Making a difference
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This course consolidates your ability to make a real difference to organisational performance as a manager or leader. It should be studied towards the latter part of your study programme, as it builds on learning and assessment of previous courses. You’ll undertake some preliminary work on the integration of theory, practice and learning before embarking on a largely self-directed programme focusing on a management initiative of your own choosing, in which we’ll support you with resources and guidance. The course aims to enable you to make a difference in your own organisation and to enhance your own personal and professional development.
Course facts
A postgraduate course in Business and Management.
| About this course: | |
|---|---|
| Course code | BXH830 |
| Credits | 30 |
| OU Level | Postgraduate |
| SCQF level | 11 |
| FHEQ level | 7 |
| Course work includes: |
|---|
| 3 Tutor-marked assignments (TMAs) |
| End-of-module assessment |
| Includes residential school |
Register for the course
This course is available for study in the countries shown. Fees and financial support may vary by country.
What you will study
This 30–credit course provides a compulsory, personal and professional development component within the MSc in Human Resource Management (F40), and can be used as an alternative to the parent course, B830, by students seeking an MBA. It is presented over one year, with two start dates each year. The high-level learning aims of the course include: to enable you to develop the skills to make a real difference to organisational performance as an HR professional and manager/leader; to develop and demonstrate a capability for critical and self-directed learning; and to develop and demonstrate the capability to apply masters-level theoretical and practical learning integratively to the problems and opportunities in your own professional practice.
The teaching, learning and assessment of BXH830 are organised explicitly on developmental lines, with a clear focus on the processes of implementation in management. The first part of the course is a structured appraisal of your own experience, practice and context. It draws on core material on the integration of HR theory and practice and learning in making a difference.
Arising from that initial work, you will be responsible, during the second, major part of the course for a largely self-directed and independently-managed programme of work and study based on your chosen specific initiative. This needs to be related to HR management in your chosen organisation/context. You will need to progress this up to and beyond the design of an implementation plan. You will be provided with guidance on how to choose, plan and undertake your initiative. Additional resources will be made available for you to draw on in order to work through the different stages and dimensions of your initiative. You will be directed to the sorts of resources you will need to identify and access for yourself as part of the initiative. There are specific requirements on the use of theory from a range of areas in the course of your initiative, along with a requirement to submit appropriate evidence to support your work and your learning. You will be given clear guidance on how to draw up, for assessment purposes, a proposal and plan for your initiative and a final report on its progress and outcomes. To successfully study this course you will need to be working in, or closely with, your chosen organisation’s HR function.
There is a compulsory residential school at an early stage of your initiative which will be shared with the more general B830 course. This will provide additional support and inputs, alongside the individual and group support you receive from your tutor, the printed and web-based resources, and online tuition and collaboration. Throughout the course you will be expected to monitor your own learning and development; reflection on what you have learnt from the course will be an important part of the later assessment activities.
Vocational relevance
The course recognises the strong emphasis placed by students and their employers on the value of the effective practical application of course-based learning. BXH830 has, therefore, been designed to meet these requirements, particularly in relation to you developing and demonstrating a capability for critical and self-directed learning and a capability to apply masters-level learning integratively to real-world problems and opportunities. In particular, this HR-specific version of the more general Making a difference (B830) has been designed to meet the requirements of The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), the relevant UK professional Institute.
It is anticipated that in addition to meeting the CIPD’s requirements, coursework for BXH830 will potentially make a significant contribution to various forms of portfolio-based assessment. For example, this could be used in the evidence required for a level 5 NVQ (in England, Wales and Northern Ireland) although we are not currently planning to provide a VQ Pathways Guide.
Residential school
The broad aims of the school are to provide you with:
- Opportunities to share the early stages of your initiative with other B830 and BXH830 students.
- A supportive environment in which to do some shared work on the issues, challenges and aspirations that you currently face in your own practice as a manager.
- Activities to explore further the core themes and approaches of BXH830 and their implications for you and your own organisational context.
- Space to take stock of your own development as an HR professional and to look forward to your continuing professional development.
Satisfactory attendance is required at the residential school in order to gain credit for this course.
An alternative learning experience (ALE) will be available online for those students who have exceptional circumstances which prevent them from attending the residential school. However, this is not recommended to students seeking CIPD membership.
