Your Learning Experience

Teaching Methods

Our supported distance learning courses are delivered online. The University’s Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) Blackboard, will be the primary mode of course delivery in terms of teaching facilities, provision of course materials and, importantly, student support. The Department team take the delivery of distance learning very seriously and will make every effort to make the experience enjoyable and rewarding. Therefore establishing mutually understood working relationships will be a key aspect of this mode of teaching.

You will be supported by a dedicated team of tutors and support staff available through Blackboard and email. To make distance learning work for you, you will need to develop or refine your skills in time-management and self-motivation, as well as commitment to academic study. This can be very demanding and so the course team offers you support by email, discussion groups and post. You will be encouraged to contact other students to share views, ideas and issues and to create a virtual student community. We also offer strong library provision for our distance learning students including use of the Leicester Digital Library. At every stage of your Distance Learning studies you will feel the benefit of Leicester’s expertise in this field and the friendly support of the course team.

Special materials

Because of the online nature of the course delivery through the use of Blackboard, distance learning students will require Information and Communication Technology facilities. You will also need to make sure that you have regular access to the internet in order that you can interact fully with Blackboard. Further, to make full use of Blackboard you may prefer to have a Broadband connection.

Transfer between courses

As our distance learning and campus-based degrees are comparable it may be possible for you to transfer from one mode of study to the other.

Study time

You will need to set aside approximately 12-15 hours per week for studying.

Assessment

Each module will be assessed in a manner that best reflects achievements of its learning objects;

The majority of the marks will be awarded to a module essay with the remaining marks being awarded on the basis of:

• Online presentations
• Group-work
• Wikis
• Text reviews
• Essay plans
• Contribution to discussion boards

The dissertation module will be assessed by a 15,000 word dissertation which will be chosen by the student in consultation with an expert member of staff.