University Fees for on-line Lectures

[Kastanien]

Latest this morning(sorry if it is already on here, I checked and could not see a thread)
www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-52506283

Just wondering how those of you with DC due to start (or return to Uni) in the Autumn feel about full tuition fees for on-line learning?
I feel there should be a reduction as the teaching is not the same on-line as face to face.

SueEllenMishke

I don't know if the same issues apply across every course at her university. Some courses will be sitting final exams, some might not have lost four weeks tuition due to strikes, some lecturers might have been more proactive with online lectures, seminars etc.

I'm talking about her course.

As for resources on line and the no detrimement policy - how can you write literature essays without having access to whatever texts you require? I can't see how you can apply a no detrimement policy with regards lack of resources when those resources are fundamental to the work?

Also, you're saying extensions aren't possible yet titchy says her university has done it - so clearly possible?

80% of an apprenticeship is work-based btw.)

And as I've said, work is suspended. How can they go to work when work doesn't exist right now? They are trained on the job. It's a trade. How can they be working alongside an engineer, learning on the job when the job isn't happening?

And if some of the module has already been assessed the exam mark needed could be very low indeed.

Some of the module hasn't been assessed - because of the strikes. One module started in January. Stopped early Feb for reading week, then into strike.

Two shorter modules started after reading week - straight into strike.

even with no supervision just reading the essentials off the reading list is enough to get 40%.

Great. How do you access the reading list when the library is closed?

I'm not saying extension aren't possible. I've never says that....I've encouraged people to use them where necessary.

I said it's not as easy as you think to apply blanket, long term extensions. There are lots of variables and people involved. Work needs to be marked, internally moderated, externally moderated and presented to an exam board. At my university all marking and moderation have to be completed 2 weeks before the exam board.
Exam boards are booked 12 months in advance. Moving these can delay students getting their award.
This may explain why your daughter was only offered 2 weeks.

Extensions - our exam boards have been put back by three weeks for full disclosure. Two week extension for anyone that asked (we have a large number of disadvantaged students), longer in some circumstances, but clearly not endlessly.

Lockdown started two weeks before the Easter hols - are you really saying your final year dd hasn't started to read any essential texts by then?

The reading list itself will be online and the vast majority of the books will be online too.
If there is a particular text she is struggling to get access to then she should speak to library staff.

The thread is about uni responses to CV hear. Not the strikes. They're a separate matter for a several separate thread.

SueEllenMishke

Right. But given the situation the arrangements should have been more flexible. Of course some students are going to be severely impacted by this and sticking rigidly to pre Covid timetables just makes that even more likely.

Some of her cohort left everything to fly back to UAE as their border closed. All of their books, everything was left behind because they were given something ridiculous like 48 hours notice of closing. At that point her uni was still maintaining business as usual despite other universities having already closed. So those students left the UK not knowing what implication it was going to mean for their degree because the alternative was to not be allowed back with their families for goodness knows how long and being stranded in the UK.

Lockdown started two weeks before the Easter hols - are you really saying your final year dd hasn't started to read any essential texts by then?

Of course she had started. But she had three modules running concurrently. Two of which didn't start until mid February. There are multiple texts per module. Not all available at the same time from the library as obviously all the students are trying to get the same texts, at the same time.

And the strikes are relevant. If you're so keen to keep it related only to the thread title then all complaints by academic staff about what a hard time you've been having are just as irrelevant.

Are you reading different things to me hear? All I've talked about is how flexible universities are being but I've tried to give some context as to why endless flexibility can't always be given.

In addition to extensions students can apply for extenuating circumstances. This can be a little trickier as we typically as for evidence but we've relaxed our criteria significantly. This can allow students more time and to be presented to a later exam board.

Students can access the online materials anywhere in the world so those students you mentioned have been abandoned either.

Great. How do you access the reading list when the library is closed

Online electronic textbooks?

As a module leader I’ve worked with the library to make sure all our textbooks have been purchased as electronic copies. They’ve done every single one I’ve asked for without question apart from one which isn’t available.

Students can access the online materials anywhere in the world so those students you mentioned have been abandoned either.

If they are on line, then yes they can access them. If they were annotated texts that they were working from then they don't have them, or if the texts aren't available as e copies then they can't access them on line.

It's so disingenuous to try and maintain that students haven't suffered any detriment here.

Online electronic textbooks?

Not textbooks, no. Novels, poetry collections. Some of her texts are historical literature, as in dating from 17th century etc not historical fiction.

