Result

2009–07–04

The waiting for and the getting of.

another OU routine

Much of the OU treadmill is TMA away, TMA back, got ___% for my TMA etc. … but there’s another constant to OU life—waiting for, and receiving, your course result.

Results appear two or so months after your ECA/exam. At first I assumed that the delay was due to the large amount of marking involved, but in actual fact the marking is [apparently] a fairly swift process. However a lot of checking has to be done [possibly by outside assessors] and everything has to be approved by convocation.

This is my understanding of what’s going on—it may be complete tripe.

So there are good reasons for the wait—it’s just something that you have to put up with.

how it works

Shortly after the course finishes a date will appear on the course website announcing something like the following…

Your course result should be available by Friday 7 August 2009.

Notice that weasel word—should. There are some [potential] problems here:

  • Results usually appear a couple of days before said date. Which means that you haunt the course website, ‘just in case’.
  • Results may be late for everyone [this only happens for CMAs ].
  • I’ve heard of [a very few thankfully] people whose result failed to appear alongside their coursemates’ results.

So the countdown until R–Day is not a comfortable period of time. We have both ‘how have I done?’ and ‘when will they come?’ jangling in our heads.

a disclaimer

I don’t want to come across all petulant here, the OU are brilliant at getting the results out—I’d hate to be waiting for something from the edjits I work for.

when results arrive

Well, hopefully, you’ll be pleasantly surprised, or at least satisfied. But there does exist the possibility that you are going to be disappointed. How do you deal with that?

my experience

I’ve had a couple of results that have ‘got to me’ [so far, there will be others]—tt281 and tt381. Why was I disappointed? […to the extent of spitting when I talked.]

For tt281 I was fooling myself, I assumed that because I liked, and could use, JavaScript I was a shoe in for a distinction—my report was rubbish. I didn’t realize this until after I’d got over moaning about my result and started thinking again. Then the penny dropped.

For tt381 I got the result that I was expecting but I got very poor marks for my code—code of which I was proud. There was a part of me [there still is] who thought that the markers had got it wrong. But, eventually, there was a part of me who realized that I’m not that good.

what did i learn?

My poor performance in tt281 was helpful OU-wise—it taught me the importance of treating a course as a whole, rather than concentrating on the parts that I was good at/liked.

The tt381 debacle was more important in a general sense, there was a possibility that my code didn’t work. Which lead me into a greater interest in testing and code optimization. An arrogant programmer is a bad one, and I was arrogant.

so…

You know, as I know, that the following suggestions are aspirational and not how I actually behave.

Try to treat a bad result as a platform for future success, try to analyse where you went wrong, try to work on your weakness for the next course and above all try to avoid getting drunk and slagging off your tutors in the course forum.

In short, try to be philosophical, take it on the chin, swallow the bile and resolve to do better in future.

but what about you neil?

I generally try to avoid talking about my hopes or my marks, but I suppose that here it’s going to be unavoidable.

For MST121 I’d gobsmacked if I fail. I’d like a mark in the upper quartile [little math’s joke] but as, in the end, it’s a pass/fail course I’ll be happy with any pass.

M263—aaargh, I want a distinction. Is it a possibility? Well, yes but only just. I did well enough TMA-wise but I’m not so sure that the exam was aced.

And that’s what I’ll concentrate on if [and even if not if] I don’t get a distinction—exam technique. My first exam in thirty years taught me a lot, next time I’ll be ready, next time I’ll get it right, next time…, next time…

Anyway good luck to all the OU [and other] students waiting for their results.

still waiting 2009–08–05

It seems that I’m not alone—lot’s of discussion about the change from your result should… to not yet available [in large red letters] in the MST121 forum. At one point student home went down which convinced us that they [the results] were nearly ready—alas not so!

results are in! 2009–08–06

All in all I’m fairly happy—no distinction for M263 but a good grade two pass and a pass for MST121. Off to work on my exam technique!