Undergraduate

Heritage, whose heritage?

On this page

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

If you are passionate about any aspect of heritage, this course is for you. The course title ‘Heritage, whose heritage?’ refers to the relationship that we have to a heritage managed largely by institutions and public organisations. You’ll engage actively and critically with debates and campaigns about heritage objects – which include people, memories and traditions as well as more tangible buildings, places and things – and consider questions like: Do heritage objects reflect my memories of the past? Or are they different? What kind of presence of the past do I want in my community? This is a 15-week online course.

Course facts

Register for the course

What you will study

This course will help you to identify and understand the key issues affecting heritage decision-making. For example, who decides what should be preserved from the past as our heritage? Who is this heritage for and how should it be presented and explained? How can I engage actively with my heritage and have an impact on it? The course looks at the debate around what to do with places, buildings and things and the memories, myths and traditions associated with them, and enables you to be more effective in pursuing your enthusiasms and meeting the objectives of groups committed to changing policy on heritage matters.

The focus of the course will be on ‘objects of heritage’. By this, we mean almost anything that has been evaluated, listed or created to commemorate the international, national or local productions of our heritage. ‘Heritage’ normally refers to objects, buildings or places associated with public and private memories and traditions. But the course also considers ‘intangible heritage’: cases where a need is felt to commemorate people, events or practices without the existence of a physical survival. The course will give you the freedom to explore objects of heritage which interest you; propose actions to conserve them; or improve the ways they are presented to the public. It will help you do this by working through a number of case studies and discussing the issues they raise.

The fifteen-week course will be organised into five parts, with the teaching material delivered online. Although you will be able to print out the teaching materials, you will require a computer and regular online access to complete the course, which relies on numerous links to online materials.

Part 1: Definitions and institutions

What meanings are associated with the word ‘heritage’ and what are the issues they raise? You’ll interrogate a range of buildings, places and things considered worthy of protection as ‘heritage’. You’ll think about heritage in terms of inheritance, public and private memory, judgments of value, conservation of nature, and public access. What issues do these criteria raise? How do heritage sites deal with human experience and memories? You’ll look at Open Air Museums and collections that preserve the traces of people’s lives.

Part 2: The processes of listing, protecting, conserving, interpreting and managing heritage sites

How is heritage managed in the UK and elsewhere? What are the key official and private organisations that influence decision-making and how do they interact? What are the key values that influence decision-making in heritage organisations?

Part 3: Processes of inquiry, documentation and evaluation

Here you’ll look at the processes of documenting, listing, conserving and interpreting objects of heritage – first as a set of case studies and then as a step-by-step procedure that you can follow. How do I find out about something that interests me? What is significant about it? To whom is it significant? Who do I need to contact? What issues does it raise and what do I think should happen? Questions like these will be discussed and will guide you through the exercise in preparation for the final tutor-marked-assignment in week 15.

Part 4: Museums and heritage

Museums present particular problems and issues. It is no longer safe to assume that the prime function of a museum is to store precious objects and preserve them for posterity. Museums now have to engage with a wide variety of social and political debates about how to build their collections and present and interpret them to the public. We look at a number of museum collections with very different approaches to these tasks.

Part 5: Evaluating the issues and deciding what should be done

Here we consider the problem of how to manage heritage. What motivates government to invest in heritage and what does it expect in return? How can expanding visitor participation and tourism be made compatible with conserving the authentic quality of fragile objects, buildings and places?

We will offer a number of specialised case studies that you can select to help you with your assignment.

For further information on this course visit the A180 website. 

You will learn

• to understand the significant issues affecting heritage
• to develop investigative skills to find out about objects of heritage
• to develop basic skills of analysis, synthesis and communication
• to engage effectively in debates about heritage issues in your locality.

Entry

As this is a Level 1 introductory course, we do not expect you to have prior experience of studying heritage studies.

If you have any doubt about the suitability of the course, please contact our Student Registration & Enquiry Service.

Preparatory work

There is no set preparatory work. We suggest that you spend some time visiting heritage sites, such as a local museum, stately home, archaeological site, national park or conservation area. Think about this experience and discuss it with family or friends.

If you have a disability or additional requirement

Written transcripts of any audio components and Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) versions of printed material are available. Some Adobe PDF components may not be available or fully accessible using a screen reader. Other alternative formats of the study materials may be available in the future. Our Services for disabled students website has the latest information about availability. There are sections of the course which make heavy use of illustrations, but assessment is not based on visual discrimination.

If you are a new student, or new to courses 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 publication Meeting Your 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

Website, printed materials, online forums and an audio CD.

You will need

CD player.

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 with the study material and mark and comment on your written work, and whom you can ask for advice and guidance, either through email or the online forum. You will be allocated to a tutor with a group of around 25 people.

If you are new to the OU, you will find that your tutor is particularly concerned to help you with your study methods.  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 for this course can be found in the facts box above.

You can choose whether to submit your tutor-marked assignments (TMAs) on paper or online through the eTMA system. You may want to use the eTMA system for some of your assignments but submit on paper for others. This is entirely your choice.

Students also studied

Students who studied this course also studied at some time:

• The arts past and present (AA100)
• World archaeology (A251)
• Exploring history: medieval to modern 1400-1900 (A200)
• The art history residential school (AXR272)
• Renaissance art reconsidered (AA315)

Future availability

The details given here are for the course that starts in April and October 2011 when it will be available for the last time. A replacement course is not planned.

Fees 2012

See fees and funding options for study from September 2012.

Study explained

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.

A taste of OU study

Student Reviews

An interesting course if you are a novice to the heritage scene. If you have a special building or place ...
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I did enjoy this course in the main but wouldn't recommend it as it didn't live up to my expectations. ...
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Your questions

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Or contact an adviser in our Student Registration & Enquiry Service Email or call +44(0) 845 300 60 90+44(0) 845 366 60 35

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