College of the Sea

OU Business School is Europe's largest provider of management development education. Founded in 1983 OU Business School is also Britain's largest provider of the degree of Master of Business Administration (MBA). Its 25,000 students - all studying by distance learning - come from 44 countries.

By coming to the OU Business School, you join one of the most prestigious centres of learning in the world. Acknowledged leaders in part-time distance learning, it delivers innovative, work-based professional qualifications and courses of the highest quality, including:

MBA
Master of Public Administration
Specialist MSc Degrees
Management Development
Accounting
Business Studies
Foundation Degrees
Law
Specialist Professional Development

The Marine Society College of the Sea (MSCoS) works with the OU Business School to make life easier for seafarers who wish to study its courses.

Seafarers who wish to enrol for an OU Business School course may also be eligible to benefit from a 10% MSCoS discount onthe course fees. To find out whether you are eligible please contact The Marine Society College of the Sea on 020 7654 7050. It is important that you do this before approaching the Open University. Our Education Manager, Wendy Francis will be pleased to assist and confirm or otherwise your eligibility for a discount.

Given that the internet is an information and communication tool for the worldwide business community, you would expect te OU Business School to encourage and, indeed insist, that its students use the internet as part of their courses.

Both MSCoS and OU Business School are aware if the difficulties this may cause seafarers on account of their vocation. Consequently, university and business school staff are working closely with MSCoS to do everything possible to make our provision accessible to those who work at sea.

Neverthe less, to study OU Business Scool courses a seafarer must have access to email both ashore and afloat. We understand the problems faced by seafarers in accessing the internet during the course of their duties, and wherever possible we make arrangements to overcome the logistical difficulties that arise.

Notwithstanding this, the internet is an integral tool of contemporary business communication and seafarers must expect that in choosing to embark upon a contemporary business degree they are going to face practical challenges relating to internet access at sea.

Occasionally these challenges will interrupt a student's on-course progression. But given goodwill on all sides and a determination ont e part of the seafarer to accomodate the university's demands concerning internet access, there is no reason why such students ought not to continue to bebefit fromt he courses offered by OU Business School as they have done so successfully for year.

For more information please contact 08700 100311

an open letter on the issue of seafarer eligibility for OUBS courses from the previous Dean of the Open University Business School
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All MBA students must have access to the internet on a reasonably regular basis, but this does not mean such access needs to be continually available.

Typically, we would expect students to need to make use of the internet about once a fortnight, but once every 3-4 weeks is acceptable as a minimum. More frequent use would be encouraged but is not essential - indeed for some periods during a course there may not be any pressing need to access the internet for an extended time - perhaps for five or six weeks.

For most MBA courses assignments must be submitted through our web-based system, but this can be done at any time up to the closing deadline or even, in certain circumstances and with prior approval from a student's tutor, up to a few days after the closing date.

For students working to the published timetable this gives typically a two to three week window for completion and submission of an assignment after the relevant coursework has been studied.


The normal method of submission is to access an OU url (this is why the internet is needed) which provides a user-friendly means of sending in the assignment.

However, it is perfectly possible just to send an email with attachment, but this must be done to a very specific address (the syntax must be absolutely precise). Provided the student gets it correct all is well - but is must be stressed that this is less fail safe than the web method as the system cannot assist in ensuring correct submission.

This ought to be enough to allow most seafarers to reach a location from which they can realistically be expected to access the internet, or to submit by email taking care about the addressing and form.

If a student expects a particular deadline to present difficulties, our teaching method enables them to get ahead of the calendar, thus broadening the access window still further.

Unless someone is going to be - in web terms - incommunicado for a truly extended period, this ought to be sufficient to allow people to submit their assignments without significant difficulty.

If a student will be out of touch for several months, then it is fair to assume that this will be known in advance, and if given sufficient notice we would normally be able to work something out to accommodate, this this cannot be guaranteed and would have to be worked out on a case by case basis.

Students are strongly encouraged to participate in the online course discussions on First Class, either within their own tutor group or within the wider student base.

This is an asynchronous form of communication, and it is perfectly acceptable for someone only to enter the system every couple of weeks or so. Whilst we would definitely endorse more frequent participation, this is by no means essential.

Also, whilst the system is based on joining in to First Class conference discussions and this is the better way to join in, in some situations it is possible instead for a group of students to join together in an electronic self-help group and use an email list to each other as an alternative to FC. This might also be a useful facility for those at sea.

A small number of the courses use the web as a research platform, but again this is not dependent on access during a short, fixed time period. Typically, access can be undertaken at any time over a 3 or 4 week period, as suits the student.

Such courses also have fall back possibilities for those who cannot or prefer not to research over the internet - but most of these alternative methods such as, for example, going to a 'real' library, would be equally inappropriate for a seafarer.

Certain courses, because of the nature of their subject area(s), have special requirements which might make them difficult for some seafarers. We would advise any seafarer wishing to take one of these courses to contact us before he or she registered, and we would try to work out a suitable work around provided this did not render invalid the course itself.

At present the only course where a priori it appears that this might need sorting out for imdividuals is the Diploma course B730 Managing Performance and Change (or its MBA sister B713 Fundamentals of Senior Management). These represent the two main ways of completing MBA Stage 1, so it is likely that any student aiming to complete the MBA will take one or other of them.

In B730 for three of the six assignments students are required to correspond electronically and work in small teams (usually 4-5 per group) before submitting their individual assignments. Whilst this activity is expected to be done using the First Class conferencing system, and this is the most convenient method for students, there is nothing that needs to be done which cannot equally well be achieved by use of a short email list.

In other words, provided the need is known in advance, it ought not to be at all difficult to set up an email list for the group which includes the offshore seafarer, and then that group would correspond via email messages rather than by posting their messages in the tutor group conference.

This team working requirement is an integral part of B730 and, in a reduced form (fewer assignments require it) in B713, and has been introduced following surveys of students, employers and prospective customers. We would not be willing to forgo it, but given that seafarers can and do use email there is no real difficulty in their participating in the manner described here.

enrolment

Seafarers interested in studying OUBS courses are urged to contact The Marine Society before they apply for their course.

This is because they may be entitled to a Marine Society College of the Sea discount off the course fees. So please contact our Director of Education, Brian Thomas, who will be pleased to assist and confirm or otherwise your eligibility for a discount.

summary

The Open University Business School is aware of the unique circumstances in which seafarers find themselves on account of their vocations.


Staff at the OUBS and the Open University are happy to work with The Marine Society to do everything possible to make our provision accessible to those who work at sea.

To study OUBS programmes a seafarer must have access to email both ashore and afloat.

Whilst today this is generally the case, it is recognised that internet access is more problematic. We understand the problems faced by seafarers in accessing the internet during the course of their duties at sea. As described above, wherever possible we make appropriate arrangements to overcome logistical difficulties experienced by seafarers in this respect.

Notwithstanding this, the internet is an integral tool of contemporary business communication and seafarers must expect that in choosing to embark upon a contemporary business degree programme they are going to face practical challenges on account of the internet access at sea issue.

Occasionally these challenges will interrupt a student's on-course progression. But given goodwill on all sides and a determination on the part of the seafarer to accommodate the university's demands concerning internet access, there is no reason why such students ought not to continue to benefit from the courses offered by the OUBS as they have done so sucessfully for many years.

For more information on the OUBS please contact 08700 100311. If necessary, please feel free to make reference to the statement from the OUBS we refer to above.