by Ciro Santilli (@cirosantilli, 34)
Things actually have gotten more and more closed, e.g. of stuff getting paywalled with time:
It appears that things got really bad starting in 2017, possibly when WebLearn was introduced. When things migrated to Canvas, they were closed by default, apparently with any mechanism to publish publicly.
Therefore, they managed to make things more closed than when teachers would just upload to good old ox.ac.uk/~name static websites!!
Ciro Santilli has also heard that some people in the Mathematical Institute of the University of Oxford opposed to moving away from their Moodle instance precisely because the new options did not support open publishing, so kudos to those people. But most teachers likely don't care and just do whatever is the best internally supported default.
Their "open" video material: podcasts.ox.ac.uk/ A somewhat small part is Creative Commons, but most proprietary. Despite the name "podcasts", they do contain video, it is just a relic.
podcasts.ox.ac.uk/open contains actual Creative Commons only it seems.
It does however appear that professors own their lecture notes, so there some hope maybe: governance.admin.ox.ac.uk/legislation/statute-xvi-property-contracts-and-trusts#collapse1383636
Talks: talks.ox.ac.uk/. Mathematical, Physical and Life Sciences (MPLS) subset: talks.ox.ac.uk/talks/department/id/oxpoints:23232639
Video 1.
University of Oxford documentary by the British Council (1941)
Source.
Their status is a mess as of 2020s, with several systems ongoing. Long live the "original" collegiate university!
E-learning system of the University of Oxford. Closed by default to non-students of course. It might not be possible at all to publish things publicly?
WebLearn was closed in 2023 in favour of Canvas.
Has a mixture of open access and closed access. But at least it can have open access unlike the in-house systems such as Canvas where everything is necessarily paywalled!
Sometimes things appear open but don't show any meaningful content if you are not logged in, which is annoying.
But at least it gives a clear public course list, thing that certain departments (cough Department of Physics of the University of Oxford cough).
The organization is a bit crap, when you expand e.g. C Michaelmas term it shows nothing, just a search.
The way to go is via the year year categories e.g. "Year 2022-23": courses.maths.ox.ac.uk/course/index.php?categoryid=734. Term splitting is annoying, but one can stand it.
There seems to be no way to list all versions of a single course across multiple years besides just doing a search e.g.
This is apparently where past exam papers can be found. Paywalled of course.
The paywall is stupid however, as they seem to provide past papers upon request, e.g.
This adds to the mess of having a different location for material per department. Presumably this exists because the central university authority wants to centralize examinations to have better control over degree requirements. If only they would also do the same for all materials and end the mess.
It is said that you leave Oxford with either
University of Cambridge students, CanTabBridgeans.
E.g.: thecollegestore.co.uk/products/ladies-oxford-college-puffer-jacket?variant=40590030864549 Black with 5 rows, on left chest "colege name", logo, "Oxford", and right chest optional initials (or sometimes other identifiers/nicknames) to help distinguish from all the other people's identical clothes.
This has a whitelabel version: www.workweargiant.co.uk/product/result-urban-holkham-down-feel-jacket/, the name appears to be "Holkham Down Feel Jacket".
Circa 2020, these are likely given out by each college for free, and are widely used.
If you look 20 and wear one of those, it's almost an ID, you can get anywhere that does not require a key card, porters won't look at you twice!
TODO confirm URL: oxfordgossip.co.uk ? An archive from 2005 when it was hottest: web.archive.org/web/20051204033916/http://www.oxfordgossip.co.uk/new/
TODO spiciest posts ever?
Student science magazine.
Each term has 8 weeks, and the week number is often used to denote the time at which something happens.
Week 0 is also often used to denote the week before classes officially start. This is especially important in the first term of the year (Michaelmas term) where people are coming back to school and meeting old and new friends.
At the end of the year, after Trinity term, students have exams. These basically account for all of the grades. In certain courses such as the Physics course of the University of Oxford, there is only new material on Michaelmas term and Hilary term, Trinity term being revision-only. So you can imagine that during Trinity term, students are going to be on edge.
Bibliography:
Like the U.S.' fall term.
Like the U.S.' spring term.
Like the U.S.' summer term.
E-learning system prior to Canvas: weblearn.ox.ac.uk/portal. Appears fully custom and closed source?
