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Closing an OU regional centre

March 15, 2014 / 346 / 0

News that the OU is to close one of its regional centres and review the existence of most of the others, may be more than a straw in the wind.  A similar review was carried out a few years ago, but came to the conclusion that at that time it was too expensive to close them.

This time may be different – the appointment of a man from Microsoft as the OU’s VC was always likely to be a sign that the OU was going to move to entirely online provision.  After the abolition of the OU’s regional network will come the replacement of its expensive part-time staff with ‘JITAITS – ‘Just-In-Time Artificial Intelligence Tutors’ – who will pop up in the style of Microsoft’s late unlamented paperclip to offer help at suitable points in the online text.

The result of course will be an even higher drop out rate than the current 80%.  But as long as British universities get their money up front from student recruitment no-one will worry.  As Wernher Von Braun apocryphally says in Tom Lehrer’s song “’Ven zer rockets are up, who cares ver zey come down?  Zat’s not my department” says Wernher von Braun’.

 

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Ormond Simpson

I’m a consultant in distance and online education, specialising in student support and retention. I’ve worked in distance education for more than 40 years, at the UK Open University, London University International Programmes, and the Open Polytechnic of New Zealand. I’ve given seminars, workshops and keynote lectures in 17 countries and I’m a Student Support Expert for the Empower project of the European Association of Distance Teaching Universities.

‘This website contains some of my most important articles and presentations, as well as helpful support advice for online tutors and students, all of which is freely available.’

 

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New book out

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