Open Eye: Making the connection

Ousa is the Open University's student representative body. The new president, Alison Kirk, outlines the year ahead

I have just been elected as president of the Open University Students' Association (Ousa), whose annual conference was held in Manchester during the first week in April. Once a year delegates gather from all over the UK, Europe and beyond to elect a new executive committee, discuss issues of concern to Open University students, and create policies that will be progressed by our student representatives during the forthcoming committee year.

All students of the Open University are automatically members of Ousa unless they wish not to be. All the officers of the association are students and volunteers. We are not paid for the work that we do and have to be currently studying, but we are allowed one year off studying between courses. Ousa is a non-political organisation that aims to protect the educational interests of its members. We are not affiliated to the NUS, but we do have close links with them.

While the office of Ousa is based in Milton Keynes on the OU's campus, the officers of the association can live anywhere. I live in Nottingham; our last president lived in the south of France. We are a distance association for a distance university.

Our student representatives work hard to represent the student view to the university. We have recently been pushing the university hard to introduce "named degrees". Up until now, OU graduates have been awarded a BA or BSc Open. From the year 2000 they will be able to graduate with a degree from a choice of about 25 titles, though the general OU "Open" degree will remain. This has been a clear example of the university having listened to Ousa, and implemented changes we have called for.

The annual conference is always a mixture of long conference business sessions and an opportunity to relax with old and new friends. We have from Saturday morning until Sunday lunch time to get through the order paper for conference. We usually manage to do so, as well as taking time out on Saturday evening to relax.

The key issues for conference this year were structure and finance. Ousa was created 26 years ago, and since then has changed little in the way it looks and operates. For some months now it has been felt that the time was ripe to re-evaluate our organisation and see if there is a better way of running it. We have to take account of the changing needs of our students, and one aspect high on the agenda is our use of computer conferencing systems. The students use a conferencing system for educational and recreational purposes. It is time that Ousa looked closely at how we use e-mail and conferencing, and how we could do so to better effect.

Finance is also a key issue. Like most places we are faced by tightening budgets. Unlike most conventional student unions we cannot run a student bar - where could we have one, as most of us rarely, if ever, set foot on the university campus? So our opportunities to raise money are constrained. We are going to use the structural review as a starting-point to assess what we are doing well and what we could do better. We have to look honestly at how we spend our money, and make some tough decisions. Just because things have always been this way does not mean they have to continue to be so.

Ousa represents students to the university, and this is a huge responsibility. We not only have to consider our current membership (approximately 160,000), but also those who are yet to begin studying with the Open University and those who may have finished studying. The credibility of our degrees is important to us. Maintaining the high academic standards that previous graduates have benefited from is important.

Also high on the agenda is the Dearing Report. Open University students awaited its publication with interest, yet were disappointed to find few of their concerns addressed. The concept of lifelong learning is deeply embedded in the Open University - the majority of our students are over the age of 25. They study with the OU for a variety of reasons. Some do just for the pleasure of studying, but many are doing so for vocational reasons; they want a promotion or a career change. Ousa has to ensure that all students' interests are represented. Our graduates need to feel secure that the qualification they have worked so hard for will be recognised.

I sometimes think the stereotyped view of the OU student remains - a middle-aged person getting a degree by correspondence course through watching television in the early hours of the morning. Today, the average age of Open University graduates is getting lower, particularly in the areas of science, mathematics and technology.

Many courses do not have television programmes associated with them; some have pre-recorded videos, but many have no broadcast element at all. The assignments are generally submitted by post, though some courses will accept them by e-mail, a trend which will continue to grow. Most courses have face-to- face tutorials available and there are often day schools, as well as residential schools on some courses. There is a growing trend in courses that can be studied over the Internet, with many other courses having a computing component.

Open University students are a growing, vibrant community. Nearly everyone knows someone who is studying or who has studied at some time with the OU. I welcomed the idea of the OU Link because of the opportunities it can offer our graduates. While I am the president of the students' association, today's students are tomorrow's graduates, which means that our interests are closely connected.