Open Polytechnic

I will try to be objective about this college, although the overall impression: it's not worth your time and money.I've just finished studying Web development course here and here's my experience pros and cons:Pros:- Overall easy to enroll and start studying online. The whole course is fully online and can be taken anywhere. There are no exams (at least in my course), instead there are three assignment works for each paper.- Definitely hard to fail. You get 2 automatic extensions for each assignment. If your mark is below 50% you get a chance to redo. Assignment task is 90% covered by the course material.Cons:- Course materials are just plain text readings. You just have to read and read and read.- The material is mostly brief. If you really wand to get in depth of the subject then you have to google most of it.- Surprisingly lots of mistakes in the course materials. It seems that at some point the material was ok, but then it was updated and wasn't proof-read after updating. Some parts don't match together, mistakes make it impossible to understand. Even if you point out the mistake to the tutor it may take weeks to correct and obviously its no longer valuable to you. For the programming course it was crucial that code didn't work because of the mistakes in the course materials or even parts of it missing.- And the biggest con of all: lack of support! You are just left on your own with the course material readings. If you don't understand something, theoretically there is and option to ask the tutor, but the reply takes from a few days to a week. The reply sometimes is not valuable because the tutor may not have understood the essence of your question. It's difficult to ask something about the code that doesn't work if you can't show this code.They say the biggest support instrument is the students' community. Ok, each course paper has a message board. The message board is a list of topics. Each topic is open in a new window and then each reply message is open in a new window and then to go back and view another message you have to navigate back to the previous window, wait for it to load up and click to go to the next message. Image how easy it is to browse replies to find an answer. Also there is no search function in the message board section so you have to click on each post to see the content. The topic header can be far from its content, so just open and open again. Oh, and there is no option to right-click and open a topic in a new window, it wont let you. Have to open each topic and then navigate back, then scroll down to where you were and open the next topic. Terrible, aye!?Maybe that's why student rarely use the message board when looking for help. Also when you're an IT student and code doesn't work you have the need to show your code to someone to browse through. The is no option to copy parts of your code to the message board topic. If would be copied as plain text in one line.So imagine when you're doing a task or an assignment you encounter a problem and there's just nobody to help you apart from google.And when you get your assignment marked and returned to you, if there's an error, you get marked down, but there's no solution given. Often the work you've done for one assignment is later used in the next assignment and so your mistake carries over.Summary:I've done two courses here: IT lvl5 certificate and diploma in Web development. I graduated, but I don't know most of the course material because I had nobody to ask when I was stuck and then it carried over and over.Because of the amount of mistakes in the course material and lack of human support I would recommend you to go elsewhere for your qualification options.

Business communication course.Never in a thousand years, I would have expected to be forced to do a business course inside a mental health subject. I'm not sure what happened here but I was guided by the webpage that specifically stated, you must do this course as your first subject to work towards your qualification.I accepted it because like everyone that signs up to distance learning, you feel you cant be too choosy. I did the first assignment with trying motivation. It's so painful to learn something you didn't sign up to.The last straw was the second assignment involving group virtual meetings. It had involved creating LinkedIn profiles and CVs and the instructions were exhausting and 4 weeks into the course, meeting up with people online seems intimidating, even though I work with people on a daily basis. I dont want a LinkedIn profile for everyone to see. It's like saying you must have an Instagram account to pass!Funny thing is, I would have accepted doing this course if it were at least the 5th or 6th mandatory course if it was trying to provide you a rounded education". When you introduce a business communication course inside a discipline such as psychology

I have done a lot of training and have to say Open Polytech is the MOST difficult, confusing, frustrating nonsensical system I've ever come across. Great that the service is there but REALLY difficult to get your head around how it operates ... it's not something you can just start learning your own course on .... you need to figure out how they work first and that's problematic coz its not sensible.

Student mentor was good, admin staff were helpful, everything else terrible, tutors were hard to get a hold of and often didn't reply till the right before an assignment was due, Most of the course work made sense... Until you started the assignment! I was told I didn't meet the requirements for a course when I tried to apply for an extension due to my laptop refusing to start for the 2nd assignment. Don't know why they allowed me to start the course if I didn't meet the requirements, but then tried to say I could have a late enrolment to do the required course for that semester which only had like 2 months to do 3 different assignments I honestly wouldn't reccomend unless your desperate! And even then.... Don't!

Was really disappointed with the Open Polytechnic. I paid for and completed my Diploma in accounting, passed all my exams but when I requested some years later the Diploma you wouldn't grant it as apparently to many years had passed. It shouldn't matter how many years it's been. I did the papers and passed my exams. I complained and just got ignored, I'd never complete another course through Open Poly again.

Hated studying at Open Polytech. Social work degree you are teaching yourself completely. The least they could do as teach the sessions & record it which they can use for the next group of students. You are literally reading boring notes off the computer screen. I was made to do a communication paper even though I am a fully qualified Counsellor & have graduated with a level 7 grad dip. They weren’t interested in recognising my multiple qualifications & 23 work history. It was the worst place I have ever studied at. I would recommend studying social work at a university not with the open polytech

Just a few courses left to complete my Diploma in Construction (quantity surveying). It's impossible to fail because you get a second chance to resubmit assignments if your score is below 50%. Staffs are awesome and the online library grants you access to scholarly papers in all fields across the globe, not just your chosen program. Loads of freebie computer software (including MS office) + student card that gets you discount for pizza etc. Only drawback is that you can't go partying with other students so it feels a bit lonely studying on your own

For someone in my work and financial situation, OP is the only option for me to study, and that is a shame. Within my programme, there is no teaching involved but rather a series of readings, activities that are not graded and often not even commented upon, and then a few assessments/papers.The reading material is interesting and the platform well-organised, so I justify the money I give to OP for their role as a curator/organiser of significant readings that others have written but not much more. If my employer wasn’t funding my diploma, I would not continue on. I know from experience that online learning can be so much more than this, so it isn’t like OP can’t do better.There are tutors but they don’t do anything except post canned commentary at intervals throughout the term. There’s also an external grader (why they need that many people guiding courses where there’s no interaction is beyond me). I do well on my assignments but always get points deducted because the grader would like more development even though I am at or over the word limit - they deduct points when you go too far over the limit. I tried to address this Kafkaesque dilemma with a tutor once but got nowhere. They acknowledged that my point is valid but no change in practice.I feel like a bit of a jerk for continuing on with this qualification. I know I’m good at the work I do, so why do I need to prove it with a graduate diploma? I guess that’s my question to figure out, but seriously, the Open Polytechnic just isn't that good.

Sorry but no I wouldn't recommend. Course was out dated, boring and just overall seemed lazy, the markers comments just seemed copy and paste. I had some things going on and managed to get an extension but couldn't log in, I contacted two different people to get it sorted and nothing. I just gave up in the end because the course wasn't great. Gutted.