Linking London Development Project Final Report Form

Linking London Development Project Final Report form

Please complete all the boxes, but ensure that the report does not exceed four sides of A4 including the front sheet.

Then email one copy to Linking London at [email protected] and post a signed copy to:

Stuart Mitchell, Linking London, Egmont House, 25-31 Tavistock Place, London, WC1H 9SF.

Title of Development Project: Introduction to the Open University

Name of project leader: Louise Reynolds

Role: Head of School

Email: [email protected] Telephone: 0207 258 2862 Department: Business and Management Services, prev. Business and Professional Studies Head of Department: Clare Wenley

Name and address of institution: City of Westminster College Maida Vale centre Elgin Avenue London W9 2NR

Signature of project leader Louise Reynolds

Development Project Final Report 1 LINKING LONDON Lifelong Learning Network. Hosted by Birkbeck, University of London. 1. Introduction: In this section please briefly outline the aims of your project whether they were achieved within the time frame set. To run a pilot unit of an OU programme to see if our type of student would benefit from their model of delivery. We entered 3 students for one module and offered tutorial support. The students completed the module successfully and we have gone on to recruit a full class for a full foundation degree programme which commences in November. We did not finish within the time limit originally set but learned some valuable lesson about the labyrinth that is the OU’s bureaucracy.

2. Evaluation of project Please use this section to give a more thorough and detail evaluation of your project, including the set up, ongoing and delivery issues. Your comments will help us to refine the process, so please give us details about LLN support. We visited Milton Keynes College and viewed their programme off franchised courses in operation. The Principal gave up a lot of time and explained some of the issues we would be facing in depth but also gave a very positive outlook on dealing with the OU. Our Tutor at college persuaded some existing students to try out the OU system by doing one unit. This was a very good idea as the tutor and students got to try out the OU methodology especially their moodle system. We have gone on to successfully market and recruit to the full foundation degree. The help from the trial course was invaluable as everything we have done with the OU has taken slightly longer than expected. By trialling the course we learnt this and this has ensured we have recruited students well ahead of the programme start date so that we have not missed the first possible semester.

3. Summary/Conclusion In this section please summarise your project, outlining why your project did/didn’t succeed, what lessons you learnt from completing the project, how the bid money from Linking London went towards your project and how you intend to disseminate the results of your project. It is my opinion that the project did succeed and we were able to stick to the budget as agreed and are very pleased with the outcome. We are looking forward to a long and happy partnership with the OU and in the current political climate it has been a very useful way of exploring different funding streams within HE. Thank you for the opportunity.

Development Project Final Report 2 LINKING LONDON Lifelong Learning Network. Hosted by Birkbeck, University of London. Development Project Final Report 3 LINKING LONDON Lifelong Learning Network. Hosted by Birkbeck, University of London.