The cost of the residential school is included in the course fee. See our Residential Schools website for more information.
Entry
You must have studied the Stage 2 compulsory module of your masters degree before taking this course. Furthermore, you should normally have studied a Stage 2 optional module before taking BXH830. If not, when you start BXH830, you must also start a Stage 2 option module and complete this alongside BXH830. If you have any doubt about the best time to start BXH830, please contact our Student Registration & Enquiry Service.
Qualifications
BXH830 is a compulsory module in our:
BXH830 is an optional module in our:
BXH830 can be used in the place of the compulsory module B830 in the F02 MBA. Some postgraduate qualifications allow study to be chosen from other subject areas. We advise you to refer to the relevant qualification descriptions for information on the circumstances in which this module can count towards these qualifications because from time to time the structure and requirements may change.
If you have a disability or additional requirement
The study materials are available in Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF). Some Adobe PDF components may not be available or fully accessible using a screen reader. Alternative formats of the study materials may be available in the future. Our Services for disabled students website has the latest information about availability.
You will need to spend extensive amounts of time using a personal computer and the internet. After you have registered you will receive detailed information about the residential school site and the facilities available to help with the academic programme.
If you are a new student, or new to study using a computer or the internet, you will need to inform us of your particular needs as soon as possible, as some of our support services may take several weeks to arrange. Details of how to do this and our range of support services are described in our publications Meeting Your Needs and Meeting your residential school needs.
You can also find information about accessible study materials, financial support and the Disabled Students' Allowance, equipment and other services, on our Services for disabled students website. It also includes our contact details for advice and support both before you register and while you are studying.
Study materials
What's included
Course books, other printed material, online forums, a website, downloaded software, extensive electronic journal articles and book chapters and access to the full electronic resources of the OU library.
Computing requirements
This course includes online computer activities – you can access these using a web browser that can play Flash and Shockwave.
You will need internet access and a computer. If you have purchased a new computer since 2005 it should meet your course computing requirements. Check our Technical Requirements section if your computer is older than this or is otherwise unusual.
Teaching and assessment
Support from your tutor
You will have a tutor who will help you work through the course programme and mark and comment on your written work, and whom you can ask for advice and guidance. You will contact your tutor by telephone, correspondence, email and online forums. Tuition will be provided online. Some online tutorials may take place in real time, but the majority will be asynchronous. The website provides access to a wide range of additional resources, and you will be able to interact not only with your tutor and those in your tutor group, but with the course team and all other tutors and students on the course. Contact our Student Registration & Enquiry Service if you want to know more about study with The Open University before you register.
Assessment
The assessment details can be found in the facts box above.
You will be expected to submit your tutor-marked assignments (TMAs) online through the eTMA system unless there are some difficulties which prevent you from doing so. In these circumstances, you must negotiate with your tutor to get their agreement to submit your assignment on paper.
The assignments are cumulative and developmental. Given that much of BXH830 is self-directed, the assignments are the key milestones around which you organise your work on the course. The assessment timetable will support a degree of flexibility on your part, enabling you to make some adjustment to your workload to suit your own study pattern, and the specific demands of your own initiative. This may involve doing the majority of the work in the earlier or later stages of the course. You will be required in the first two assignments to set out your plans for organising your time across the whole course. The end-of-module assessment is marked by an ‘independent assessor’.
Students also studied
Students who studied this course also studied at some time:
Future availability
The details given here are for the course that starts in May and November 2012. We expect it to be available twice a year.
How to register
To register a place on this course return to the top of the page and use the Click to register button. For more information and advice about registration see OU Study Explained.
Course facts
A postgraduate course in Business and Management.
| About this course: | |
|---|---|
| Course code | BXH830 |
| Credits | 30 |
| OU Level | Postgraduate |
| SCQF level | 11 |
| FHEQ level | 7 |
| Course work includes: |
|---|
| 3 Tutor-marked assignments (TMAs) |
| End-of-module assessment |
| Includes residential school |
Study explained
- Course
- - a module of study that can count towards a qualification.
- Credits
- - show how much study is required to complete a course or qualification. One credit represents roughly 10 hours of study.
- Financial support
- - find out if you qualify for support with your fees with our eligibility checker.
- Study explained
- - all you need to know about distance learning with the OU.
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