My assignments have finally been marked and returned, and as promised I am here to post the results so far prior to the ECA's being submitted in 2 weeks.

T175

TMA 01 = 83%
TMA 02 = 82%
TMA 03 = 90%
TMA04 = 94%

The main reason for the lower marks at the start of the course was down to getting familiar with assignments. Although TMA02 would have been higher however I missed a part of question 2 out which was worth 12 marks. I actually answered the question! Its the way that I construct my TMA's that was the problem. I work on a question at a time in a word document, and use that document to clean up everything and modify it before copying and pasting it into a new document for submission. Unfortunately I missed a section out, which was frustrating to say the least, however I quickly learned my lesson! (This also gave me a good example of feedback for the ECA).

M150

TMA 01 = 98%
TMA 02 = 98%
TMA 03 = 95%
TMA04 = 89%

The marks for this course have been fairly consistent, I lost some easy marks in TMA04 by not using certain keywords in a question which my tutor marked against. In level one courses like these tutors mark to a fairly rigid guideline, they are often given examples of where marks should be allocated. I'm sure this will be true for level 2 and 3 courses going forward as they expect you to demonstrate the knowledge you have learned. One example is that when I was explaining why voice recognition systems may have difficulties interpreting the word minute for example as it can be pronounced differently when referring to time or referring to size, the keyword that my tutor was looking for was the fact that it was a "Homograph". Even though I explained the problem I failed to include this keyword in my answer, which resulted in me throwing away an easy mark!

Anyway I have thoroughly enjoyed both of these courses and would recommend them to anyone.

After I have submitted my ECA's and hopefully passed the courses I am eligible to claim my Certificate in Computing and Information. The good thing about the OU is you gain different level of qualifications as you work towards your Degree. For example once I have studied more Level two courses I will be eligible for a Diploma, then with further study a degree. So you are constantly having something to show for your efforts!!

Finally!

Its taken its time this one, partly because I haven't been able to hit it in one go but also because I don't really think the questions are worded as clearly as they could be. I often spent 30 mins deliberating a question before answering it, thinking what do they really want?

TIP: Look at the learning outcomes at the start of an assignment and use them to target your answers, they are more helpful than I would have thought and to be honest I have never considered using them.

The TMA covered a lot of area's,

Question 1 focused very much on telemedicine in the UK and India and the limitations of such systems and implications of there existence. For those of you who don't know telemedicine is basically delivering medicine via technology. This often involves networks of sorts, in remote locations these will be satellite based. The result is that you can have a doctor in one part of the world viewing and diagnosing patient scans from a remote location such as a war zone or village. This can also be stretched further to telesurgery where a surgeon controls robots from a distance operating on a patient potentially from another continent. There seems to be a lot to consider here, from bandwidth and latency right through to responsiveness of the equipment. There would be absolutely no point in having the worlds best surgeon in America operating on a patient in say India if the equipment was very unresponsive and didn't behave as expected.

Question 2 surrounded the use of the U.S.A's Vehicle Infrastructure Integration (VII) and Dedicated Short Range Communication (DSRC). The technology is based around the idea that cars can be equipped with GPS, and coupled with there hundreds of existing on board sensors from ABS to rain sensors, be able to communicate to roadside hubs and other vehicles their driving habits, speeds, direction of travel, acceleration, terrain and weather conditions. This should then be able to alert drivers in the vicinity of accidents and congestion and also whether intersections are safe to cross.

Question 3 targeted Databases and the U.K's pioneering National ID card programme and the Biometric data involved. You were questioning the issues surrounding a central database which stored such biometric information and the risks and implications that this could have. This question was very relevant and interesting and I enjoyed tackling it very much.

Finally, Question 4! This question covered health on-line and used this to discuss issues such as content, accessibility and usability of such services. You were asked to compare to online services such as NHS Direct and BBC health and evaluate how well the covered these basics. It was very interesting to see how different websites tackle different accessibility issues, especially the likes of health sites which are likely to have a very wide and diverse customer base.

Anyway all is done and I am looking forward to getting my End of Course Assessment done and completing this course!

Good afternoon

As I am coming around to the end of my first year with the OU I have decided to write about where I am heading and what I intend to study.
For the first year of my degree I studied two 30 credit level 1 courses. These were T175 Networked Living: Exploring Information and Communication and M150 Data, Computing and Information.

I have found both of these courses thoroughly engaging and enjoyable and they have provided a really good broad base for my future studies in computing. I have found M150 more challenging and rewarding than T175 however this is mainly because I am from a programming background and it is the route I want to persure. T175 is a newer course and the materials are probably presented in a nicer way.

My Degree (B29 BSc(Hons) Computing) should in accordance with OU recommendations, be studied over 6 years at 60 credits per year. I have followed this path for the first year however I am going to step my study up to 90 credits next year with the aim of completing my degree two years early.

The 90 credits I am going to study over the next 12 months are the level 1 course MU120 Open Mathematics, the level 2 courses M263 Building Blocks of Software and M255 Object Orientated Programming with Java.

I found my first year very manageable and hopefully 90 credits should not but overly stretching myself. At the moment though I am looking forward to having the summer off when I will be travelling around Europe for 5 weeks. I look forward to properly blogging these courses as I study them and offering any ideas and suggestions as I go.

Simon