keen. I’m not really satisfied with how the assessment lined up with what the materials taught, but it did line up with the learning outcomes. It seems as though this block intended more robust independent study, which is fine, but the schedule was exceptionally tight if that was expected. If anybody reads this prior to a future pesentation of TT284, be aware that if you don’t already have a healthy grasp of JavaScript, coding for streams, or both, the TMA could take a considerable amount of time. (The module team estimates the time required at 10 hours. That’s probably close to how long I took, but I may have just been lucky.)

How did I do? On the coding front, I ran into two stumbling blocks. The first was due to my confusion over the difference in JavaScript between using a function as an argument, and using a variable which references that function. (It took me about an hour of research later on to realise how I’d fixed the problem and why it was necessary, which led to me tidying up the code.) The second was because I had read through a practical activity in the materials rather than running through it to save time, so I was leaving out a step in the TMA. So I think I did alright on the practical portion of it.

The report section is much weaker than my normal efforts, and it’s mostly because I couldn’t really force myself to care. This TMA is worth 34% of my OCAS, and the other 66% currently has full marks. So long as I get a mark of 55, my OCAS will round up to 85 or higher, and that portion of my result will be a distinction. Assuming my coding is perfect (it’s not, but I should get most marks), I only need 5 marks from the report. Heck, the diagram I put in there ought to be worth 5 marks, so I’m just not going to stress about it. I think I might get a 90 on this one.

So now I’m hastily rushing back to M269 which has its second and final TMA due in two weeks. I was a little concerned over how much work there was to do in it until I opened up my TMA template for M269, and saw that I’d gotten a decent start on it all the way back before Christmas, when my best self was still diligently ignoring how tough three modules were next to full time employment and full time parenting. It’s rough, but I might pull through it after all.

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I can’t believe it’s only been five and a half weeks since my modules started. I feel like I’ve been going flat-out for nearly half a year. I’m caught up through the first 8 weeks of study in all three modules, and have the first TMA submitted for each of them, but that doesn’t tell the whole story.

There’s a bit of a time crunch in TT284 trying to finish up the end of the first block and submit the first TMA at the same time. The module team claim they don’t have recommendations for how long a block section will take to study so that students can better manage their time. If the module materials were printed, it would be easy to know at a glance roughly how long it might take to get through a section. But when it’s just a series of web pages that are of varying lengths, it’s quite a task to estimate the effort. There are also a lot of external reading recommendations that are only partially signalled ahead of time, so you can’t estimate these at all until you come upon them in the primary reading.

Anyway, none of that would have been a problem, but I promised my sons that I would make them Halloween costumes this year. Doing that alongside three modules and a TMA not accounted for in the module planner just about did me in. It wasn’t until Halloween was actually underway and I had one less thing on my plate that I was finally able to relax.

After that TMA was done, though, the two for the other modules tumbled out quickly. I’d done bits and pieces for all three all the way along, but TT284 (Web technologies) was one big essay-style report. You can do all the prep you want for something like that, but eventually you have to sit down and write it, and you basically can’t start any of it until you’re ready to start all of it. While it’s a pain of a TMA, and boring as imaginable, it’s also quite like a piece of work I’d actually be asked to produce for my day job, referencing excepted. So I can’t fault it. It’s a quality assessment. It’s difficult to gauge how well I’ve done on a monolith report. I expect I will have fewer specific examples of one or another classification than the tutor wants, and I only summarised some results rather than documenting them explicitly. I’d say it’s in the 85-92 region. I’d be disappointed but not surprised if I got something in the 80-85 range.

My TMA for M269 (Algorithms and data structures) was obviously a lot more fun, as it involved writing code and solving problems. The first time I wrote it, I gave a page and a half mathematical proof for a question worth just 3 marks. After all, it said, “Explain your answer.” In the end I just showed practical steps rather than the maths that would make it applicable to any problem. Anyway, if I’ve missed something on that TMA, it will be because I misread something, not because I understood it wrong or explained it poorly. I’m almost certainly above 90 marks on that one.

The TM257 (Cisco networking) assignment was great. A full 70% of the marks comes from stuff you do studying on the module anyway, and there’s very little room for the tutor to change the marks there. I’m confident I have the full 70 marks. For the other 30, I’ve done a great job with a 20 mark question, and expect full marks for that one, too. For the last 10 marks, I’m really not sure. It’s a diagram. But it’s a diagram with … Well, a lot of information on it. I emailed my tutor to explain my approach to the diagram, and that 10 marks didn’t seem like nearly enough for the question. He said that my approach was fine, but that 10 marks was possibly overly generous. So we’re clearly speaking two different languages. There’s scope to wipe out about 25 marks from mis-annotation on my diagram, so it’s difficult to believe it could be worth less than 10. So that one should come out above 90 marks as well, but I don’t know by how much.

