Open University degrees same as normal university degrees?

The title basically says it all.
i seen other threads answer this but im not fully convinced that the degrees from an open uni is equal to one for a nomal uni.

i heard that it is possible to transfer from OU to a normall uni, this made me think that it might be a legit degree (btw im not trying to say it is a fake degree) but im still not fully convinced.
let say you are studying math at OU, is it possible to shape your modules to be like one from a notmal university so you can transfer to that uni like in the second year. if yes it will persuade me alot.

also the ucas code for OU degrees are so soooo different from normal universities.
e.g the ucas code for math at OU is Q31 whearas normal universites have g100 or g101 to say its a masters or g1n4 to say it is combined with another a subject but more or less they or the same but the one from OU is like totally different. why is that?

The title basically says it all.
i seen other threads answer this but im not fully convinced that the degrees from an open uni is equal to one for a nomal uni.

i heard that it is possible to transfer from OU to a normall uni, this made me think that it might be a legit degree (btw im not trying to say it is a fake degree) but im still not fully convinced.
let say you are studying math at OU, is it possible to shape your modules to be like one from a notmal university so you can transfer to that uni like in the second year. if yes it will persuade me alot.

also the ucas code for OU degrees are so soooo different from normal universities.
e.g the ucas code for math at OU is Q31 whearas normal universites have g100 or g101 to say its a masters or g1n4 to say it is combined with another a subject but more or less they or the same but the one from OU is like totally different. why is that?

The ucas code at the OU is G100 though
http://search.ucas.com/course/summary/720501/mathematics?Vac=1&AvailableIn=2017&ProviderQuery=The%20Open%20University%2C%20&AcpId=1862&IsFeatherProcessed=True&page=4&providerids=1862&flt9=1&MaxResults=1000&ret=results

Your question is if an OU degree, which is obtained after 360 credits, is the same as a brick and mortar degree, also obtained after 360 credits. Then the argument is made that credits might not transfer from one to the other at equal measure, with the postulate being that since the total number of credits are the same, they must somehow be equal.

This is not the case. The brick and mortar 360 covers information from A-level completion to degree completion. The OU 360 covers information from how to follow someone on Twitter to degree completion. (I wish I were joking about that.)

The end point for the two degrees is the same. But because the starting points are so vastly different, OU students A) must cover more ground on each stage, and B) will be expected to have less knowledge than conventional university students at the beginning of each stage, by an increasingly narrow gap.

The two end degrees are equivalent (I hesitate to say equal as there are many differences), but that doesn't remotely imply that the two programmes are.

(There's also been an assumption that the OU course code is the same thing as the UCAS course code.)

Haha, this has to be one of the stupidest threads I have ever read.

Yes, it's a real degree (accredited by many bodies and has an external examiner for each and every module to ensure a standard of learning set by the governing body). Yes the OU starts at a different place due to lack of A-level entrance requirements which need to be made up during the first year, this doesn't make it easier overall just that more ground needs to be covered during the entire degree. Yes, OU graduates go onto masters and PhD studies like any other University (I have been accepted to all 4 masters programmes I have applied to for this fall). Yes, the degrees finish at the same place for all but the top 3-4 schools in the UK due to many undergrads taking graduate courses in their final semesters at the top places but for any Uni outside the top 3-4 (Manchester is not top 3-4) the end point is near identical so yes an OU maths grad and a Manchester maths grad will have a very even level of knowledge.

Consider this, even by the end of your bachelors in maths no matter which school you attend you are still barely studying early 19th/20th century mathematics and nowhere near the research frontier. Every mathematics undergrad in the world studies the exact same sequences from pretty much the same standard textbooks and taught in very similar ways. At the OU you gain a solid grounding in analysis, linear algebra, advanced calculus, intro to PDE's, abstract algebra and a few other electives same as anywhere else. The standard curriculum is standard for a reason across programmes, it forms the basis needed for graduate study.

There are OU maths graduates pursuing further studies at institutions around the world including Ivy's in the US, Oxbridge ect. Work hard, get a first and be noticeable enough in your final year to get a good letter or two of recommendation and you have a shot at pretty much anywhere. Not only this but the OU has an extremely competent mathematics research department that punches way above it's weight in terms of size and that boasts two fellows of the American Mathematical Society and multiple winners of the Whitehead prize (do you think these quite famous mathematicians would work for a school that was "fake"?) in addition to other acclaims.

That's all I am going to say on this thread, I can't believe any of this even needs to be said as distance learning has become ubiquitous in the past decade. While it's a different way to study it is no better or no worse to being on-campus and this is why we have external academic bodies overseeing programmes as external examiners in order to maintain credibility and compliance.

okay, i didnt mean to sound dumb. its just i just heard of OU like 1 or 2 weeks ago and to me it was confusing the fact that you need few to none qualification to be accepted, the fact that it is not in any university league table and you didnt go through ucac o jon. i was just new to this.
Thank you for clearing few misconceptions i had. btw you know how you said that naybody with even no qualification can join, like how would they be taught, seeing that everybody would start at different level, like would the degree take longer for those other people because they have to get up to scratch, just wondering.

But let say a person from mnachester university studied the same course, would you say they would have equal knowledge on that subject at the end of the degree.

Most institutions will agree that an Open University Cert.HE is not on par with those from conventional universities. This is why it is rare to accept a first year OU student into a second year programme somewhere else.

A lot of incorrect assumptions are being made. One has been that if the final degree of two three-year institutions are equivalent, then so must each of the three years. (This is not the case as the starting points are different.) One has been that UCAS and OU course codes were the same thing. One has been that an OU degree takes four years. One was that all universities break down mathematical concepts in the same manner.

