COURSE STRUCTURE AND MATERIALS
Section 1.3 of the Course Companion
This section explains the different parts of the course and how you should study it.
The course is comprised of the following materials.
- Course Companion
- Course Books
Book 1, Reputations, edited by Elaine Moohan
Book 2, Tradition and Dissent, edited by Carolyn Price
Book 3, Cultural Encounters, edited by Richard Danson Brown
Book 4, Place and Leisure, edited by Deborah Brunton- Audio CDs
Book 1: Faustus – Part 1; Faustus – Part 2; The Diva
Book 2: Plato’s Laches – a Discussion with Tim Chappell; Shostakovich;
What am I? Beasts and Tradition
Book 3: Discussing Cultural Exemptions; The Burial at Thebes – Part 1; The Burial at Thebes – Part 2; The Burial at Thebes – Interviews
Book 4: Selling the Experience Machine; Seaside Music; Aetatem tibi agere (Doing your own thing)- DVD ROMs
Book 1: Faraday
Book 2: Plato; St Chad’s and Religious Art
Book 3: The Art of Benin
Book 4: Roman Villa; The Seaside- DVD Videos
Book 1: Cleopatra; The Diva; Dalai Lama
Book 2: Ireland; Shostakovich
Book 4: Sacred Space and Landscape; Interview with Gurinder Chadha- Illustration Book
- Course website (which includes the study planner)
- Course map
- Assignment Booklet
- Set books and DVD
You are reading it now! As well as describing the course, it contains useful advice on accessing and downloading online resources and obtaining the software provided by the OU on the Online Applications CD ROM you received in the first mailing. It also tells you where to get help if you need it.
Part 2 of the Course Companion contains advice on study skills. You should start reading it during the Preparatory Week. It is also a resource which you should consult throughout the course. It will be particularly useful as you study Book 1, and as you prepare for writing your assessed assignments.
The four course books are the central pillars of The Arts Past and Present. For each week, there is a chapter which guides you through the learning materials. Your work will start from the written chapter, which will direct you to audio-visual materials, set books, the Illustration Book and websites at appropriate points. There will be a list at the start of each chapter which will tell you which of these materials you will need access to, as shown below.
The books also contain the readings you’ll need from other sources. These are presented after each chapter with a red edging to distinguish them from the main teaching material.
The written teaching materials include a range of learning activities. These are printed in a red font and are cued by marginal subheadings. These activities are usually followed by discussions, also printed in red and cued by subheadings. Discussions can be quite brief, but some will go on for two or more paragraphs.
You are not directly assessed on the in-text activities or those on the DVD ROMs. However, we urge you to use these tasks as opportunities to try your hand at developing new skills and because they are such powerful ways of embedding ideas and perspectives in your own thinking. It’s worth stressing this point: The Arts Past and Present has been designed as a whole with many different parts. You can skip sections and activities if you’re pressed for time, but you’ll get the most out of the course if you try to do as many of the activities as possible. Not all learning takes place through formal assessments, and you won’t be assessed on every part of the course; it’s in your best interests to make sure that you have a try at everything you can. The activities are designed to enable you to do this.
The course books use two different kinds of marginal text. The image above shows how these are displayed. The notes in red italics give information to help you with the process of studying, for example about the length of time it should take you to work through an Audio CD or DVD or, as in the case above, an instruction to consult an external source via the course website. Text boxes, on the other hand, give additional teaching information about a person or thing mentioned in the main text.
Chapters conclude with suggestions for further reading; there are also links associated with each chapter on the website. These are not compulsory, and you should certainly not pursue any of these suggestions at the expense of continuing with the course. The aim of such sections is to enable you to pursue your interests in a particular area as and when you have the time.
The written chapters are supported by a range of audio-visual materials including Audio CDs, DVD Videos and DVD ROMs. These items perform a range of functions.
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As you can see from the images above, the DVD ROMs have easy to follow layouts. The major sections can be accessed by selecting the section headings that run from left to right near the top of the screen. There are usually four or five of these and you will be asked to work through them in sequence. Activities and options within a section are listed down the left. There will be instructions on screen to tell you what to do at particular points.
For help getting started with DVD ROMs, see Section 3.1.
The Illustration Book is dedicated to the reproduction of works of art in the highest available quality. The course books also feature colour images; very occasionally, the same image is used both in the Illustration Book and in a course book. Where this happens, remember that the Illustration Book version will be a more accurate reproduction, and you should refer to this particularly when writing about an image in detail.
It’s important to remember that images in the Illustration Book are referred to as ‘Plates’, while images in the course books are referred to as ‘Figures’. Usually, plates and figures are identified by artist. The exception is in visual materials which originate from the Classical World which did not have modern notions of artistic ownership and production. In these cases, artefacts are identified primarily by the title used to identify them in museums and catalogues.
You’ll need to be sitting at a computer connected to the internet to work through this section.
Go to the StudentHome page at http://www.open.ac.uk/students and click on the link to the AA100 course website. This is your online home for everything that relates to studying The Arts Past and Present. It is a good idea to visit the course website and look at what is provided there, and pay return visits at least once a week. The course team will put messages on the ‘News’ area from time to time. The ‘Course resources’ area gives you access to electronic versions of all the printed course materials, the ‘Assessment’ area contains the assignments, and ‘Library resources’ takes you to the huge range of online journals, databases and information, all free to use regardless of which course you are studying. Your tutor group forum is accessed by clicking on the ‘Forums’ link on the course website.
The course website is a gateway to several key resources:
This is an interactive study calendar and is presented online as part of the course website. It gives all the key dates in the study year to help you keep on track. It also contains links to various course components that you are to study in a specific study week. If you have a diary, note down the starting date of the Preparatory Week and when you should begin studying each of the main books, as well as the submission dates for the assignments. A very important aspect of successful study with the OU is to do everything in your power to keep to the dates shown. It’s worth remembering that keeping to deadlines is crucial not only for your OU studies but in work situations as well. You should use the study planner to help you to plan ahead for holidays and busy spots in your life: ask yourself when you are going to need to prioritise your studies, and when you have to turn your attentions elsewhere.
It’s worth noting that the study planner is numbered by study week, while each chapter is numbered by book, and that the two sets of numbers do not coincide with each other. For example, Study Week 15 focuses on Book 2, Chapter 5 (Ireland: The Invention of Tradition); Study Week 22 focuses on Book 3, Chapter 4 (Short Stories), and so on.
The course map includes the same information that is on the study planner, but presents it in a graphic form. It is intended for use as a poster to give you a visual sense of where you are in the course and what you need to do next. It includes study weeks and shows how and when you should be using different parts of the course material.
This contains all the assignments for the course which will be marked by your tutor. It also includes:
For more details on assessment, see Section 1.5.
In addition to these materials, you’ll need to buy the following items:
Do remember to shop around for these set items – prices vary from shop to shop, and it’s possible to get them (the DVD in particular) for much less than the standard recommended price, especially if you shop online. Price comparison websites are a useful tool in tracking down the best deal. Shopping around on the internet is not unrelated to the study skills connected with internet searching: you’re evaluating different sources of information to get – in this case – the best deal. You’ll use the same kinds of skills when looking at digital resources, deciding between competing sources of information in terms of their trustworthiness and origins.
You may also find it useful to use the study planner to check when you’re going to need a set text. These items are studied at different points of the course, so you don’t need to buy them all at once.
