OU (MW): Up the garden path

Simon K. left an interesting comment on my previous posting "OU: Mass Writing", and after re-reading the posting I realised that I might have mislead people with what I have written.  Prof. Ince in his blog gives a better description of what the book is about.

The book writing project involves OU students, and anyone else who wants to volunteer, writing a book about the Java-based computer-art system known as Processing.

Once completed the book might be considered for use within a course, and if accepted for publication by a conventional publisher...

the royalties will go to the student hardship fund or any other charitable fund in the Open University

OU: Mass Writing

Received an e-mail this morning from a Professor Ince, the Head of Computing dept. at the OU, asking if I would like to collaborate on a book about Computer Art.  Sounds grander than it probably is.  The department actually is looking for 85 volunteers, with each volunteer completing a section comprising of 2,500 words and a computer program.  I have decided to volunteer as it looks as though it could be fun.

For further details take a look at page 5 of the Autumn issue of Sesame.

Somebody with to much time on their hands

I know these are old but they are still entertaining...

The OU has caught a cold

It is not only county and borough councils that have been caught out by the collapse of several Icelandic banks.  It now appears that a number of UK universities have also caught a cold, including the Open University.

The Open University said it had invested £6.5m in UK subsidiaries with the Icelandic banks.

"The funds at risk with these two banks, although significant, represent less than 4% of the university's cash holdings and 1.5% of the university's expenditure budget this year.

"There is no threat to the university's operations and staff and suppliers will be paid as normal," said vice-chancellor Professor Brenda Gourley.

This really begs the question "What was so special about these banks to entice so many high profile depositors?"

ref: BBC News

M366: In conversation with... a computer program

ref:  BBC News

Stuck for someone to talk to? Elbot is a computer program pretending to be a person. And this week it won a prize for coming closest to fooling people into thinking it was human. The BBC's Mark Lobel catches him in a more relaxed moment. 
 

No computer has ever passed the Turing Test to see if, during text-based conversation, a machine can be indistinguishable from a person. But Elbot just came pretty close.
 

At the 18th Loebner Prize for artificial intelligence, held at the weekend, this artificial intelligence entity convinced four of the 12 human interrogators he was indistinguishable from them.
 

If Elbot had convinced one other, it would have passed the magic 30% mark - the threshold set by Britain's most famous code-breaker, Alan Turing, who devised the test back in 1950.

What's more Elbot, the very same version that came so close to passing itself off as a living, breathing, sentient human being (under Turing's rules at least), is online - for anyone to talk to. Let's see if he's feeling chatty. [...]

M366: Test explores if robots can think

Reported on the BBC's news web site:

Scientists at the University of Reading tested five machines to see if they could pass themselves off as humans in text-based conversations with people.

The test was devised in 1950 by British Mathematician Alan Turing, who said that if a machine was indistinguishable from a human, then it was "thinking".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7666836.stm

FTSE

Do you duty!

Keep things safe

Since starting my OU studies one of my primary concerns has been making sure I have adequate backups of all my OU data.  This is especially relevant to the current course being studied and the TMA being worked on.  There can be nothing more frustrating and depressing than loosing a TMA that is 90% complete and having to recreate it from scratch.  Data loss can come in many guises, such as hard disk failure; loosing a memory stick; corrupt file, and with this in mind I always have 3 copies available at any one time.  One on my home PC, one on my laptop and one on my work PC.  This sounds nice and secure but the problem has been in keeping the 3 machines synchronised.

Over the last few years I have tried various methods including manual copying and trials of commercial packages (i.e. Handy Backup).  Well today I have come across an Open Source program, Synkron, that looks as though it will do the job.

It has a number of features, including:

• Synchronise multiple folders
• Tabs allow you to have more synchronisations running at once
• Periodical synchronisations automatically sync your folders in selected intervals
• Restore files, which were overwritten during the synchronisation
• Add files and folders to black list to make sure they won't be synchronised in the future
• Make schedules and backup using multisync
• Propagate deletions

With multiple supported platforms:

• Apple Mac OS X (Universal)
• Microsoft Windows (Installer)
• Linux/Unix (Source code, RPM, Ubuntu, Archlinux and ALT Linux packages)

The one drawback is the lack of documentation, although there is a support forum.  Even so it is a simple program to use and I would recommend taking a look at it if you are wanting a way of synchronising data.

M366: A cry for help

Having got hold of the course text (blocks 1, 2, 3, 4 & 6), in electronic form, for M366 I have made a start on block 1 only to discover that there are other documents that I need (i.e. Dartmouth.pdf supplied on the course DVD).  So I am wondering if anyone who reads my blog and has already done M366 can let me have copies of the other documents (in electronic form) needed for M366.

Some Interesting Statistics

With Valentino Rossi having recently won his 6th MotoGP championship and Troy Bayliss having won his 3rd WSBK (World Superbike) championship, crash.net have come up with some interesting statistics in the form of Bayliss v Rossi v Schumacher.

 

The first table below shows the most important stats for each competitor, with the second listing their achievements as a percentage. Rossi's stats are for 500cc/MotoGP only (does not include his 125 or 250 seasons and championships):

	races	wins	podiums	poles	titles *
Troy Balyiss	150	50	92	25	3
Valentino Rossi	148	70	113	41	6
Michael Schumacher	248	91	154	68	7

		wins	podiums	poles	titles *
Troy Balyiss		33.3%	61.3%	16.7%	60.0%
Valentino Rossi		47.3%	76.4%	27.7%	66.7%
Michael Schumacher		36.7%	62.1%	27.4%	50.0%

* only full racing seasons were included for the title percentage (Bayliss missed three rounds of the 2000 season, whilst Schumacher missed part of both the 1991 and 1999 seasons).

An Early Start

I have been able to get hold of some of the course text (blocks 1, 2, 3, 4 & 6), in electronic form, for M366 and even though the course does not start until Feb.09 I have decided to make an early start on it.

Some People Will Eat Anything

I promised him a squirrel sandwich and that is what he's gonna get after school. You've heard of tuna melts or patty melts, well why not squirrel melts.

WARNING!!!  Fluffy creatures were harmed during the making of this video.

The New Donington ?

Donington race circuit has won the contract to host the British round of Formula 1 as from 2010, whilst hopefully still hosting the MotoGP (Silverstone is so flat and boring).  Donington will require a lot of modernisation and as part of this the track is being redesigned.  Below are links to an article and a plan of the proposed new circuit.

Article and new circuit.

M450: That was quick

As previously mentioned I posted my ECA on Monday (8th Sept) at about 3:00pm, and I have just checked my StudentHome page and it is saying that my ECA has been received by the OU.  The wonders of modern snail-mail.

M366: Registered

This afternoon I registered for M366 - Natural and artificial intelligence, and have already started to search the net for useful information.  Apparently we use an application called NetLogo during the course, and I have found the home page here.

M450: Finished !!!

I finally submitted my ECA for M450 yesterday.  Three copies printed, bound (Staples did a very good job, £9 less £3 discount) and posted (First class £4.30), plus not forgetting to obtain the proof of posting.

This means for me that the course is now finished and all I have to do is wait for the result, which apparently can take some time.

Over the next few weeks I am going to try and put together some advice on how to tackle M450 for those students thinking of taking it in the future, especially as it is not the easiest of courses.

Now I have to register for my next course, M366 - Natural and artificial intelligence, even though (having done a quick search via Google) it seems that it might not be the easiest of courses.  This will hopefully be the last course of my degree.

