AGN          Learning and Skills Open College (LSOC)            01 Jan 2007

Elsewhere on this blog I tell that I am now just turned 81.  In the 1960s I studied Maths, Radio and Telecoms up to City & Guilds Final.  I passed all the exams and did have the certificates, but have since lost them during one of my house moves.  I also sat and passed HNC A1 Mechanical maths.  The electrical maths was too difficult and I did not attempt the exam.  I shudder to thing what A2 Electrical maths would have been like.

I am (and was) interested in updating my knowledge in the field of telecommunications, so when I saw an internet site that advertised LSOC, I thought that it might be just what I was looking for.  I emailed the company and agreed to have a salesman call.  A mature chap turned up at the assigned time on the 4th December 2006, and we discussed what I knew and what I wanted to learn.  The chap agreed that he did not have any technical knowledge, but seemed to think that the only course they did on that subject, covered what I wanted.  I agreed.

The course could be carried out over the internet and, if I wanted, I could sit an exam at some local centre.  I was not interested in another piece of paper, but I did want to learn about some of the latest thinking in the subject.  I have enough basic telecommunication theory to know a lot of questions I would like answering.  The total price was something over a thousand pounds, which I considered reasonable.  I would have a tutor at the end of a freephone telephone line, and/or I could communicate by email or freepost..

I signed the form to have 37 payments of £38 a month taken by Direct Debit.  The chap left three tutorial books and a beautiful carrying case that had 30 sheets of plain A4 paper and a small toolkit.  Everything looked very professional.  I had the address of the admin office et cetera.  I have not played the CD that was in the case; but I can imagine what it will be about!  I contacted the tutor and told her my age and gave a brief description of my background.  Off we went!

I studied the first section of Book One and looked at the questions at the end of that part of the book  The first question was name two analogue and two digital devices.  I named the two analogue devices and gave a punch-tape machine, and a teleprinter as the digital devices.  The tutor replied that the analogue devices were correct but she had never heard of the digital devices "would I give the links to where I had found these devices".  That answer rang the first bell.  When I said that surely she was aware of these machines as they were commonplace in the 60s and 70s.  I was then told that she was barely born in the 60s.  My reaction was that if my tutor didn't have some elementary knowledge of the history of he subject, she shouldn't be teaching it..  I did not tell her my thoughts on that matter.

Then came a question on "would I need a higher fan speed if I was operating an MP3?  (It was referred to as an 'mp3' elsewhere.  I thought I knew what an MP3 was, but I was obviously wrong.  Several emails later I discovered that I did know what an MP3 was, and that it had virtually nothing to do with a computer, any more that a digital camera might. 

The final statement by the tutor that:
"1 Be aware that you have to guess the right answer(s) and some of them are consequently wrong."   By now I had found two basic errors in Book One of the tutorial. "mp3" and MP3" were the same thing. "PSU" did not mean "Power Socket Unit" but "Power Supply Unit".  The lady admitted that it was an error in the book.  But that I should GUESS the answers seemed ludicrous.

After a lengthy Q & A about "Form Factor", I decided that I was wasting my time and the tutor's time. I sent an apologetic email to the lady saying that I was cancelling my Direct Debit and would be writing to the Admin Office.  I penned a stiff letter telling the Admin Office saying that if they wanted to sue me for breach of contract, I would show them up in Court as a bunch of incompetent fools.  I have yet to hear from them (2 Jan 2007)

Incidentally, I have never met their definition of Form Factor.  To me it is the power ration of a sine-wave to a distorted wave.  It allows knowledge of the degree of distortion of an imperfect AC supply that is providing power to a load.  It seems that LSOC mean the size and shape of the hardware in a computer.

So, dear reader, look at what I have written and make your decision as to whether to use this company or not.  I am sure they will learn from their experience of me.  The converse is certainly true.  I am still looking for a way to update my knowledge of telecoms.  I got a book from Ebay and it was little more that a list of acronym definitions.  And BT courses are only for BT staff.