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[jimdixon]

Can anyone explain what it is like to work as a permanent, full-time member of academic staff at the OU as compared with other UK universities?  The copious info on the OU website is mostly directed at prospective students and associate lecturers.  Do lecturers mainly supervise the running of the modules and the work of ALs, or do they interact with students?

Most importantly, would one generally be expected to relocate to Milton Keynes, or is it possible to work mainly from home elsewhere in the UK and make regular trips to MK?  If commuting is OK, how many days a week would one be expected to spend in MK during term?  The one OU professor I know of does not live very near MK.  And Google found another who apparently commutes from Spain.

[theblondeassassin]

I think academics work on the development of courses, and with tutors, MAY work with summer schools, and do research (like anyone else).

I wasn't on their faculty but worked closely with them for a couple of years, and went up there a lot. Some of what I learned about developing "tutorials in print" has been fantastically useful for face-to-face classes, especially designing new courses / degrees / etc.

Working at the OU seemed kind of weird to me, because of the lack of students on campus, but it would probably really suit some people. The faculty seemed happy though.

MK is not too bad (it has an IKEA!) but a big advantage is it's halfway between Oxford and Cambridge, so you could commute from most anywhere in the middle of England (the diamond of London-Oxford-Cambridge-further north).

[jimdixon]

Thanks for the info.  It's hard to imagine what a workday would be like without meeting students.

As for the location, it's not that MK is objectionable, just that it would not be easy for me to move from where I live at the moment (which is about 3 hours away from MK).

[theblondeassassin]

Come to think of it, the OU seemed a lot like any other campus when the students go away for the summer.
Only they never really come back.

A lot of UK academics seem to rely on some sort of pied-a-terre (I commuted weekly with a bedsit where I was working a couple of jobs ago) and a short but intense work week during term, especially if house prices or moving schools are constraints.

I have colleagues who live in Scotland, California, Turkey, Papua New Guinea, etc., so you could probably manage a three-hour commute to MK, but it would depend on the expectations of your particular academic work group.

[quiltyrendfou]

I have a related question and wanted to resurrect this thread.  Does anyone know if the Open University has normal term times -- i.e. do they have a summer break of several months like traditional universities?

[wegie]

They don't exactly have normal terms. Originally, most OU 60 credit courses started in February and ran through to about November. They've recently changed this model, so that most courses now start in October or November and run through to about June, much more in line with standard academic terms -- this is mainly as a result of the fact that they're now picking up many more "traditional" students, who like to start in October rather than waiting until February.

However, although the courses (most of which are taught by the associate tutors, not the permanent academic staff) now end at the usual time, the summer schools are still bang in the middle of the summer.

[scotia]

I have a related question and wanted to resurrect this thread.  Does anyone know if the Open University has normal term times -- i.e. do they have a summer break of several months like traditional universities?

Summer break of several months like traditional universities? Which traditional universities are those? What with exam boards in June, graduations in July, resits in August and Masters students' dissertations to supervise between May and September (not to mention postgraduate summer schools, which I fortunately am not involved in at the moment, but many of my colleagues are) I get really frustrated with people who assume that I am getting several months' "break" through the summer. You are aware that UK academics work 12 month contracts?

[totoro]

You are aware that UK academics work 12 month contracts?

How much vacation time are you formally given? In Australia it's officially 4 weeks (pretty much every job in Australia has the same official vacation time). I once worked at University of York but that was a long time ago.

[scotia]

You are aware that UK academics work 12 month contracts?

How much vacation time are you formally given? In Australia it's officially 4 weeks (pretty much every job in Australia has the same official vacation time). I once worked at University of York but that was a long time ago.

There are variations between universities, but I think at my current place it is 25 days, plus statutory holidays (we work many of the UK Bank Holidays ), plus the period between Christmas and New Year, which is a compulsory university shutdown. This year I did manage to use all of the holidays owing from the previous year - we can carry them over until March of the following year - before they expired, but in my first year that was certainly not true (which is probably why the university was so generous with compassionate leave when my mother died a few days after they expired).

I once had a very strange contract that merely said "reasonable holidays" without defining what that was. I found that psychologically much more difficult than having a specified number of days (particularly when I first joined as a probationer lecturer and worried that the authorities would think I was being lazy by taking time off).

[wegie]

Like Scotia said, it varies. My last place was pretty much the same as Scotia's -- 36 days in total spread between the 8 bank holidays (with time off in lieu if you had to work any of the Monday ones), three days between Christmas and New Year (although the university was closed, if you wanted to go in and use your office and had access to your building, you could work if you were on an "hours at the discretion of you HoD" contract) and 25 days that you could in theory take at any time . . . although they could get a bit twitchy if you wanted to use more than 20 in one go.

[science_expat]

Interesting.

At my place academic staff don't have any set number of days nor a leave card.

[qrypt]

My situation is also like Scotia's.  I never even come close to using all of my allotted days.  This year, however, I have told my MSc thesis student that he'll need to have a draft ready for me by late July if he wants comments at a point when they'll be usable to him.

I've always been grateful not to have a summer postgrad thing in my faculty. 

[expatinuk]

I've never been able to take the full amount of leave. And yes, it really is beginning to bug the crap out of me.

[wegie]

I managed it precisely once. That was when we got married in 2004 and went on a nice, long honeymoon *and* took a holiday later in the summer. Never before or since.

[drspouse]

I think I took all my annual leave last year but I used it to do my media fellowship. The arrangement was my department would match any annual leave I took for that.  I also had 5 days leave for an actual holiday.

This year I've taken 4 days so far apart from statutory days, and I'm taking 14 more over the summer. We get 40 days and with the bank holidays I'll still have 8 more days to take, and I don't see when - unless I take a lot of random 4 day weeks!