Closed in 2023 in favour of Canvas.
As of 2022:
  • www.ox.ac.uk/students/fees-funding/fees/rates gives study fees. Almost all courses are about 9k pounds / academic year. Courses take minimum 3 years, with an optional 4th year masters. The costs of masters can be higher however, though most aren't much.
    It is funny to note how Public Policy is comically priced at 45,890 for a course without laboratories, how can a country be so corrupt? :-) It was later brought to Ciro's attention that the reason is that those courses are not usually paid by individuals, but by their employers...
    Another eye popping one is Mathematical & Computational Finance MSc for £36,370.
  • www.ox.ac.uk/students/fees-funding/living-costs gives living costs, an average 12k for the usual 9 month period
  • there is the Crankstart scholarship: www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/student-life/help-with-the-cost/crankstart-scholarships which gives 5k/year to students whose families have less than 27k/year income, and values decrease from there to 60k/year income where they become zero.
    It is funny to note that the scholarship was previously named after a Welsh billionaire who studied there and donated and his wife, Michael Moritz and wife Harriet Heyman. It is actually the Welsh who are creating those scholarships for the English! It is so funny to see. His background is quite amazing, from historian to journalist to venture capitalist.
    It was later renamed Crankstart after the Crankstart Foundation, presumably to help gather funds from others, but it is just still led by Michael.
    It does appear that most/all of the natural sciences ones are reasonably priced, perhaps they are subsided.
The median household income at the time was 31k[ref]. Clearly, putting one child through university with that income would be basically impossible, you would pay 19 - 5 = 14k/year, almost half of your income. Two children would be impossible. Remember how each family needs to have two children minimum to perpetuate life?
This book series appears to be the one: global.oup.com/academic/content/series/h/history-of-the-university-of-oxford-huo/. A mere 250 pounds+ each.
Video 1.
History of Oxford University by Chris Day (2018)
Source. A large part of the video talks about how the insane system of colleges of the University of Oxford came about organically.
  • youtu.be/uol4V1Wa8B0?t=343 at the University of Bologna, the original system was for students to decide what they would learn, and hire and fire teachers as they decided. This is opposed to the system of the university of Paris, in which teachers make the final decisions. He mentions that this is the system that the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge use: the "congregation". He mentions that Oxbridge are one of the few universities that maintained this structure (as opposed to having funding sources select the final decision makers)
  • youtu.be/uol4V1Wa8B0?t=1327 mentions the quadrangle architecture which served as the basis of the Colleges: make a closed square with everything students need: Chapel, Hall to eat, classes and accommodation. This is based of course on monastic cloisters.
A good explanation of how this insane system came up is given at Video "History of Oxford University by Chris Day (2018)".
As if it weren't enough, there are also the 6 Halls: permanent private hall.
The colleges are controlled by its fellows, a small self-electing body of highly successful scholars, usually in the dozens per college number it seems. Each college also usually has different types of fellows, e.g. see he university college page: www.univ.ox.ac.uk/about/college-fellowships/ (archive)
The college system does has its merits though, as it instates a certain sense of Hogwarts "belonging" to a certain group, so it might help students get better support for their learning projects from older students, or through the tutoring system. Of course, all such "belonging" feelings are bad, the correct thing would be to make great online tutorials for all, and answer questions in the open. But oh well, humans are dumb.
The college you are in impacts the quality of your courses, because tutorials are per-college. As of 2023, Ciro Santilli spoke to some students of the Computer science course of the University of Oxford, and was told that in some cases where you don't have anyone who can give the tutorial, you instead get a "class", i.e. a P.h.D. student going through question sheets with no interaction in the C.S. department, rather than a deep interactive discussion over the college fire. How can this system be so broken, it is beyond belief
This functionality is somewhat related to fraternities and sororities in 2000's United States.
Similar to a college, but led by religious denomination leaders rather than fellows.
For students (who are paying for the university to start with...), they will not claim tutorials linked to courses. But a tutorial that shows university laboratories, it is unclear: www.ox.ac.uk/students/academic/guidance/intellectual-property (archive) This likely includes graduate students, who are also not paid by the university.
For faculty, the university owns everything it seems, to be confirmed.