Anyway, I’m caught up with TMAs until basically the end of January, so I’m going to crack on with my heavier-than-normal courseload. School Christmas fairs might do me in, though.

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Much to my surprise, I’ve made a fair amount of progress in each of my three modules, and I’m not hating any of them. I’ve even gotten into the first TMAs already. Rationally, I know this means that I simply don’t understand how little I must understand. Things going well typically means that I’m not really paying attention.

I’ve been through two tutorials, for TT284 and TM257. Neither one added much beyond what was already in the module guides, but it was nice to ‘meet’ my tutors. (Since my weakest area isn’t in learning the material, but in guessing what the tutors want to see in evaluations, this is sort of important … If I care much about the assessments as anything more than a callibration of my own self-evaluation. And I try not to care … but then revision lands me with two months of tension headaches because I’m desperate for a clear distinction.)

I’ve got a tutorial next week for M269, but my tutor won’t be doing any tutorials this year. At all. She’s also thus far been entirely absent from the tutor group forum. History at the OU has taught me that these are ill portents. Or maybe it’s my inner (and outer) pessimist. As the module seems so well written, though, I imagine it might be much like the MST124 maths module, where all my feedback was late, consisted of, “That’s correct,” but it didn’t matter anyway and I learned loads more than I thought possible.

I’ve got myself a few days breathing room. I’m caught up through the first three weeks in all modules, and don’t want to go further than two weeks ahead. That can cause a lot of problems when I slack off later in the academic year because I’m so far ahead, and it’s difficult to renew my efforts. So last night, tonight, and tomorrow, I don’t have much to do. Enjoy it while it lasts, right?

I’m halfway through the first TMAs for TM257 and M269. There’s a question in M269 to evaluate a hypothetical paper that I could probably get out of the way tonight. At first glance, it looks like a waffle piece, but it’s really about viewing your own assignment answers through the eyes of a tutor. This helps your own self-evaluation skills, as well as callibrates your view of work with your tutor’s, so it’ll take the place of a first tutorial in my mind. I’ll talk more about that later when I’m done with the TMA and evaluate my own effort on it.

You basically need to have the first six weeks behind you for the first TMA in TT284. Since I’m not skipping that far ahead, it’ll have to wait. It seems poor planning to me to have essentially a single question on a TMA, because going by the way the module was designed, you’d have negative-two days to write your entire TMA. My tutor was explicit that students should not make an effort to get ahead, so they might have some very bad nights ahead of them if they’re not paying attention. I’ll say it again: Get ahead early, and stay ahead. (Just maybe not too far ahead.)

I haven’t mentioned anything about the TM257 Cisco NetAcad materials, as they hadn’ t opened by my last post. They have, now, and they’re brilliant. I’ve always avoided buying Cisco materials in the past, because they’re just so expensive. But I’m not going to worry about price any more. These materials are written in a way that is completely compatible with my brain and my learning. They build proper context in the proper order, rather than jumping right in the deep end of telling to memorise abstract layers of an abstract model of networking that is so abstract that it doesn’t actually apply to anything in the real world that wasn’t intentionally built to reflect it. I’ve never even come across another networking course that taught the TCP/IP model before the OSI model, when that seems obvious to me.

It also helps that my tutor knows this stuff cold. And better than that, he seems able to communicate it to the students who haven’t had much (or any) experience. One negative, though, is that he hasn’t updated his first tutorial materials to discuss the changes to Cisco CCNA certification process. He was still telling students there were two tests, and didn’t mention that the evaluated material in the modules (as they stand) might not cover the WiFi and other new parts of the exam. (The module isn’t really about certification, though: There are cheaper and faster ways to get that.) Anyway, after over twenty years in this industry, just the three weeks I’ve already been through have managed to give me that mental tweak I’ve been needing to see networks through the perspective of Cisco. It’s a really helpful module.

I’ll probably post next when I’ve got a TMA out of the way, or possibly after my next tutorial.

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My characteristic advice for Open University study is always: Get ahead early, and stay ahead. This is because real-life considerations invariably impede study at some point during the year, and it’s easier to absorb these if you’re ahead. It’s much more difficult to catch up if you fall behind. Because of this, I like to get one or two weeks ahead of the schedule before study begins in earnest.

