Glen Scott - Keeping it simple » open university

LaTeX dissertation template for M801

Glen — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 16:06:27 +0000

Next month I start my 13 month research project and dissertation, which forms the last part of my MSc in Software Development. The research project is based around the topic of mining software repositories.

I was disappointed to find that the OU offers a dissertation template in Microsoft Word format only, so I’ve knocked together a LaTeX version which I’m hoping will be of use to others.

source file: http://github.com/glenscott/ou/blob/master/template.tex
PDF output: m801-template.pdf

At the moment it’s quite rough, but it should provide a good starting point for further development.

M865 Project Management

Glen — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 21:38:11 +0000

So I’ve completed another module for my Postgraduate Diploma in Software Development. It was the project management course, and I have to say it was the most challenging one so far. It was an optional module, but I thought it would be interesting as I am starting to take on more managerial tasks at work.

A lot of the concepts in the course were completely new to me, so there was a lot of information to take in. The course was divided into the following units:

Project initiation
Risks, estimates and contracts
Planning
Building and leading the team
Project execution
Standards, methodologies and reflections

As my previous modules had been a lot more technical, this was a refreshing change. It really helped me to see the overall view of a project rather than just a small aspect of it, as I would ordinarily experience as a programmer.

The course text was very well written, and used good examples throughout. As part of the course assessment, I had to use a real project that I have involvement in as an example. This was a useful feature of the course as it help to relate my learnings to the real world.

Out of all of the courses I have taken so far, this is definitely the one in which I have learnt the most so in this respect it has been very worthwhile.

My next course starts on 1st November, and I have chosen M877 Advanced Database Technologies, which should be just as interesting, if somewhat more technical.

update, 9th December 2008: I can breathe a huge sigh of relief as the results are in and I’ve passed the course!

Free online computing courses

Glen — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 14:53:11 +0000

The Open University has made many courses available for free through its OpenLearn website. Some really interesting looking stuff on there, and knowing the usual quality of OU literature, I can highly recommend this resource:

OpenLearn IT and Computing courses