It's so disingenuous to try and maintain that students haven't suffered any detriment here.

no one has suggested that ALL students have suffered no detriment. Clearly they all have to one degree or another - mine included. We have responded to that adversity the best we can in the whole. Some departments at some universities have been brilliant, others crap. The vast majority though have done reasonable jobs given the circumstances and time available.

I'm intrigued to know which uni though, really.

I've never said that students aren't suffering any detriment.
But to listen to you all students should down tools now because they're all fucking doomed.

You've accused us of generalising and talking about our experiences when you were specifically refering to your daughter. Now you're doing the same by going to battle for a group of UEA students who may or may not be able to access online materials and who may or may not have left all relevent notes/texts when they returned home! Let's leave supporting international students to their universities and international offices shall we?

Let's leave supporting international students to their universities and international offices shall we?

They aren't international students ( not the ones I'm referring to anyway. They are UK students who are residing currently in UAE).

Some departments at some universities have been brilliant, others crap. The vast majority though have done reasonable jobs given the circumstances and time available.

Yes and it's the crap one plus the "reasonable job" one that I'm complaining about. It's not good enough to do a reasonable or crap job after students have spent a tens of thousands of pounds on a degree and now just have to accept doing potentially less well, through no fault of their own.

At the very least, strike action should not have been allowed to affect final year students.

Okay....let their university support them. International or UK student it doesn't matter in this context.

You're really grasping at straws now. It's getting a little ridiculous.

At the very least, strike action should not have been allowed to affect final year students.

For the last time this thread is not about the fucking strike. It's about CV.

My IT dept have worked 24 hour days to get online learning and working up and running in a very very short space of time. The fact that most unis have managed to keep things going is nothing short of a bloody miracle. And students have been at the very centre of it.

NOT ABOUT THE STRIKE!

For the last time this thread is not about the fucking strike. It's about CV.

NIR IS ABOUT THE HARD TIME THAT UNIVERSITY STAFF SEEM TO THINK THEYVE BEEN HAVING NOR ABOUT THEIR HURT FEELINGS WHEN PARENTS AND STUDENTS DARE TO POINT OUT THE EFFECT THAT THEIR ACTION HAS HAD.

NOT ALL ACADEMICS TOOK PART IN THE STRIKES

Seriously, if your daughter has been let down by her university then she needs to put in a formal complaint. There really isn't anything else to say .

Yes, they did.

Turnout for the latest strikes was very low. Some academics chose to leave the union rather than take part in strikes they didn't agree with.

I didn't strike
Many academics on this thread didn't strike

And I'll say it again....if your daughter feels she has been let down by her university then she needs to complain.

Not textbooks, no. Novels, poetry collections. Some of her texts are historical literature, as in dating from 17th century etc not historical fiction

This is actually my field. There are multiple digital databases full of these texts (which in context might be described as textbook).

For historical literature, and other research resources, there are many brilliant databases delivered by

• Proquest (eg 19C Periidocals)
• Adam Matthews (for example their Eighteenth Century Stage -includes a whole lot of facsimile manuscripts only available in the flesh in California)
• Gale Cengage (includes most of the entire British Library Newspapers collection)
• Early English Books Online (EEBO)
• Records of Early English Drama (REED)
• Cambridge Core (Cambridge University Press - huge catalogue of primary and secondary sources)
• Oxford Scholarship online - huge catalogue of primary and secondary sources (Oxford University Press)
• EBSCO
• JStor
• Project Muse

All of these (and more, this is just off the top of my head) contain primary sources - fiction, poetry, drama - as well as secondary litcrit materials - books and journal articles.

Then there are the free online collection. For example:

• archive.org
• Project Gutenberg
• Google books

I use all of these resources all the time, even when we’re not in lockdown. I’m using them at the moment to finish a book on the 18th century (on the one day of the weekend I get free).

I use these resources to teach, all the time, as a supplement to our Rare Books Library. I introduce my first years to them, and by 3rd year, I expect my students to be familiar with them and know how to use them. This was a standard part of my teaching, and part of teaching students research skills and methods as they move through their degree, before lockdown.

If your daughter’s university is a decent place with research-intensive provision, they should have these (and more) and she should have started using them in her first year as a matter of course. Although if she’s at a post-92, they may not have them, as they’re often not funded so well for research in the humanities, and students generally aren’t as focused on research.

Well I'd admire them too if they'd actually done this

Once again, you’re generalising about the whole HE sector from ONE second-hand account at ONE university.

Go on, throw caution to the winds. Name and shame this university which has spent 3 years ditching your DD’s degree chances.