Online 'Cheers'!

I somehow managed to achieve a decent mark for my latest OU assignment and today it felt good to receive some nice comments and Congratulations from fellow students on the course. Their personal messages and the ensuing online chat actually made me feel happier than the result itself!

Distance learning can be quite lonely, and it’s good to have a bit of support from others who are in the same boat. I’ve always found the OU online tutorial forums to be a bit of a dead loss – they’re supposed to be there to provide a platform for small tutor groups to discuss any questions arising about the course work and for sensible discussions about the current topic. Needless to say, they’re always deathly quiet – a bit like being in the library at a brick Uni. Consequently, I recently opened a Facebook account just so that I could join in with the much livelier debate on the Facebook Open University groups. I’ve never had any inclination to join Facebook before now, but I’m glad I changed my mind. The Facebook forums are great; full of chit chat about how crap our tutors are or how far behind we are with the course content – and, of course, lots of questions too from students who are stuck and need a bit of help. They do have their downside; because they’re not moderated, you sometimes find students giving other students bad advice or the wrong information and you sometimes even come across students asking for copies of other students’ work. Tut, tut. Some tutors at the OU want to see these groups banned (how entertaining that would be; a few scrawny academics taking on the might of Facebook!). The way I see it, these discussion groups are the equivalent of meeting up with fellow students at the union, or in the local cafe after a day’s graft at a brick University. You’re just as likely to hear someone giving out bad advice there, or someone asking for a copy of a fellow student’s work. And some folk will be daft enough to give it out – but you’ll not find tutors asking for the union to be shut down! I guess it all comes down to common sense.

Of course, with distance learning you can't get together with your tutor group, raise a glass, say 'Cheers' and personally Congratulate each other when you pass your exams - but a virtual pat on the back can be just as nice!