You’ll be asked to complete pieces of work that will contribute towards the completion of your course. Your course calendar will include the dates by which you need to submit assignments. You can use this framework to plan your studies at times that suit you and fit in with your commitments.
What sort of assessment and exams will there be?
Courses typically contain at least two types of assessment:
- continuous assessment, usually made up of assignments you complete during the course
- an examinable component: an examination or a project at the end of the course
Continuous assessment
Your continuous assessment is commonly made up of:
- Tutor-marked assignments (TMAs) – these are usually essay or short-answer questions, although some courses also require extended essays, dissertations or projects, or oral assignments submitted on tape. You send your TMA to your tutor for comment.
- Computer-marked assignments (CMAs) or interactive CMAs (iCMAs) – these are made up of a series of questions and you choose the answers from a given selection. Currently only a few courses have CMAs.
Completing assignments helps you to consolidate and use what you have learned. Most assignments are marked and count towards your overall grade for the course. The course description will tell you how many assignments the course has.
Examinable components
The examinable component may be an examination, it may be a piece of work such as a dissertation, project or portfolio, or it may include both an examination and other work. It may be written or oral.
Examinations - the examinable component for most courses consists of a hand-written examination, usually lasting three hours. The question paper will almost always be an ‘unseen’ one – you won’t see it before the examination, but you’ll receive a specimen paper with your course materials so that you can familiarise yourself with the appearance of the question paper, what you’ll be asked to do and the kind of questions you’re likely to find.
All diploma language courses have both a written and an oral examination. For some courses you may be able to buy copies of past examination papers from the Open University Students Association (OUSA).
Other examined work - if your course requires you to submit a piece of examined work in place of, or as well as, an examination, it will have a published cut-off date by which it must reach the University. It’s likely to be a project, a report, a portfolio or an end-of-module assessment (EMA). You’ll be told the arrangements for submitting it, and a booklet, Information for students submitting examinable work, will be sent to you four to six weeks before your submission date.
If your course requires you to submit your work electronically, you will instead receive an email reminding you of the cut-off date and giving you the weblink to the booklet. You should read the booklet carefully: it tells you how to submit your work, what to do if special circumstances have affected it, and how to ask permission to submit late. You should note that your tutor does not have the authority to allow a submission after the cut-off date.
Certificate language courses – for most certificate language courses the examinable component consists of a written end-of-module assessment (EMA01) and a speaking end-of-module assessment (EMA02). The speaking assessment usually takes place at a tutorial session towards the end of the course. Specific arrangements for each course are detailed in the booklet Information for certificate language courses which will be sent to you about six weeks before your submission date.
The examinable component of Level 1 language courses consists of an end-of-module oral assessment at a tutorial session and a written end-of-module assessment.
Most Level 2 and Level 3 language courses have an oral as well as a written examination.
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