This innovative, personalised module offers you the flexibility of exploring in depth a topic of your choice at master’s level. The module gives you the opportunity to advance your research skills whilst investigating a problem or topic of your interest. Your question, which you will agree with your tutor in the first few weeks of the module, may relate to your own professional context, previous study or personal interest. You will draw on a variety of resources to deepen your understanding, including Open Educational Resources (OERs), Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), scholarly articles, reports, and audio visual content.
As you conduct a thorough critical investigation, supported by your tutor and the well-structured module materials, you will be empowered to develop your own rigorously researched answer to your topic question. Your investigation can be within any subject area and may require you to venture across disciplines, to make connections as well as expand your field of knowledge, all whilst developing advanced skills in critical thinking, reflection and peer review, amongst others. Your final output could take the form of a written piece such as a report or a training programme, or could be a presentation or an audio-visual resource, whatever is best suited to your chosen audience.
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01 Oct 2022 |
Jun 2023 |
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Registration closes 08/09/22 (places subject to availability) Click to register
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This module is expected to start for the last time in October 2027.
What you will study
This module follows an innovative, flexible design to allow you to explore in depth a topic of your choice. You might want to focus on a problem from your practice or professional context, or simply decide to deepen your understanding about an issue that interests you. This could be from any subject area and might require you to venture into other disciplines, allowing you to make connections and expand your field of knowledge.
Your tutor will support you in defining your question or problem, and in planning what resources you need to access to understand it better. You will develop digital and academic literacy (searching for and evaluating information, being part of online communities), and critical, analytical and reflective skills. You will practice communicating your ideas in different formats and to different audiences, and learn how to feed back constructively and use peer feedback to advance your thinking.
Through a series of assessed tasks you will plan your learning and identify relevant resources to gain a better awareness of your chosen topic. You will share your interpretations with your tutor and fellow students through assessed and peer reviewed tasks that will help you refine your understanding and begin to articulate your personal answer to your initial question. And besides the freedom to choose what you want to study, you will also be able to decide what you will be producing for your final assessment. This could be a report for your employer, an article for publication, an information video, a series of talks, a children’s book, a training programme – you just need to agree this with your tutor. You will also submit a reflection on how you have researched your topic and produced your final assessment piece, and this will help you consolidate your understanding and evidence your learning journey.
You will learn
This module will help you develop the skills needed to conduct a rigorous investigation. It will show you how to engage critically with the information available and how to produce an original and individual answer that addresses your chosen question or problem.
Entry
You must have a first degree and be ready to pursue postgraduate study, however, if you have other study or experience that you believe equips you to take this module you can still apply, but you'll need to supply evidence of your study or experience. Your application will then be referred to the Programme Admissions Team.
This module is suitable both as an introduction to postgraduate study, or later on in your postgraduate studies, and can be a valuable opportunity to be supported whilst conducting a highly personalised investigation.
If you have any doubt about the suitability of the module, please speak to an adviser.
Preparatory work
Start thinking about the problem or question you want to investigate and what your output might look like, such as:
- Encouraging secondary school girls to take computing A-Level. Assessed output could be a plan of interventions and resources to use in school.
Qualifications
This is an optional module in our:
Excluded combinations
Sometimes you will not be able to count a module towards a qualification if you have already taken another module with similar content. To check any excluded combinations relating to this module, visit our excluded combination finder or check with an adviser before registering.
If you have a disability
Written transcripts of any audio components are available. Some Adobe PDF components may not be available or fully accessible using a screen reader. Depending on your chosen topic, some materials may be particularly difficult to read in this way, such as musical notation and mathematical, scientific, and foreign language. Other alternative formats of the module materials may be available in the future.
To find out more about what kind of support and adjustments might be available, contact us or visit our Disability support website.
Study materials
What's included
You'll have access to a dedicated module website, which includes:
- a week-by-week study planner
- module-specific materials
- audio and video content
- assignment details and submission section
- online tutorial access.
Where possible the materials are also available in other formats. Please note that the purchase of print-on-demand texts is not an option for this module.
Computing requirements
You’ll need broadband internet access and a desktop or laptop computer with an up-to-date version of Windows (10 or 11), or macOS (10.15 or higher).
Any additional software will be provided or is generally freely available.
To join in spoken conversations in tutorials, we recommend a wired headset (headphones/earphones with a built-in microphone).
Our module websites comply with web standards, and any modern browser is suitable for most activities.
Our OU Study mobile app will operate on all current, supported versions of Android and iOS. It’s not available on Kindle.
It’s also possible to access some module materials on a mobile phone, tablet device or Chromebook. However, as you may be asked to install additional software or use certain applications, you’ll also require a desktop or laptop as described above.
Teaching and assessment
Support from your tutor
Your tutor will help you plan your work and think about the ideas explored in the module. Your tutor will also comment on and support you with your assessment tasks. There will be one-to-one tutorials with your tutor and group tutorials with others, as well as opportunities to collaborate with fellow students through forum discussions and peer review activities.
Contact us if you want to know more about study with The Open University before you register.
Assessment
The assessment details for this module can be found in the facts box above.
You must use the online eTMA system to submit your tutor-marked assignments (TMAs).
Students also studied
Students who studied this module also studied at some time:
Future availability
Advance your independent learning starts once a year – in October.
This page describes the module that will start in October 2022. We expect it to start for the last time in October 2027.
How to register
To register a place on this module return to the top of the page and use the Click to register button.
Regulations
As a student of The Open University, you should be aware of the content of the academic regulations which are available on our
Student Policies and Regulations website.