MU120: Final Result

I have just got my final result for MU120, a PASS with an overall continuous assessment score of 94%.  This means that if I were to stop my OU studies now I have qualified for a BSc(Open) degree, but I am not as I only have a year and a bit to go before getting the computing named degree.

Eurosport Loses MotoGP Coverage From 2009

Yesterday (26.Jun.08) Dorna announced

that coverage of the MotoGP World Championships will no longer be available on Eurosport from the 2009 season

The BBC will have exclusive coverage of MotoGP in the UK and this is very disappointing news for the following reasons:

1. Currently the BBC only shows the MotoGP race on terrestrial TV (BBC2).  The 125 and 250 races are only shown on the BBC's BBCi service;
2. In the past some races have not been shown live;
3. The BBC does not show qualifying all the time, and when it does it is only available via BBCi;
4. Unlike Eurosport, the BBC does not show any of the free practice sessions or the qualifying sessions for the 125's and 250's;
5. From 2009 the BBC will also be showing F1, thus if a race clashes with a MotoGP then the F1 race is probably going to get preference;
6. If the BBC increases it's MotoGP coverage then more than likely it will only be via BBCi.  The Problem is that you are not able to record BBCi on a SKY+ box.

Dorna have said that their reason for taking this action is to try and increase MotoGP coverage across Europe by giving priority to free-to-air television networks, but by taking this action they will actually be decreasing the coverage available to UK MotoGP fans.

If you are a MotoGP fan and want to petition Dorna against this action that they have taken then you might find the following e-mail address's useful:

Dorna UK :- Tony Partis - dornauk@dorna.com
Licensing :- Phaedra Haramis - commercial@dorna.com
TV Production :- Sergi Sendra - tvproduction@dorna.com

OU: TMA Results

Last week I got the result back for my MU120 TMA03, 95%, and yesterday I got the result for M450 TMA02, 86%.  Although I did better for M450 TMA02 than TMA01 I am still finding the research aspect of the project most frustrating.

Blake's 7 poised for Sky comeback

The BBC has reported:

A new remake of sci-fi series Blake's 7 could soon return to television screens, Sky One has revealed. 

The satellite channel has given the green light for the development of two 60-minute scripts for a "potential event series".

...

"The time is ripe for a revival of a show that represents the best traditions of the genre, not to mention one of the best-loved and most successful dramas of all time," Elaine Pyke, commissioning editor for drama at Sky One, Two and Three, said.

ref:  BBC News

M450: TMA02

Well I have finally submitted TMA02 for M450, 1 week after cut-off.  This is the first time in all my OU studies that I have had to have an extension.  The cause of the problem is the research we have to do for this course, it is proving difficult, frustrating and demoralizing.  The course text does not go into any detail as to why we are having to do the research and what we should be looking for.  Still at least I can now press on with the core elements of my project.

MU120: Finished!

Last night I had a tutorial and was able to hand my completed TMA04 over to my tutor, just under 3 months ahead of the course schedule.  This means that I have finally finished MU120 and I can now fully concentrate on M450.

Phorm - Family friendly?

Over the last week there has been a lot of talk about Phorm.

A system that matches users' web surfing habits to adverts must ensure sensitive sites are black-listed from tracking, a privacy report has said.

Phorm's online technology is set to be rolled out by three of the UK's biggest ISPs, BT, Virgin and Talk Talk.

ref: BBC News

Even Sir Tim Berners-Lee has concerns about it.

The creator of the web has said consumers need to be protected against systems which can track their activity on the internet.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee told BBC News he would change his Internet provider if it introduced such a system.

ref:  BBC News

Now I am wondering if such a system is family friendly.  What I mean by this is that my home PC / Internet connection is used by the whole family, and I visit sites, such as adult humour, that I do not allow my daughter to go to, for example b3ta.com.  So if my ISP was to implement Phorm could it distinguish between different users going over the same Internet connection.  Would my daughter start to see adverts relating to my surfing habits?  Like any responsible parent I monitor and guide my daughter on what she watches on television and what she sees on the Internet, yet it appears to me that an ISP using  Phorm could well take some of this control away from me.

Off to travel the stars

British science fiction writer Sir Arthur C Clarke has died in Sri Lanka at the age of 90.

 

ref: BBC News

Happy St Patrick's Day

Team Fortress 2

TF2 is a truly addictive multi-player online game, and someone has recreated a scene using LEGO.  Also click here.

CMAs and TMAs

On Tuesday I got the results back for my MU120 CMA43.  I got a very pleasing 96% and lost a couple of marks due to silly mistakes.  These mistakes I believe are due to the nature of CMA's in that being multiple choice I tend to go through them a lot quicker than I would a TMA thus resulting in not studying a question as thoroughly as perhaps I should.

Yesterday morning I got the results for my first TMA for M450.  Even though I got 80% I was disappointed in my tutor's comments, in that they were very brief and in some instances cryptic.  This left me feeling frustrated and confused, but after a lengthy telephone conversation with him last night I feel a lot better.  He enlightened me to what he actually meant, thus I now understand where my TMA was lacking and how it could have been improved.  I now realise that one of my biggest problems with my project is that I have had tunnel vision, in that I knew what the problem was (difficulty in sending bank statements) and how I wanted to solve it.  This has meant that when I was looking for research I was basing my investigation on the solution rather than the problem and finding alternative solutions to it.  In fact I now appreciate that my whole project is based around my solution, even it's title "Automated archiving and electronic transmission (via SMTP) of customer bank statements", as opposed to describing the problem, followed by looking for any solutions, discussing their strengthens and weaknesses, and then selecting a viable one.  With this in mind I now feel more confident that for my next TMA I should be able to produce a superior paper.

MU120: All that is remaining...

All that I have remaining for MU120 if TMA04 as I have just submitted CMA45.  It took a bit longer to complete than the other CMA's as it went through the whole course and on a number of occasions I had to refer back to my notes.  Rather annoyed with myself though, as after submitting the CMA I had a look at my submitted answers and realised that I have done a typo on one of the them.  It's a shame that submitted CMA's cannot be amended.

Knight Rider

Testing is currently underway at the Losail Circuit Qatar in preparation for the first MotoGP race of the 2008 season.

The March 9 race will be the first Grand Prix, two or four wheeled, to be held at night when it starts at 23:00 local (20:00GMT). Formula One will hold a night race in Singapore in September.

MotoGP organisers have said their race would be the biggest sporting event to be staged under floodlights with the area involved at Losail equivalent to 70 FIFA regulation soccer pitches, with 3,500 lighting units installed.

ref: http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/65378

MU120: CMA44

Having put MU120 on hold for a month (except for attending my local tutorials) due to starting M450 and completing the first TMA, I can now go back to it.  I have outstanding 2 CMA's and the ECA.  With this in mind I ploughed through and submitted CMA44 this afternoon.  It was not so bad although I did have to refer back to my notes on a couple of occasions.  The biggest problem was remembering where all the relevant functions are in the calculator.  Now onto CMA45.

Bradley Smith Interview

MCN caught up with Polaris World Aprilia rider Bradley Smith at the teams official launch in London yesterday.

M450: TMA01

Last night I finally managed to submit my first TMA for M450, 5 hours before cut-off.  The course started on February 2nd and it has been a long hard slog during these past 24 days to get the TMA completed, even though the course team say in the assessment guide

completing each TMA could take as little as five or six hours

There are 2 reasons for this TMA taking so long, the first being that I dived straight into the TMA and although I have started tasks such as a project schedule and an E-R model, I did them as part of the TMA.  The second reason is that I have experienced a lot of difficulty in finding any research papers in relation to my project.  This become a frustrating exercise and started to make finishing the TMA feel tedious.  And I don't believe that I am alone in these sentiments.

