Postgraduate

Making a difference

On this page

• What you will study
• Entry
• Qualifications
• If you have a disability or additional requirement
• Study materials
• Teaching and assessment
• Students also studied
• Future availability
• How to register

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

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 several masters degrees. 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 a manager/leader; to develop and demonstrate a capability for critical and self-directed learning; and to develop and demonstrate the capability to apply other masters-level theoretical and practical learning integratively to the problems and opportunities in your own management practice.

The teaching, learning and assessment of BZX830 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 theory, practice and learning in making a difference and on such key themes as power, innovation, ethics and corporate responsibility, decision-making, leadership, cross-boundary management, evaluation and measurement.

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 a specific initiative in your own organisation/context that you will identify and progress 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. 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 directed to the sorts of resources you will need to identify and access for yourself as part of the initiative. You will be given clear guidance on how to draw up, for assessment purposes, a proposal and plan for your initiative and a report on its progress and outcomes.

There is a compulsory residential school at an early stage of your initiative. This will provide additional support and inputs, alongside the individual and group support you receive from your tutor, the printed and web-based resources, online tuition and collaboration and face-to-face day schools. 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. BZX830 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.

It is anticipated that the content of this course, especially the requirement to undertake and report on an evidence-based initiative will make a significant contribution to a submission for accreditation by a professional body or to a portfolio for 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 BZX830 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 BZX830 and their implications for you and your own organisational context.
• Space to take stock of your own development as a manager 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.

However, an alternative learning experience (ALE) will be available online for those students who have exceptional circumstances which prevent them from attending the residential school.

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 course of your masters degree before taking this course. Furthermore, you should normally have studied a Stage 2 optional course before taking BZX830. If not, when you start BZX830, you must also start a Stage 2 option course and complete this alongside BZX830. If you have any doubt about the best time to start BZX830, please contact our Student Registration & Enquiry Service.

Qualifications

BZX830 is a compulsory module in our:

• MBA (F02)
• MBA (Technology Management) (F03)
• Master of Public Administration (F44)
• MBA (Life Sciences) (F38)

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.

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 our Student Registration & Enquiry Service before registering.

If you have a disability or additional requirement

The course depends heavily on reading and writing text on computer screens. You will need to spend considerable 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. All the tutoring takes place online. The website enables you to have online interaction with your tutor and other students. 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 BZX830 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 (EMA) is marked by an ‘independent assessor’.

Students also studied

Students who studied this course also studied at some time:

• Creativity, innovation and change (BZX822)
• Financial strategy (BZX821)
• Problem solving and improvement: quality and other approaches (T889)
• Marketing in a complex world (BZX825)
• Business operations: delivering value (T883)

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.

Study explained

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Your questions

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