Handy tools for your degree classification calculation process

Beside the documentation that The OU provides I have found very useful the following tools available on the Internet.

Calculator
http://cleveret.net

I find it very useful to make module result combinations and to know which is the worst and best case scenario for me, etc. It contains useful Manchester google maps for the metrolink as well.

Handy PDF Table
http://open.wibble.to/hons_class_table.pdf

I find it very helpful as being so graphical it helps to see the relationships between the possible combinations very fast, there are a lot of more resources in the main page, they are mainly for old modules but can have some use for someone.

Be aware that some degrees have some modules that mandatorily will appear as part of your degree calculation and others that even being at level 2 or 3 will not count at all for it.

Hope you find it as helpful as I did.

NOTE: These tools are related with the way The OU degree classification calculation is done and not for other Universities, they are not developed by The Open University else by former or current pupils and of course you can only take it as an approximation to the degree you can expect. No exact science here.

UK Educational system questions

Being a foreigner means sometimes that one doesn't know all the small things around something that is understood as common knowledge.

In my case, even when I'm studying with The OU since 2009 and living in the UK since 2007 I doubt sometimes that what I assume is exactly how things are, one example of this are the Diplomas I have chosen to claim.

I've chosen to claim D12 last year because I thought it would be good to have it (career relevance) - even when my professionalism and knowledge is not in doubt at all at work - but I wasn't sure when I did claim it that a Diploma like D12 would count after having claimed B29, as it will probably be superseded by it then.

Can you do something with D12 once you have B29 under your belt? It would be relevant to mention it in a CV? If so, why?

With E66 I have understood that I could go to another university and do a top-up year with it but the question is:

Once I have claimed E66 next July, can I go to another UK University at the same time I'm studying B29 with The OU and top it up there or do I need to wait until I finish my B29 studies with The OU to go to another University to top-up E66?

3, 2, 1...blog

I'm studying for a BSc (Honours) Computing with The Open University that I hope (pray, count the minutes) to have asap.

My intention doing this blog is to be used to write regularly (at least when something I find interesting for me happens).

Ideally that will help me to get used to be ready for the mandatory blog in TM470 (a module I will start in Feb. 2013 or Feb. 2014).

I'm the kind of person that writes lots of text when I start to write a post or email, explaining everything in detail so I need to practice writing short comments as a way to train me for the (ideally) daily posts that the project will demand.

Let's see how it goes.