Anyway I can now get down to some real practical work, starting with the statement of requirements, and the database analysis and design.  With this in mind hopefully TMA02 wont take so long to complete when I come around to doing it.

Vote for Dustin

This Saturday the Irish decided on their entry for this years Eurovision Song Contest and the winner was Dustin The Turkey singing Douze Pointe. 

It reminds me of the episode of Father Ted where Father's Ted and Dougal are Irelands entry for the annual European contest with their song My Lovely Horse.  The Irish don't want to winner the contest anymore as it is proving to expensive to host, so they pick the one song that is guaranteed to loose.

MU120: TMA02

Got home last night to find my marked TMA02 had been delivered.  This came as a surprise as having handed in the TMA about a month and a half before the deadline, I had completely forgotten about it.  The surprise was made very pleasant when I discovered that I had scored 98%.

MU120: On Hold.

Having read all 16 units and now only having CMA44, CMA45 and TMA04 left to do I have decided to put MU120 on hold.  My reason for this is that M450 officially started on Saturday (02.Feb) and its first TMA is due on 26.Feb.  I therefore want to concentrate on the M450 TMA01 and will resume MU120 after 26.Feb.

M450: A slight change of direction

Having been allocated my tutor I e-mailed him yesterday with a description of my proposed project and saying that the scope would be the back-end process and database.

In his reply to me he said...

it might be prudent to plan the whole and implement a prototype

I have always appreciated that for the project you don't need to produce a fully working system, even though it has been my intention to do so as it will be used by my employer on a daily basis.  Therefore I now potentially have a conflict of interest between what I need to do for my project and what my employer requires, with regards to time.  It's going to be interesting to see if I can keep both parties happy.

M450: A bit chewy?

Although I have not yet started looking through the course materials, I have had for some time an idea as to what to do for my project.

I plan to develop a system for the "archiving and electronic transmission (via SMTP) of statements" for the bank that I work for.

This system will comprise of 2 areas:

1.  A database and a back-end module to import the raw statement data into the database, plus identify those statements that need to be transmitted.

2.  A front-end client module which will allow users to:
2.a.  Release those statements ready for transmission;
2.b.  Select, display, and re-transmit selected statements upon request;
2.c.  Update customer control data (i.e. e-mail address).

There are a number of different areas that I will have to investigate, such as the connection between Java and MS SQL Server, as although I know that this is possible, it is not something that I have done in the past.

Now I am in the fortunate position that I can work on this full time, yet I am starting to wonder if I have bitten off more than I can chew, time wise.  Normally I would say that it is possible, but I get the impression from some of the postings in FirstClass that how the OU want us to approach the project and how we would actually do it in real life does differ.  Plus a quick search (via Google) threw up the following:

About 40 per cent of the work develops and assesses skills for project scoping and specification, self-monitoring of progress and presentation. The remaining 60 per cent concerns the technical detail of the project and is project specific. Course materials will be made available online. Students are expected to retain the material associated with the courses on which they build for their project.

Students will develop a project topic, specification and plan, carry it out, and then write it up. A tutor will advise and guide students, but they will be expected to produce their work independently, without close supervision. They must also keep a project log and use it for an assessed critical review of their work. The emphasis is on students being reflective practitioners, developing not only the technical aspects of their project but also reviewing and thinking about what they have learnt from doing the work, to further improve their skills. Tutor-marked assignments provide milestones and feedback to help them monitor their progress. Guidance notes, study calendar and other supporting material will be made available on the web.

ref: http://www3.open.ac.uk/employment/associate-lecturers/courses/M450.shtm

I am therefore wondering whether I should just concentrate on the first area (the database and back-end module) as opposed to the whole system, and complete the second area in my own time.  I think I will have to consult with my tutor once I know who he / she is.

MU120: CMA42

Yesterday, apart from getting my result for M359, I got the result for my MU120 CMA42 (computer marked assignment).  I scored 88% but today it is 92%.  It looks as though for one question there are 2 answers, not 1, and I have gained marks for correctly answering the question when previously it was marked incorrect.

Perhaps they can re-score my M359 exam, as an extra 4% will bump me up a grade.  LOL

M359: Was it worth it?

The results for M359 have just been released and I got a grade 3 (67%), this being my lowest grade over the 4 years that I have studied with the OU so far.  To say I am disappointed would be an understatement especially as I obtained an overall score for my assignments of 94% and spent a month revising for the exam.

I know I have an issue with exams but I strongly feel that the layout for the M359 exam had a detrimental effect on my final result.  This appears to be the opinion of a number of other students who also got high assignment scores but were let down by the exam.

With only 2 courses remaining I am still in with a chance of getting a 1st for my degree (according to the online degree classification calculator, Leningrad), it just means that I am going to have to work extra hard as I will require distinctions for both of the courses.  If I slip up on either I will probably end up with a 2.1 classification.

M359: Ahhhhhhhhhh!!!

The course result for M359 should by available by the 14th Dec, and for previous years results have sometimes been released 1 or 2 days earlier.  So there I' am checking my student home page every hour to see if the result for M359 has been released when I notice "Your course result should be available by Friday 21 December 2007".  No explanations as to why, and I now have to wait an extra week.  As a fellow student pointed out, perhaps this is the final errata for the course, with the final results placed in an appendix at the end of our course record page.

MU120: Useful Links

Whilst studying MU120 I have visited a number of web sites in the hunt for further and useful information.  So here is my list so far:

TI-83/84

Finding Your Way Around the TI-83+/84+ Graphing Calculator
Quick-and-Dirty Guide to the TI-83, TI-83+, TI-84, and TI-84+
Graphing Calculator Instructions
T³ FREE Online Courses
TI-83/84 Tutorial by Topic
Introduction to the TI-83/TI-84 Graphing Calculators and Mathematical Modeling via Regression

Programs for Texas Instruments Calculators
TI-83 PLUS BASIC PROGRAMMING TUTORIAL: A BEGINNERS' GUIDE v2.5
Math Tools for TI-83/84

 

Information

Measures of Spread
Sine curve visualization tool
Welcome to mathcentre
10 Easy Arithmetic Tricks
The Physics Classroom - Speed and Velocity

 

MS-Excel

Box and Whisker Plots
Box and Whisker Diagrams: getting Microsoft Excel to plot them for you
Boxplots in Excel
Excel Box Plots - Group and Trend

 

MU120 Students

Vicki Andersen's MU120 Page

 

Misc

MathCast - the open source equation editor
Virtual TI v2.5 beta 5
File utili. Bios image

MU120: Velocity, Speed & Acceleration

Having started Unit 11 "Movement" I have been struggling to get my head around velocity, and how it differs to speed and acceleration.  After having done some further research on the net I came across a web-site called The Physics Classroom which not only had an understandable lesson on "Speed and Velocity" but also some simple animations that clearly shows the difference.

Positive Velocity and Positive Acceleration

Observe that the object below moves in the positive direction with a changing velocity. An object which moves in the positive direction has a positive velocity. If the object is speeding up, then its acceleration vector is directed in the same direction as its motion (in this case, a positive acceleration). The "ticker tape" shows that each consecutive dot is not the same distance apart (i.e., a changing velocity). The position-time graph shows that the slope is changing (meaning a changing velocity) and positive (meaning a positive velocity). The velocity-time graph shows a line with a positive (upward) slope (meaning that there is a positive acceleration); the line is located in the positive region of the graph (corresponding to a positive velocity). The acceleration-time graph shows a horizontal line in the positive region of the graph (meaning a positive acceleration).

