OU – There’s always someone worse of than you!

Having now got over my petty gripes about exam questions being wrong, I came across the following statement in one of the OU FirstClass conferences yesterday:

Jenny Bull, the Head of Exams and Assessment, writes:

U216 Examination on 10 October 2008
Following the examination on Friday it has been reported that some students who attended the September Day School were provided with a revision question paper which turned out to be the actual examination question paper set for the examination.

All of a sudden I’m not feeling so hard done by. But I feel really sorry for those students who have studied U216 so hard during the year. This is a 60pt 2nd Level course on the Environment – I really hope that they don’t end up voiding the exam and having to do a resit. I can’t help wondering how on earth that situation arose. Questions will be asked.

OU - T224

Just a follow-up to my assertion that there was an error in the exam paper. It turns out that many other students thought the same thing - and it was reassuring to see a post from the Chair of the T224 Exam Board confirming that there was indeed an error - and that the marking scheme will be amended accordingly so that no students are disadvantaged by it. The problem with errors in exams is not just restricted to the fact that the question is wrong - but its the amount of time spent during the exam trying to answer a question that is either obviously wrong (in which case you answer what you can and make a comment to the side), or just much more complex than it was intended to be (because of incorrect maths). This particular error fell into the first category.

But a while later there was another post from the Chair of the T224 Exam Board saying that in fact there was an error in another question too (which quite a few of us had thought was probably an error). The trouble with this one was that the maths made for a more complex question - so finding the answer took a lot longer. Again, the marking scheme is being amended.

But it does beg the question - "How do these errors get through?". And I guess the obvious answer is insufficient testing! I know that if I write some software, I will test it. But a much better approach is get someone else to test it. The reason is that if you test your own code you are likely to make the same error in testing that you did in writing. Get someone else to do it and the chances are that they will find the error. I wonder if it is the same with exam writing. The Course Team write the exam, but someone else should then test the exam by actually doing it (and I'm not talking about proof-reading, I mean actually sitting the exam and then having it marked).

And as with all these things, its the border line results that will be affected most - and I'm sure the OU will take that into account.

Well, how about that

Just visited my OU homepage - and there on the left is a link to a 'Personal Blog' what wonderful timing!

OU – Thats all folks!

Well, two days and two exams…and now a chance to unwind.

Kicked off with the MT262 exam yesterday afternoon and quite enjoyed it – made a flying start and was about 45 minutes ahead of my schedule by the end of Part 1…and just as well because I found my memory and thought processes failing midway through Part 2. In the end I finished with just 5 minutes to spare. I know that I made a few mistakes, fluffed a bit here and there, but that’s okay and pretty much what I expect.

Today it was a chance to have a bash at T224. Another 3 hour exam – and it kicked off with something that I should know – should have known for years in fact – hadn’t revised it and it completely threw me – not bad for question one. Anyway I gave it my best shot and progressed – feeling rather unsure of myself after that shocking start. But it got better. Question involved  completing a flow-chart, so no problems there…except I am convinced that there was an error in the question (not the first OU exam I have done that had an error). Anyway, a quick check on FirstClass a while ago showed that several other students had made the same observation.

I recall one question that I thought was quite interesting (about BlueTooth – Hopping Channels, Frequencies, Hop rate and the like) and I wrote what I thought was a good half page on the details – and then discovered that it was only worth 2-points – so probably all they wanted was a brief one-liner. Oh well, that’s life.

So, to the future. As I have mentioned elsewhere, I am putting my OU studies on hold for at least a year, but do intend to return and complete my degree (still need another 100 points or so). This means that my entries in this blog are almost done for now – although I will update the details when the results come through before Christmas.

And here is a chance for me to reflect on this blogging stuff. My main thought is how much I have enjoyed rambling on. But what I have really enjoyed is the contacts that I have made with other students – this has been really valuable – as well as providing me with a number of other blogs to read regularly (thanks guys!) – I’ll keep reading so please keep posting.

What’s in a name

Yet again I have managed to find another displacement activity – just when I thought I was finally concentrating properly on revision. The thing that has got me interested this time is Blogging. Ah ha! you might think – blogging about blogging (meta-blogging) – what an interesting way to while away these precious hours.

In fact its a good deal more mundane than that. I realised the other day that my entries on this blog are going to be diminishing soon. I’m taking a year or so out from studying with the OU and so my contributions to my OU blog are bound to be few and infrequent.

But I do quite like blogging so I thought I would set up a new blog to write about programming, programming paradigms, tools, techniques, and so on. [Ed: yawn…if you must]. So I came up with a list of what I thought were good names for a blog – and for each one I found that the name was already in use. But here’s the rub, I thought I would visit each of these blogs to see what they were like, and every one of them, except one, had been registered 6 to 8 years ago and hardly ever used since. One of them, created by a Professor at a notable US university, stated in its introduction all the good and useful things that he was going to write about – and then wrote nothing, not one single entry. I’m sure he’s forgotten all about it. But he still has the name registered. Another one that I found had been created in 2000. The blogger had helpfully added in his first entry that he was too tired to be bothered to write anything and was going to bed. I can only assume that he never woke up.

So, many of the good blog names have been taken and that’s it. Of course, if I was really intelligent I should put my mind to good use by being creative and inventive and coming up with some even better alternative names, but really, I’m too tired and I’m going to bed.