Now there's an assumption that education at conventional universities occurs at a linear rate for each of the three years. (Ask any third year student how much they miss their first year.) There's another that the first year of the OU brings students up to A-level range. (There's already a distance learning alternative to A-levels called the National Extension College, it was set up as a pilot programme for the OU, and it's much cheaper. The OU starts at the same place as the NEC, and goes much quicker.)

To answer your question (which makes more assumptions) about the information in B1, some of it is learned by OU students at Stage 1, and some at Stage 2. The information in B2 is learned some in Stage 2, and some in Stage 3. The information in B3 is learned in Stage 3. All three years cover a higher percentage of the degree than at a conventional university. Imagine that the degree is 100%. Pretending that the learning is linear, which it's not, OU students would learn an average 33% of their degree each year. Conventional students would have some portion, which we'll arbitrarily pretend is 25% just because having any number to illustrate makes it easier to understand, and because it makes the maths easy, already under their belt due to A-levels. They'd then cover only an average of 25% of their degree each year.

Please don't draw the numbers out to make more of a point of them. They're arbitrary and wrong, and only there to help wrap minds around it. A first year OU student will gain some knowledge beyond A-level, however, and be far behind starting the second year at a conventional university. A second year student will gain some knowledge beyond a first year student at a conventional university, but be a little behind starting the third year at a conventional university. By the end of the third year, the information they have accumulated in either recognised institution has been evaluated by accreditation bodies to have conferred the appropriate amount of knowledge for a degree.

It's your choice whether you trust the accreditation bodies or not, but that's all it really comes down to.

A degree is a degree - in many ways the one at the OU is harder because you are "on your own" so to speak.

You could say the same thing about a degree from London Met - is it worth as much as a degree from Bristol or Manchester. I have a degree from Birkbeck - the evening university - it is still University of London and it has got me jobs without any problem

I have to admit that I'm a bit skeptical that the endpoint of an OU degree could match a brick Uni.

For the sake of example, I'll assume I'll study Computing & IT full time (because I've investigated this course closely) and will label OU years as O1, O2, O3 and typical brick uni years as B1, B2, B3.

From what I can see, O1 starts somewhere around GCSE and finishes somewhere around A level. Meanwhile brick uni students are already at this level going into B1 (A-levels could be seen as B0) and so B1 is certainly beyond O1. I don't think that part is controversial.

So when do OU students learn the full material that is taught in B1? If they learn it in O2, then there is less time for more advanced content and so presumably O2 ends at a lower level than B2. So when do they make that up and learn the rest of the B2 content? If it's O3, then there would seem to be no time left to cover everything that would be done in B3, and they must finish the degree with less knowledge than a similarly named course at brick uni. Either that, or O2&O3 are 33-50% faster paced and more difficult than B2&B3 respectively- which honestly seems unlikely.

I can't shake the feeling that it would be better if the OU required a fourth starting year, O0 if you will. An alternative to A-levels for people (myself included) who lack them. People with A-level-ish quals (or possibly people who can test out of the need for them, not sure how that would work) could skip to O1, same as now- except O1 could be made comparable to B1.

I'm still considering an OU degree but I'm not yet convinced that I'll be able to look a brick uni degree holder in the eye and tell them my degree is equivalent to theirs.

If nothing else, it seems undeniable that a Cert.HE from the OU represents much less work than a brick Cert.HE.

So you are saying that the starting point of the degrees are different but the end point is the same. okay that would explain a full time degree takes four years in OU.

But let say a person from mnachester university studied the same course, would you say they would have equal knowledge on that subject at the end of the degree.a

Like when i seen the moduals on OU website for a course i see most of their modual credits are worth like 60; means you do like 6-10 moduals in your entire degree whearas normal universities do like 18-20. So is it okay for me to say that OU go in certain depth into subject but dont do the much of the subject. i basically mean let say for a math degree there are type of mathematics e.g. calculus, mechanics, stats etc. let say normal universities go in depth into these types of modules but OU go more in depth but do less of them modules. so like OU go in depth of mechanics and stats like 75% but thats the only module they do and normal universities do a wide viority of math but only go in depth like 50%.
sorry if this makes know sense. i just want to know the basis of OU.

I have extensively spoken to advisors from the Open University regarding transferring to a brick University at the end of my BA Literature (Hons). Obviously, they told me to contact the institutions that I wanted to study at for an MA.

Keele: The OU degree is fine for the MA Literature course providing it is a 2:1.
The University of Leeds: The OU degree is fine for the MA Literature course providing it is a 2:1.
The University of Chester: The OU degree is fine for the MA course providing it is a 2:2 (I thought the 2:2 was low but that is what they told me :s)
Edge Hill University: The OU degree is fine providing it is at a 2:1 for the PGCE and the MA English.
DeMonfort University: Welcomed a member of TSR recently with a 2:1 in Language and Literature with open arms.

I have contacted a number of other institutions (Liverpool, Manchester, Durham, and York) but the email was sent yesterday so I am not exactly expecting a response soon

Just for some clarification, the OU is an established degree awarding body. It has been around since 1969 and has been a pioneer of providing distance education. Transfering to a brick university midway through the degree is not what the OU is intended for. The credits are different because the OU assumes that students have no prior knowledge of the subject they are studying thus provide a basis of foundation.Year 2 and 3 are the years that begin to shape your degree classification and overall final grade. Attempting to transfer to a brick uni with OU first year credits is pointless because the OU at that point is attempting to get you up to speed.

If you want to use the OU to get to a Brick uni then I suggest that you do something similar to what I am going to do. I intend on finishing the BA English Literature (Hons) course providing me with a degree that I can use to enter a local uni at a postgraduate level.

Tl;dr: Transfering midway through the degree is pointless. If you want to go to a brick uni you should probably apply to a brick uni or finish a BA with the OU and then transfer to a brick uni to complete a postgraduate qualification.