Vote for JT on the 9th!

James Toseland, World Superbikes Champion 2007,  is one of the ten final contenders for this years "BBC Sports Personality of the Year" award. Vote for him on the 9th December.

James Toseland
Age: 27 Nationality: English
Sport: Motorcycling

2007 highlight: Second World Superbikes title

Toseland showed he loves life in the fast lane as he regained the World Superbikes title.

Reaching speeds of up to 200 miles an hour - he set the pace from the start in the 15 round championship.

The Honda rider won a race in each of the first five meetings, and treated home fans to a first career double at Brands Hatch.

After his second championship win, he moves to Moto GP in 2008.

ref: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/tv_and_radio/sports_personality_of_the_year/7118812.stm

Hmmm??? Good or Bad?

Having just seen via John Naughton's blog that you can rate the readability of a blog, I thought I would give it a go.

The result for my blog is:

Now this could be deemed as being good as you my audience must be an intelligent bunch of people to keep coming back and reading my blog.  On the other hand it could be bad, in other word's my English is dire and I am using to many technical terms.  Hmmm???

MU120: TMA01 Result

On Tuesday I got the result back for my first MU120 TMA.  Although I got 95% I lost 3 marks through stupid mistakes in part 1 of the TMA.  1 mark was for saying one word when I meant a different word, and the other 2 were for not spotting that Excel hadn't formatted the x-axis scale on one of the graphs correctly.

MU120: 50%

I am now half-way through the course, having completed units 1 - 9, CMA's 41 & 42, and TMA's 1 & 2.  If I am able to keep this pace going then I should have the whole course completed by the end of January.  The thing is that OU courses have a habit of really increasing the learning curve at the half-way point.  Fingers crossed that it isn't to steep for MU120.

Dr. Gordon Moore

The BBC on their news web site has a fascinating interview with Dr. Moore.

In April 1965 a 36-year old electronics buff jotted down his thoughts on the future of the juvenile silicon chip industry.

Writing in a "throw-away" journal, Gordon Moore accurately imagined a future filled with mobile phones, home computers, and even intelligent cars.

But it was a much more prosaic prediction that has come to dominate his life and the industry that he helped found.

"I could see a change coming that the electronics were going to get significantly cheaper," says the co-founder of Intel, the largest maker of computer chips.

In the article in Electronics Magazine, he predicted that the number of transistors on a silicon chip would double every year for ten years.

This interview would have been useful when I did T171 back in 2004, and it might be useful for those students studying it's successor T175

Interesting title for a book

MU120: Where am I?

Last Wednesday I attended my second tutorial for MU120, with the main theme for the evening being statistics.  I also handed my TMA01 part1 into my tutor.  Although this was just over a week early, as the cut-off date is the 25.Oct, I didn't want to have to worry about it being delayed due to the recent postal strikes.

Having completed unit 2 "Prices" I started unit 3  "Earnings" today.  With the next tutorial being the 31.Oct I am planning to hand in my TMA01 part2 then.  At present I am enjoying the course, with it not being too taxing and am on schedule to finish it by the beginning of Feb 08.    We will have to see if I can keep to my planned schedule.  Why the rush?  Well I want to minimize the overlap with M450 which officially starts in Feb 08.

MU120: Course Text

Last night at 8pm DHL delivered units 6 - 9 of the course text.  2 things impressed me about this:

1.  My student homepage said that this material was not going to be dispatched until 16.Nov.
2.  DHL delivered the package in the evening.

The one improvement the OU could now make with their dispatching of materials is too not pack them so tight.  When I unpacked the package last night I discovered that the audio cd cover had broken, and this is the second time this has happened in as many deliveries.

Lewis Who?

On Sunday 7th October a certain Mr. Lewis Hamilton did not finish the Chinese F1 Grand Prix, thus failing to secure the Formula One championship.  Yet on the same date in another part of the world [Magny-Cours France], a Britain did win a motorsport championship.  James Toseland won the World Superbike (WSBK) championship, and this was his second time with the first being in 2004.

The point is that although Lewis's failure in China was extensively covered in the media, James winning the WSBK championship had no television news coverage and only warranted a couple of small paragraphs in some of the daily newspapers.

World Superbikes is a far more entertaining motorsport than F1, with plenty of drama, lots of overtaking and races not decided upon by pit strategy.  Plus in the UK we have the added advantage of having 3 championship rounds ,  Donington, Silverstone and Brands Hatch.

ref: JamesToseland.com
ref: BBC Sport
ref: Motorcycle News
ref: SBK - Official Site

M359: Exam

Tuesday last week (9.Oct) I took the M359 exam.  I haven't written about it until now as I came away from the exam very unhappy.

The reason for this was the layout of the exam paper.  Although I was aware that for the 12 short questions we had to place our answers in the exam booklet itself in spaces provided directly after each question, I did not appreciate what a pain this would be.  Each question tended to be a piece of description followed by 2 or 3 sub-questions, and the problem lay in if the question stretched over more than one page.  This meant that I had to keep flipping backwards and forwards between pages, which was very time consuming.  The worst culprits were questions 6, 7 and 8, as each of these questions referred to an appendix at the end of the exam booklet.

I am not the only one who feels this way about the exam paper, as there has been a general outcry from a lot of students concerning the layout, with a number of us making official complaints.

In conclusion the layout of the exam paper made a stressful situation even more stressful, wasted time and has cost me marks.  I now just have to wait until the 14.Dec to find out what my final grade will be.

MAD!!!

We must be mad, it is 4:40am and we are up watching the qualifying for the Australian round of MotoGP.

MU120: First Tutorial

Attended my first tutorial for MU120 last night.  In total there were 5 of us (including the tutor).  The evening was split into 2, with the first half covering course admin aspects, such as TMA's and support, and the second half we had to answer 6 puzzles, some of them being quiet fiendish.  From now until Christmas the tutorials are every other week and it is my intention to attend them all unless something unforeseen turns up.

Gingerbread Haka

According to today's Metro this video "has been branded culturally insensitive".  Yet I think it is a very good and amusing piece of animation from Kangoo Animation, an animation studio in New Zealand.

M450: And so it begins

The M450 Computing project course website is now accessible, although at present it's content is very limited.  1 piece of new and 2 downloadable documents (study calendar and tutor allocation form).  It is the tutor allocation form that was of particular interest to me as it states...

"Please indicate below the single course that most closely relates to your chosen project topic"

Now my understanding was that with the amalgamation of the various computing project courses into a single course, a student could base their project around several 3rd level courses as opposed to having to choose 1 specific 3rd level course.  With this in mind I contacted OU and got the following reply from the M450 course manager...

"Yes it is possible for you to choose a project based on more than one of the level 3 computing courses and indeed we hope that people will do this, so your idea of basing a project on M301 and M359 seems excellent."

This for me is really good news.

Don't break the Internet!

OU: Change Of Plan

With M359 coming to an end (well for me anyway) and thus only needing a further 90 points to complete my degree, I decided a couple of months ago to plan out my remaining courses.

