TMA'S

Hi, what happens if don't take part in tutor forums and chose not to submit TMA assignment. I just wanted to study and take the final exam. My reason's been this is not the course I wanted to do, but a short cut into the physical uni. Please, a polite answer will be appreciated. Thanks

Reply 1

Fwd

Tutor forums are voluntary, in my experience no one uses them anyway.

TMAs are graded, and go towards your final grade.

Not only that, but they further educate you on the subject so you have a better chance of passing your exams. It's also a chance for your tutor/s to give you feedback and help you in areas you're struggling on.

If you don't submit TMAs, you fail them, and will probably fail your module altogether / get an awfully low mark.

I don't think the fact you failed all your TMAs is going to look good on your application to a brick uni haha

Edit: Also, your tutor is going to be so confused as to why you are not completing TMAs. This will cause a lot of hassle and your reason might not seem good enough to them or the head of department.

(edited 4 years ago)

Open University

Milton Keynes

Reply 2

SuperCat007

Original post by Will1010

As the other poster said it could be to your detriment to not take the TMA's. You need to find out how the course is assessed as for some courses the TMA scores make up part of your final grade so by not doing them you won't be able to achieve top marks. Same with the forums, most forums are useless but check the TMA's and the course as some have forum activities which count towards your final grade so you could be missing out by not taking part. The OU were leaning more towards TMA's being compulsory, in that even if they didn't count towards the final exam you had to achieve 40% across all TMA's to be allowed to sit the exam. By not submitting you could ruin your chances of being able to finish the module at all.

By completing the TMA's it will really help your understanding of the course and also help you develop a relationship with your tutor so that if you require help with exam revision they will be more inclined to help you. Sometimes if you are on a grade boundary for your final exam your OCAS (overall continuous assessment score) can be used to help determine your final grade, having a high OCAS can push you into the grade boundary above, a low one will obviously drop you below.

In the end it is up to you, there isn't really a short cut into uni. But unless the new uni just wants to see that you have studied the course and don't care about your grade then you could be harming your chances by not participating fully and giving yourself the best opportunity to do well on this course.