This year, I nearly didn’t make it. I’ve just now finished getting a bit ahead after the module websites have been open for two full weeks. I tried switching to hand-written notes to aid in memory retention. The result is that I accomplished in a week and a half what normally takes me three days to do. And when I think about it, memory retention is not a study problem I have. My weakest point is guessing what tutors want to see. New strategies for dealing with this are where I should be spending my planning time.

Anyway, I’ve swapped back to digital cloud-based notes, and finally caught up to where I wanted to be. Or maybe just a bit ahead. I’ve still got nearly two weeks to go before the official beginning of my academic year, so I have time to make any other adjustments that are necessary. With three modules going simultaneously, I really need to concern myself with speed and the best results with the shortest effort.

M269 appears to be just what I thought it would be: It’s a very mature module with a well-planned structure and resources that make sense for the subject matter.

TT284 is slightly less encouraging. There’s a requirement to misuse forums as group engagement which is obviously wrong-footed. If the goal is engagement, you need a problem more engaging than throwing words at a wall which nobody will ever read. It appears to be endemic of the module, so far: Short-sighted decisions based on ticking boxes handed down from above. This weak structure will make the module a bit annoying, but shouldn’t affect the quality of its content.

TM257 is a mystery. As it’s based nearly entirely on Cisco’s NetAcad curriculum, most of the structure really lies with Cisco, and will be unavailable until I have a tutor. The content should be very strong, though. The module team got a bit lazy with the assessment strategy, only saying that some activities contribute to different aspects of assessment. They haven’t expressed how much they contribute, which is rather the point of the assessment strategy. But I think they were just a bit rushed to press. They’ll probably correct that in time. (They’ve probably got their hands full rewriting every paragraph that mentions the obsolete CCENT.)

TM257 also doesn’t appear to allow students to work ahead (though it could just be poorly phrased descriptions). For the reasons detailed above, this seems short-sighted to me and better suited to classroom study than the realities of distance learning.

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This 2019/2020 academic year, I’m going not going to be able wing it. I’m taking three 30 credit modules, which the OU recommends might take from 24 to 27 hours of study a week. Realistically, I read and study slowly, and this is stage 2, so that might be underestimating it. Unfortunately, there’s really not another gap in my schedule that I can maintain for more than a few weeks.

For a few weeks at a time, I’ll be fine with finding extra time here or there, but just to get TMAs out, and possibly exam revision come next May. (May is always insanely busy at work, though, for some reason, so we’ll see.)

I’ve squeezed an extra half hour into my schedule at night, and I have my extra hours on Wednesday back, but I’m just barely in the green zone, now.

Study schedule

SatSunMonTueWedThuFri
20:30 – 23:30 15:00 – 17:00 20:30 – 23:30 20:30 – 23:30 17:00 – 20:00 20:30 – 23:30 20:30 – 23:30
20:30 – 23:30 20:30 – 23:30
3533633

Total: 26 hours

(The OU academic week starts on a Saturday.)

I know that this is the absolute limit of my self discipline. Anything more is just going to crash out. The hours aren’t the best for my brain being active, but my family comes first. So everything has to happen after bedtime, or when the boys are with their grandparents.

I’ve also been able to plan for what the week-by-week looks like, making some assumptions about breaks in the OU’s schedule next year:

M269TM257TT284
Week 614/11 TMA01
Week 94/12 TMA01
Week 1012/12 TMA01

Break 21/12/2019 – 3/1/2020

Week 1530/1 TMA02
Week 1820/2 TMA02
Week 2112/3 TMA03
Week 2325/3 TMA02

Break 11/4 – 17/4

Week 32ExaminationEMAEMA

M269 also has 7 iCMAs throughout the year, but they’ve never caused me to rush in the past. There’s a near miss in weeks 9 and 10, but they’re first TMAs, which tend not to require as much work as later assignments. Finishing two EMAs and revising for an exam all at the same time does seem like a crunch, so I’m glad I’ve got about two months to sort that out, along with studying the final module units.

At some point there will also be a residential / day school for TM257. It will probably be around the Easter break, and there’s an evaluated network configuration task that’s worth 30% of our EMA, and an exam on the day which I think is worth another 30% of the EMA. (I don’t have access to the assessment strategy, yet.) Revising for that might be very, very tight on time, so I hope it goes alright.