For B29 the Computing degree you are required to do a project, TM450, so I decided that this would be my main course for next year.  Now as I wanted to complete my project without any interference of any other courses I had to decided on what to do over the winter period, I decided on MU120.  Being a level 1 course with no exam it suited me fine and I could work at my own pace thus reducing the overlap with the project.  For my final course I decided on doing M366, Natural and artificial intelligence, as this is a subject that has always interested me.  The current course was running from Oct 07 through to Jun 08, so Oct 08 looked like a good bet, I would have just finished the project and would have my degree completed by Jun 09.

So my plan looked like this:

Course	Title	Start	End
MU120	Open Mathematics	Sep 07	Jun 08
M450	The Computing Project	Feb 08	Oct 08
M366	Natural and Artificial Intelligence	Oct 08	Jun 09

Well on Wednesday I discovered that M366 will not be running in Oct 08, and the next presentation after the current one will be Feb 09.  This is most annoying as a) I will have a gap between finishing my project and starting M366 and b) it means I will finish my degree 4 months later than originally planned.  I did contemplate contacting the OU to see if I could swap MU120 and M366 around but this would have defeated my objective for doing MU120 and also today I have discovered that there is not on Oct 08 presentation of MU120.

My plan now looks like this:

Course	Title	Start	End
MU120	Open Mathematics	Sep 07	Jun 08
M450	The Computing Project	Feb 08	Oct 08
M366	Natural and Artificial Intelligence	Feb 09	Oct 09

OU: Note Taking

Throughout my OU studies I have been endeavoring to find a note taking system that is ideal for me.  I have tried different systems such as highlighting important text in the course text and then making notes in a separate note-book, and mind-maps.  Yet they all seem to lead to the same result in that I tend to end up duplicating what is in the course text.  This is one of the reasons why I believe that come exam time I struggle to remember facts (i.e. lists).

Yesterday I came across an interesting article, "Advice for Students: Taking Notes that Work", at lifehack.org which detailed amongst other things several different methods for taking notes.  The one that interested me most was the Cornell System.

The Cornell System is a simple but powerful system for increasing your recall and the usefulness of your notes. About a quarter of the way from the bottom of a sheet of paper, draw a line across the width of the page. Draw another line from that line to the top, about 2 inches (5 cm) from the left-hand edge of the sheet. You’ve divided your page into three sections. In the largest section, you take notes normally — you can outline or mind-map or whatever. After the lecture, write a series of “cues” into the skinny column on the left, questions about the material you’ve just taken notes on. This will help you process the information from the lecture or reading, as well as providing a handy study tool when exams come along: simply cover the main section and try to answer the questions. In the bottom section, you write a short, 2-3 line summary in your own words of the material you’ve covered. Again, this helps you process the information by forcing you to use it in a new way; it also provides a useful reference when you’re trying to find something in your notes later.

I have decided to give this method a go when I start MU120 and if it proves successful I will then use it for M450.

A search on Google for "Cornell System" came up with numerous different sites (13,000+) some of which are listed below:

Cornell University - Learning Strategies Center
Study Skills - The Cornell System
Free Cornell Note Forms

M359: Possible Exam Strategy

On Sunday morning at the M500 Revision weekend Stuart Hutchison (our tutor for the weekend) discussed with us a possible exam strategy, and this is detailed below.

Note:  It is up to the individual how they use the following information; I am only documenting it as I believe some people might find it of use.

Format
2 part exam, with 3 hours allowed.

Part 1:  12 short questions worth 5 marks each, giving a total of 60% of the overall exam mark.  This equates to 108mins for part 1 with 9mins per question.

Part 2:  2 out of 3 long questions worth 20 marks each, giving a total of 40% of the overall exam mark.  This equates to 72mins for part 2 with 36mins per question.

Breakdown (and possibly what could be expected)
Stuart has based this breakdown on his experience of tutoring M358 and reviewing the M359 sample paper.

Part 1:
Q1., Q2.  Warm-up questions, normally quiet easy i.e. “Describe the differences between data and information”.
Q3.  Entity – Relationship Diagram to Relational Model.
Q4.  Relational algebra.
Q5.  Normalization.
Q6.  SQL – Code supplied, what does it do / correct the mistakes.
Q7.  SQL – Write some SQL from scratch.
Q8.  SQL – procedures, triggers, cursors, views.
Q9.  Entity Relationship Model – Revise / update.
Q10.  De-normalization, complex data.
Q11.  Data warehousing.
Q12.  XML.

Part 2:
Q13.  Entity Relationship Model to Relational Model (including relational algebra).
Q14.  SQL / Restructuring / Normalization / Access control.
Q15.  Sub-typing / Entity Relationship Models / Populating a database.

Revision Strategy
A high percentage of the exam appears to be based on SQL and data modelling, therefore by using the following strategy a student could potentially expect to get a good overall mark for the exam.

1.  SQL – A must.
2.  Data modelling – Entity Relationship Models.
3.  Relational algebra – borderline effort.
4.  Normalization / de-normalization – borderline effort.

Block 1 – skim.
Block 2 – learn well.
Block 3 – the bible, a must.
Block 4 – skim.
Block 5 – section 1 skim.

Conclusion
By concentrating their revision on blocks 2 and 3 (especially block 3) a student should be able to do enough in the exam to get a good mark.

One final exam tip ;)  “don’t think as thinking costs time”  In other words do not waste time on questions you will struggle with, move onto what are the easy questions for you.

M359: M500 Revision Weekend (part 2)

Sunday 16th

Today was very similar to yesterday.  2 sessions each comprising of a short lecture followed by answering a selection of questions.  The only difference with yesterday is that Stuart also did a session on exam strategy (see follow-up posting).

Session 4 (SQL) covered:
Cursors
Sub-queries
Views
Handling NULL
Keys
Data insertion
Queries
Wildcards
Group By
Ordering results
Joins
SET operations
Access control

Session 5 covered:
Distribution models
Distribution architectures
Technology drivers
Technology terminology
Multi-dimensional models
Information integration
Markup fundamentals
XML document structure
XML versus relational data
Embedded SQL concepts
Embedded SQL Statements
ODBC
JDBC – executing SQL

The weekend has proved very useful as it has highlighted to me where my weak areas are and given me some clear ideas as to how to proceed.  My thanks goes out to Stuart Hutchison, a most excellent tutor.

M359: M500 Revision Weekend

The M500 revision weekend is proving very useful. Our tutor is Stuart Hutchison of region 9. Stuart over a period of time has compiled a long list a questions and solutions to aid in revision for M359, and is using extracts from this list to aid in our revision (see below). I am finding them very useful as they are helping me identify my weak areas.

If you want to get hold of Stuart for further details on his questions and solutions he can be contacted on stuart.hutchison at btopenworld.com

---

Friday 14th

Well here we are Aston Uni for the start of the M500 revision weekend. There’s 16 students taking the M359 strand and our tutor is Stuart Hutchison. This evening’s session covered Block 1, with Stuart doing some lecturing and then passing out some questions (which were a selection from a long list of questions he has compiled). These questions are proving very useful and informative. For me they are certainly highlighting areas where I need to pay extra attention.

The sorts of questions being:
Q3. Data Storage
List some fundamental problems associated with file-based data storage.

Q7. Database Concepts & Terminology
Complete each of the following boxes – which represent the 3-tier architecture of a typical DBMS.

After the evening session we spent a couple of hours at the “Sack of Potatoes”, the local public house, followed by a couple more drinks at the ABS bar, to drown our sorrows over England being whitewashed by South Africa.

Saturday 15th

The day panned out as Session 2, lunch and then session 3.

