Hi,
Anyone familiar with the Open University U.K.? There’s a brick-and-mortar campus in Milton Keynes, England (noted also for Green Day’s awesome Bullet in a Bible tour!), but has recently become well-regarded for its distance learning environment and the courses offered. Apparently one can obtain an accredited degree from its pioneering form of classes that use the Open CourseWare interface (hence the name “Open” University).
If anyone’s familiar with OU and can offer some feedback I’d appreciate it. I’m looking into a lot of options regarding what I want to study and how I want to go about it, and have thought of taking a few courses from here. Reviews and comments are welcome – there’s a Wikipedia article [url=<a href=“https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Open_University]here[/url”>https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Open_University]here[/url</a>] and its official site [url=<a href=“http://www.open.ac.uk/]here[/url”>http://www.open.ac.uk/]here[/url</a>].
Thanks in advance 
Hello there,
I’m a graduate of the open university, BSc (Hons) Technology. The OU was set up just over 40 years ago and it has always been a distance learning university, initially using late night TV broadcasts on the BBC as well as books for teaching.
What really makes it different and why it is called Open is that you need NO traditional qualifications to sign up for any of the courses. This means a number of things, firstly the course material and the support that you get are second to none, really professional and well put together, secondly most course are multimodal, delivered via video, online, traditional books and an active online community.
OU courses were traditionally taken part time, and you could take as long as you liked to complete the degree. The quickest you can take a OU degree part time is 6 years. If you do the course full time then it is 3 years. Most courses have an exam at the end of the year and if you are not based in the UK then you can take them at british embassay.
The price of the courses are a more expensive if you are international.
Another option worth looking at (but you do need to satisfy the entry requirements) is the University of London International program. Colleges within the University of London act as leads for individual programs. So The London School of Economics is the lead for a number of degrees.
There is nowhere near the level of support that you would get with the OU but this is a cheaper option if you study by yourself and are very motivated!
Good luck
Thanks for your response. Always good to be aware of different options for one’s education!