Onboard
Celebrity or not, late pregnancy loss is a very public bereavement
Whether a celebrity or not, late pregnancy loss is a very public bereavement as women are left bereft of both bump and baby. Sam Murphy, from the OU’s Faculty of Social Health Care, reflects following Amanda Holden’s sad news… The news at the weekend that Amanda Holden had suffered a stillbirth was particularly poignant as she had only just announced that she was pregnant a few weeks ago. Press reports have suggested that she delayed this...
Feeding back from OU senate meeting...
Dr Petrina Stevens, the graduate representative on OU senate, reports from the January meeting… The OU is still in the boxing ring, fighting for equality for part-time students, and believe me, it’s not pulling its punches. As the OU wants to ensure that part-time students are treated equally with full-time students in all four nations of the UK, it is constantly repeating the message within government circles. Whilst ministers mostly...
Alumni Senate rep wants your views
Dr Petrina Stevens is the alumni representative on OU Senate. Here she reports on the issues which will be covered in the next Senate meeting – student recruitment, student progression and The Browne Review - and asks for your views... Below are the main issues which will be covered in the next Senate meeting on Wednesday 26 January, issues which could affect us all. If you have any comments ahead of the meeting I’d really like to hear from you. You can...
Why I love Twitter...
Robyn Bateman... or should that be @robynbateman... on why she loves the social media tool Twitter... It told me Michael Jackson died before Sky News did, warned me to be aware of a sexual predator in my local area before BBC Look East did, and it made me more engaged with politics ahead of last year’s General Election than I have ever been. And it means I can publicly slate the contestants of [insert generic reality TV show here] at the same time as the rest of...
A Brave New World Service?
Alban Webb, a research fellow in the faculty of social sciences, was among speakers at a Commonwealth Journalists´ Association on ´BBC World Service: Death by a Thousand Cuts? He reprisesthe key points of his presentation for Platform... For nearly 80 years the BBC World Service has been broadcasting across the globe, representing Britain, facilitating global conversations, mediating cultures, building bridges and providing...
Citizen Science
A regular contributor to the Platform forums, ´Notrog´ makes the case for us all becoming citizen scientists... I think there is a tendency now that when the word science is mentioned, the image that is conjured up in most people’s minds is of huge, barely comprehensible projects such as the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, the human genome project and the like. There is a very human tendency for non-scientifically literate minds to go blank, or...
Report from the new graduate rep on OU senate
Dr Petrina Stevens is the new graduate representative on OU senate, which means she gets involved in the OU’s decision-making processes. Here she reports from her first meeting… As the new graduate representative on Senate, I must begin by thanking Veronica Summers for her contributions over the last four years. Having recently attended my first Senate, I now appreciate the work needed in keeping abreast of all the discussions and vast amount of...
Central London march is "the start of something really big"
The media got it wrong. It wasn´t just about revolting students, says Roger Walters, President of the OU University and College Union branch. Last Wednesday, 10 November, 52,000 students and staff in higher and further education marched through central London to deliver a clear message to politicians and the general public that universities and colleges are vital to the future of this country, and that cuts in funding will be a false...
Africa's In-Betweeners
Dr Karim considers the plight of East Africa´s Asian population. Dr Karim Murji describes an innovative attempt to involve young people in research. Karim Murji is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at The Open University. Please visit the Department of Sociology for more information on available studies and ongoing research. In The In-between World of Vikram Lall, M G Vassanji´s narrator observes that the Asians of Africa were an...
About Onboard
It’s hard to tell you about the bloggers here, because it’s going to be anyone and everyone. Well, within reason. It could be one of our OU academic experts on the banking bonuses debacle or how modern parents are influenced by the media; a student or alumni blogging about a drastic career change or a member of the Platform team getting up on their soapboax to rant about the national news headlines. The aim here is to offer you variety in tone, topic and take.