Session 2 covered:
CDM basics
ERD basics
Relational structure
Relational operations
Relational constraints

Session 3 covered:
Normal forms
Functional dependency
Design considerations
Normalization concepts
Normalization
Complex data
De-normalization

Once again Stuart used questions from the long list of questions that he has compiled, to aid in getting across the essence of the subject.

The primary thing I learnt today was to not speed read the questions, but to read them and then read them again. For example I kept mistaking the word "data" for "database".

M359: Revision

Having just recently come back from a glorious 2 week holiday in Italy I am finding it difficult to get back into the groove.  With the exam for M359 looming (09.Oct) I have now made a start on my revision, with my plan being to cover a block a week.  I still have not completed TMA04 but am now treating it as a revision aid rather than worrying about what final assessment score I might get.  Also I have decided not to bother doing question 4 as this covers topic 2 of block 5 and therefore will not be tested in the exam.  So apart from going through my notes, making new ones, and re-reading the course text, I will be meeting up with friends who are on the course as well and also attending the M500 Revision Weekend at Aston University, Birmingham.

 

My only concern is that I start MU120 on the 29.Sept, with a CMA to submit by 11.Oct.  This means that for a week prior to the exam I am going to have to split my time.  Hopefully the prep material for MU120 want be to complicated.

M263: Results Available

The course result for M263 is now available, and to my amazement I got a Distinction.  Well chuffed considering how concerned I was after the exam with regards to running out of time.

Tower Crane - Completed

Well it's Monday morning and it looks as though the tower crane has been completed.

Tower Crane

Behind the building where I work there is a construction site where they are in the process of constructing for building, 2 of which will be over 40 floors high. Today they are installing a tower crane and I have decided to photograph it's construction.

ref: Picasa - Tower Crane

M359: TMA03 - Result

Last night, at 23:40, I got my result back for TMA03.  Although it wasn't 100% like TMA02 it was still in the high 90's, so am rather pleased.

This does present me with another problem though and it is one that I have experienced with other courses.  How do I do well in the exam.  For all my courses so far, except for 1, I have got a grade 2 although my TMA scores have been grade 1 standard.  I really let myself down at exam time.  It's not as though I don't revise for the exams, it's just that I have difficulty in remembering certain things such as lists.  This results I believe from my job in that I work for a small company and have to cover all aspects of I.T. and Computing.  So for a 3 month stint I might be doing ASP.NET programming and then not touch it for another year.  If I then need to do more ASP.NET I tend to refer back to previous work, text books and the Net.  I have termed this as "Use and Forget".  This issue has manifested itself in the courses that I have done, for example with M359 I fully understood blocks 1, 2 and 3, and the concepts involved, with this being reflected in both my scores and my tutors' comments, but now looking back I can't remember the nitty-gritty such as "list the enduring issues in data management" from block 1 without continuously referring back to the text.  This means that I am still hunting for the revision / memory technique that suits me best.

MU120: Update

For this course you need a graphics calculator (TI-83 or TI-84) and on Friday last week I took delivery of a TI-84+ SE.  It's rather impressive and all I have to do now is to figure out how to use it.

On Wednesday I received my first lot of course books for MU120.  This set is classified as the preparatory pack and it contained 3 books, a pamphlet (on how to use the calculator), course guide, audio CD and the usual welcome notes.  If I get chance I will post a more comprehensive list of what I received.

M359: TMA03

Have just submitted TMA03 of M359.  This has been or rather felt like quiet a long slog, but perhaps it's because I had the exam for M263 half-way through the TMA which meant that there was a bit of a gap after starting it due to revision for M263.

Must admit at the moment I am feeling the mid course blues, although now the TMA has been submitted I hope that I can re-motivate myself and get back into the swing of things.

M359: Block 3 Ex 5.13 - Flawed?

IMHO the solution (page 211) provided for exercise 5.13 (page 117) of block 3 is flawed for a specific set of circumstances.

Scenario
If the textbook table has a number of text books recorded for a specific course prior to the constraint (solution 5.13) being added, then once the constraint is added no text books will be able to be INSERT'd or UPDATE'd for any course not just the course where the number of recorded text books exceeds 5.

Example
For the following table:
bookcode,title,                                 author_name,       no_pages,course_code
'65281', 'Beginning Syntax',                    'Kershaw, J.',     247,     'c2'
'12953', 'Grammatical Structures',              (NULL),            258,     'c2'
'63948', 'Interpreting Semantics',              'Hyde, E.',        (NULL),  'c4'
'73642', 'The Semantics of Romance Languages',  'Jane Hanley',     (NULL),  'c4'
'65284', 'A First Course In Logic',             'Jerry Maxwell',   115,     'c5'
'65285', 'More Logic',                          'Jerry Maxwell',   210,     'c5'
'65290', 'Even More Logic',                     (NULL),            (NULL),  'c5'
'65291', 'A First Course In Magic',             'Jerry Maxwell',   115,     'c5'
'65292', 'A First Course In Poker',             'Jerry Maxwell',   115,     'c5'
'65293', 'A First Course In Distilling Whiskey','Jerry Maxwell',   115,     'c5'
'38572', 'Practical Pragmatics',                'Christine Davies',320,     'c7'
'93881', 'Advances in Pragmatics',              'Farmer, S.J.',    (NULL),  'c7'

Note that course 'c5' has 6 text books recorded.

Now the constraint (solution 5.13) is added:
ALTER TABLE textbook
   ADD CONSTRAINT max_5_textbooks CHECK (
          5 >= ALL (SELECT COUNT(*)
                    FROM   textbook
                    GROUP BY course_code));

Both of the following queries will break the constraint with SQLAnywhere generating a "Constraint 'max_5'_textbooks' violated:" error message, even though the first query relates to course 'c2' which only has 2 text books recorded and IMO should not break the constraint:
INSERT INTO textbook
    VALUES ('65282', 'Ending Syntax', 'Jerry Maxwell', 115, 'c2');

UPDATE textbook
   SET title = 'A First Course In SQL'
 WHERE bookcode = '65291';

Solution
The following is my solution, which not only covers the requirements specified by the exercise but also for the above scenario:
ALTER TABLE textbook
  ADD CONSTRAINT max_5_textbooks CHECK (
         NOT (course_code =ANY(SELECT t.course_code
                               FROM   textbook t
                               GROUP BY t.course_code
                               HAVING COUNT(t.course_code)>= 5)));

For the above 2 queries (the INSERT and the UPDATE queries) the INSERT will work and the UPDATE will fail, which is as expected.

OU: Next Courses

After I have completed M359 I will only need 90 points for my degree.  This equates to three 30 point courses and today I registered for 2 of them.  For my winter course I have decided to do MU120 - Open Mathematics, for a number of reasons.  The primary reason being that I want to do a course that I can complete as quickly as possible and with MU120 not only is it a level 1 course but also there is no exam at the end of the course.  Why to I want to do a course as quickly as possible?  Well my main course for next year will be The Computing Project M450 and I want to give this my full attention without any interruptions from any other courses.

ref: Open mathematics
ref: The Computing project

A Weekend Off

Had a weekend off from OU studies this last weekend as we were at Donington for the British round of the MotoGP. Had a thoroughly good time even though Valentino didn't get on the podium due to his tyres deteriorating during the race as the track got drier.

Windows Live Writer Test

This is an initial test to see how Windows Live Writer performs.  Just downloaded it from http://get.live.com/betas/writer_betas

M253: Final Result

According to my student home page the results for M253 are supposed to be released on Friday 22nd June, yet at 4pm this afternoon (20.Jun) the results were released two days early.

I've PASSED!!!!!!

No more worrying that I might have to take this damned course again. Now I only have 5 courses left, including M263 (awaiting result) and M359 (currently doing), until I get my degree.

OU: Update

Well it’s been just over a month since my last blog entry, so I thought I had better give an update on what has happened recently.

The reason for the large gap between entries has been due to me revising for the M263 exam, which took place on Monday (11.Jun). The exam was split into 2 parts, with part 1 being 14 short questions and part 2 being a choice of 2 of 4 long questions. Part 1 seemed to sail-by and until I hit question 13 I thought that I would have plenty of time for the long questions. But question 13 was to do with Proof, and this particular subject has been the only one in the course that I have not been able to get to grips with. After making several failed attempts at answering the question I thought I had better move on, and it was at this point I realised that I only had 70mins left to complete part 2. No worry that’s the amount of time the course team reckoned that we should take to answer part 2. Yet there are 4 questions, each taking up an A4 sheet, to read through before choosing which 2 to do. I dived straight into the database question, and got that completed in 35mins, although I missed part b because it wasn’t database related. I then started the second long question, and with out reading any of the other questions I went for the one that contained some programming. Managed to get the 2 implementations completed (a standard function and a recursive function), albeit I was running out of time fast and my hand writing was getting sloppier and sloppier. Whilst the papers were being collected I managed to top up points to the parts of questions that I had missed and unfortunately even if I get all my answered questions correct I will be just under the 85% needed for a distinct, so therefore I am now hoping for a grade 2.

Prior to the exam I had the final TMA for M263 to complete, which did slow down my M263 revision a bit, but it was worth it as I managed to get 85% even though I didn’t complete it all due to the Proof questions.

With regards to M359, I basically had put this on hold except for completing TMA02 (got a mind-blowing 100%), attending 2 evening tutorials and arranging a self-help group meeting (30.Jun). Now I have to get back into M359, but at least I can give it 100% of my time as opposed to having to split the time between both M359 and M263.

Yesterday I found out that I should get my final result for M253 on Friday 22.Jun. It will be nice to finally find out what I got, which is hopefully a pass.

Apart from a busy month OU wise, as a birthday treat for my wife, we went to Le Mans for the day on the 20.May for the French round of the MotoGP. Even though it rained during the main race and took us 3:30hrs to get out of Le Mans, we had a very enjoyable day.

M263: Unit 14 - Brick Wall!!!

Well it's finally happened. I just don't get unit 14. I have tried working my way through questions 4, 5 and 6, by following examples in the course text and get about halfway through answering the question when bang I hit a brick wall. It looks like I will for the first time ever not be sending in a complete TMA. What is doubly frustrating is this is the first section in any course text for any course that I have not fully comprehended.

M359: A Lack Of Response!

Having just started Block 3 “The database language SQL” I am really enjoying M359. Yet there is one aspect that is really frustrating and that is the lack of response within the M359 FirstClass conferences from OU staff (i.e. the course team, tutors and conference moderators). A number of messages have been posted from students where a response from the OU staff would have helped a lot but none has appeared.

For example:

1. There is a query concerning Q1 of TMA02 dating back to 08.Apr, and yet no response has been supplied from the OU staff;
2. I posted a message on the 17.Apr asking “How comparable is section 5 (Normal forms) of block 2 with what is taught for M263 unit 11 (Databases) section 4 (Normal forms)?”. Yet again no response from the OU staff;
3. Yesterday I posted a question, “For M263 if we want to say that B does not determine A we write it as B /~> A. Is there an equivalent in M359?”. I am not going to hold my breath.

Although this is a level 3 course and we are expected to do a lot of thinking for ourselves, this is the first presentation of M359 and for some of the students this is their first OU course. Therefore I am finding the lack of response very poor.

Slow-Mo Man

Greg Billingham is running the London Marathon, for Children with Leukaemia, in slow motion and has just gone passed the office where I work. His plan is to complete the marathon by noon on Sunday 29th April.



ref: Greg Billingham
ref: CHILDREN with LEUKAEMIA
ref: BBC News Report
ref: BBC News - Watch

OU: M450

A description for M450 “The Computer Project”, the replacement for The M301 Project (TM421), The M358 Project (TM422) and The M360 Project (TM427), is now available. At present I am planning to do this course next year.

ref: The Computing project

M359: TMA01 Result

Got my result back this evening for M359 TMA01. 98% and I am really pleased especially as I thought that I would loose a substantial amount of marks for question 1 at least.

I have made a start on TMA02 and managed to completed question 1.

By the way I forgot to mention that a couple of weeks ago I received "Block 3 The database language SQL" in the post. The pdf version does not appear to be available for download yet.

M263: TMA03 Result

Got my result back yesterday for M263 TMA03. 97% and I am well chuffed, especially as this was one of the most taxing TMA's that I have had to do.

M253: Soul Destroyer

M253: “Team Working in Distributed Environments” is a 10 point level 2 course costing £260.

OU Summary
“M253 gives you an understanding of the issues and processes involved in planning and carrying out a team-based, problem-solving project where team members are not co-located: a situation that is becoming more common in the electronic age. You will gain practical experience in team working on a case study, which will be developed through several phases. You will be able to develop: your skills in analysis, design and evaluation; your ability to reflect critically on the processes and outcomes involved; and your team-working skills. You will work remotely, communicating with your tutor and collaborating with other team members electronically.”

What this summary does not tell you is that…

1. This course does not reflect a majority of cases where you will find yourself working in a project team;
2. You are reliant upon your other team members. Without them you run the risk of failing the course;
3. You have to stick to the course schedule. You can not get a head;
4. The teams tend to be run on a democratic basis with each member taking it in turn to be for example project leader. Can you imagine participating in a real life project where the team leader changed every 3 – 4 weeks?
5. The supplied materials are minimal, both printed and electronic, and comprise primarily of 21 resource sheets (in the form of downloadable pdf files) of up to 10 pages per booklet;
6. For those who have not studied an OU course that introduces you to system development (i.e. the former M206 or M301) or worked in a system development role, some of the concepts can be difficult and time consuming to grasp;
7. Communication between team members is limited to FirstClass conference areas, e-mail and FirstClass online messaging. There is no form of verbal communication available;
8. M253 is extremely time-consuming. You will end up spending more time on this course then you will on a majority of others.

I started M253 with a lot of enthusiasm but as the course progressed I found myself having to keep motivating myself to keep going, and towards the end I was getting quiet depressed, continuously looking for the “light at the end of the tunnel” when the course would be finished.

Is the course good value for money? No!
Is the course worth 10 points? No! Not for the amount of effort required.
Would I recommend M253? No! Unless it is mandatory for your degree.

So to sum up:

DO NOT DO M253 UNLESS YOU HAVE TO!!!

ref: Team Working in Distributed Environments

OU: and relax....

Yes I know that it has been a while since my last posting but I have just had a hectic 3 weeks. I have had to submit the ECA for M253 (26.Mar), TMA03 for M263 (02.Apr) and TMA01 for M359 (04.Apr). Oh the joys of doing 3 courses at the same time. Fortunately I have now finished M253, thank god, so I will hopefully not be in the same situation again especially as it did get a bit stressful. Of the 3 I enjoyed the M263 one the most, even though it was the hardest and required a lot of thought. The M359 TMA was ok except for question 1 which was a 600 word summary on how DBMS’s implement the enduring issues in data management. And what can be said for the M253 ECA? Only one word… HORRID!!!

My next set of TMA’s are…
M263 TMA04 (cut-off: Thursday 24.May)
M359 TMA02 (cut-off: Wednesday 16.May)

For Fans of Heroes

M263: A Wasted Hour!

On Thursday I scribbled down some notes on how to solve one of the questions for M263 TMA03, yet I soon discovered that my notes were not as good as I thought. Why? Well on Friday I tried to type up my notes but hit a problem, I could not resolve one item of reasoning which meant that the remainder of the question wouldn’t work out. I spent an hour searching through Unit 10 and the course handbook, but to no avail. It was then that I remembered that the solution to resolving this particular item was actually in the TMA, and everything else then fell into place. To say that I was annoyed with myself is an understatement. In future I must make my scribbled notes a lot clearer.

M263: Schedule Blown to Bits!

As I have previously written I have been managing to keep to my planned schedule for M263. But Block 3, units 9 – 12, has blown it all to bits!

After reading through the Block 3 units I realised that I didn’t fully understand the information, so have decided to re-read them plus spending extra time on the activities and exercises. This is proving worthwhile as I am now getting a far better understanding of the material and the TMA03 questions are now not as daunting as they first appeared.

M263: TMA02 Result

On Friday got the results back for TMA02. Managed to get 98%, but rather annoyed with myself as I lost a mark through missing out a small part of a question. For Q3.d I missed the part that said "It should also demonstrate that your implementation does not have side-effects" and this is doubly annoying as I had underlined the preceeding line about testing. In future I'll have to go over TMA's with a fine tooth comb and highlight any mark related points, before starting the TMA, so as not to miss them.

M359: Tutorial

Attended my first tutorial for M359 last night. It was at the University of Westminster from 7pm to 9pm. There were 3 tutors and 10 students in attendance.

The main topic of the evening was an overview of the course.

Apparently the course glossary should be available within the next couple of days.

Other points of interest where:

• Substitution is allowed for the course;
• No course materials will be allowed into the exam (unlike M263 were we can use the course handbook);
  
• When including SQL code within a TMA the output generated by the code should also be included;
• The OU has directed tutors to only mark the first version of a TMA that is submitted more than once. Therefore unless there are technical issues a TMA should only be submitted to the eTMA system once;
• According to one of the tutors every TMA that is submitted using the eTMA system is automatically checked for plagiarism using a system called copyCatch. Apparently copyCatch Campus was developed in co-operation with the OU. This is interesting as according to my the copy of the "eTMA Student Guide" there is a warning when submitting TMA's that says "Please be aware that the University may subject your work to a computerised check for plagiarism", it does not say that every TMA is checked. Will have to look out for the warning message the next time I submit a TMA to verify exactly what it says.
  

M359: Books

I have just purchased 2 books in the hope that they will aid in my studying of M359. They were recommended by one of the M359 tutors.

The Relational Database Dictionary
from amazon.co.uk














Database in Depth: The Relational Model for Practitioners
from amazon.co.uk

M359: Beta Testers

Not trying to be negative about M359 as I am so far enjoying the course, but...

TMA01 has finally been released 2 days later than originally scheduled! Still only 1 conference area available! Course website not complete yet! A delay in a number of additional documents!

Although this is the first presentation of M359 and one must expect a few teething troubles, I get the distinct impression that we are in fact BETA TESTING M359. If this is the case are we due some form of special consideration (such as discount on our next course)?

Sod's Law

Sod's Law isn't it! Got home last night only to discover that I had received a welcome letter from my M359 tutor.

M359: Missing!

M359 officially starts in 2 days time, Saturday 3rd February 2007, and yet there are still some items missing.

At present there is only 1 FirstClass conference area (“M359 07 Students”) available. Today the “Course team chair” posted a message saying:

“As the course progresses the forum will act as a 'virtual' meeting point for course related discussions with sub-forums for specific topics. This will also include a social area for more general chat. A moderator will be appointed in due course and will post a welcome message of their own when they take responsibility.”

Yet for all my previous courses the various FirstClass conference areas such as “tutor group”, “TMA discussion” and “general chat” have been made available from onset.

Normally by now I would have received some form of communication from my allocated tutor in the form of a welcome note giving his / her details, a brief explanation of the course expectations and hoping that I will enjoy the course. So far I have not heard anything, not an e-mail or snail-mail.

I appreciate that this is the first presentation of M359, but some of the aspects of this course (FirstClass conference area and tutor communications) are the same as those for any of the other OU computing courses I have participated in. So why haven’t they been implemented yet?

Microsoft - BlueJ Patent Update

It appears that Microsoft are dropping their patent application for "Object Test Bench". See here Movement - The Latest on The Microsoft Patent Application. This is most excellent news!

Bad News: Microsoft Applies for a Patent

Although I use Microsoft product quiet extensively I have never entered into the Windows vs Linux vs OSX war as I believe each OS has its own merits, and I most certainly have never used the term Micro$oft. Well until now.

Why? Because Micro$oft could potentially stop the development and distribution of BlueJ.

BlueJ is a fantastic IDE for the teaching of object-oriented programming using Java and is used extensively by educational establishments, including the OU (see M255). One of its key benefits is that enables you to create instances of objects, examine these instances and invoke methods on them, without having to run the whole program that is being developed.

Micro$oft has incorporated into Visual Studio a feature called “Object Test Bench” which appears to be a straight BlueJ copy, and Micro$oft have now made a patent application for “Object Test Bench”.

For the full story see here Microsoft patents BlueJ

And for a follow-up see here More on the Microsoft / BlueJ patent case

M359: Missing Materials

According to the course news there are some materials missing from the supplied course CD, due to timing issues. The missing materials are 5 pdf's and can be found on the course website via the "copies of CD-ROM files" section.

M359: Course Materials Received

Received the first set (there are 3 sets in total with the other 2 being dispatched later) of course materials for M359 on Friday. This is what I received...

• 2 x block books
• Block 1 - Databases in context
  
• Block 2 - Introducing relational theory
  
• M359 Course Guide
• M359 Software Guide
• Using the Electronic TMA System - A Student Guide
• Course News
• M359 Software CD
• Database Cards Pack
• M359 Errata 1 - Block 1 Replacement Pages

Missing was (apparently due to dispatch issues)...

• Online Application CD-Rom v.8

The supplied errata replaces pages 14-17 of Block 1 as they were incorrectly printed during production.

The M359 software is easy to install and I have not experienced any problems with it after installing it onto 2 desktop PC's and a laptop.

Both the FirstClass conferences (well 1 conference area so far) and the course website are now accessible as well.

M359: Course Materials

Getting a bit nervous as I haven't as yet received any course materials and M359 is supposed to start on 3rd Feb. With this in mind I have just contacted the OU's materials dispatch centre and they informed me that there has been a delay in them receiving the materials over the Christmas period. They reckon that the materials will be dispatched by Thursday of this week (18.Jan.07) and that I should then receive them within the next 5 working days. Lets wait and see!

OU: Dip Comp (Open)

I have just received a letter from the OU confirming that I have passed the "Diploma in Computing". So now apart from being able to put "Cert IT & Comp (Open)" after my name I can now also put "Dip Comp (Open)" as well.

ref: Certificate in Information Technology and Computing
ref: Diploma in Computing

Big Brother!

[ref: Watchful Eyes]