The course outline is given in a "handbook", a one or more PDF files that contain what people will learn and other practicalities. There is a full list of handbooks at: www.ox.ac.uk/students/academic/guidance/undergraduate/handbooks, but many of them are closed. The system is so closed that even the fucking course list is closed, e.g. all links at: www2.physics.ox.ac.uk/students/undergraduates are closed. Insane.
At teaching.chem.ox.ac.uk/undergraduate-course-handbook.aspx there's a paywall, but Google found the PDF it anyways.
www.ox.ac.uk/students/academic/guidance/undergraduate/handbooks in theory links to all handbooks, but some are likely paywalled. But Google can generally find them anyways.
Course lists: www.cs.ox.ac.uk/teaching/courses/ True to form, courses appear to have identifiers, e.g. qi for the Quantum Information course of the University of Oxford rather than more arbitrary A1/A2/A3, B1/B2/B3, naming convention used by the Mathematics course of the University of Oxford and the Physics course of the University of Oxford, and URLs can either have years or not:
The "course materials" section of each course leads to courses.cs.ox.ac.uk/ which is paywalled by IP (accessible via Eduroam): TODO which system does it use? Some courses place their materials directly on "www.cs.ox.ac.uk", and when that is the case they are publicly accessible. So it is very much hit and miss. E.g. www.cs.ox.ac.uk/teaching/courses/2022-2023/quantum/index.html from Quantum Processes and Computation course of the University of Oxford has the assignments such as www.cs.ox.ac.uk/people/aleks.kissinger/courses/qpc2022/assignment1.pdf publicly visible, but e.g. www.cs.ox.ac.uk/teaching/courses/2022-2023/modelsofcomputation/ has nothing.
Handbook:
A mixed cross department course with the philosophy department. Its corresponding masters is known as Oxford MCompSciPhil. The handbook is together with the computer science one: Section "Computer science course of the University of Oxford".
A mixed cross department course with the Mathematical Institute of the University of Oxford.. Its corresponding masters is known as Oxford MMathCompSci. The handbook is together with the computer science one: Section "Computer science course of the University of Oxford".
Video 1.
Mathematics and Computer Science at Oxford University by University of Oxford (2017)
Source.
2023: Jonathan Barrett
This section is about the version of the course offerece on Hilary term 2023 (January).
It is the norm induced by the complex dot product over :
(1)
2022 lecturer: Aleks Kissinger
The course would be better named ZX-calculus as it appears to be the only subject covered.
2022 page: www.cs.ox.ac.uk/teaching/courses/qsoft/ Half of the problems are Jupyter Notebooks, not bad.
The Oxford mathematics Moodle has detailed course listings, and most PDFs are not paywalled.
E.g. the 2024 course:
  • Year 1: everything seems mandatory:
    • Michaelmas Term
      • Introduction to University Mathematics
      • Introduction to Complex Numbers
      • Linear Algebra I
      • Analysis I
      • Introductory Calculus
      • Probability
      • Geometry
    • Hilary Term
      • Linear Algebra II
      • Groups and Group Actions
      • Analysis II
      • Dynamics
      • Fourier Series and Partial Differential Equations
      • Multivariable Calculus
    • Trinity Term
      • Groups and Group Actions
      • Analysis III
      • Statistics and Data Analysis
      • Constructive Mathematics
  • Year 2:
    • Mandatory big courses:
      • Linear Algebra
      • Differential Equations 1
      • Metric Spaces and Complex Analysis
    • long options:
      • Rings and Modules
      • Integration
      • Topology
      • Differential Equations 2
      • Numerical Analysis
      • Probability
      • Statistics
      • Fluids and Waves
      • Quantum Theory
    • short options
      • Number Theory
      • Group Theory
      • Projective Geometry
      • Integral Transforms
      • Calculus of Variations
      • Graph Theory
      • Mathematical Modelling in Biology
  • Year 3: pick any 8 courses. Does not say which courses exist in PDF but we can get them from courses.maths.ox.ac.uk/course/index.php?categoryid=814 of the Oxford mathematics Moodle:
    • Michaelmas
      • B1.1 Logic (2024-25)
      • B2.1 Introduction to Representation Theory (2024-25)
      • B3.2 Geometry of Surfaces (2024-25)
      • B3.5 Topology and Groups (2024-25)
      • B4.1 Functional Analysis I (2024-25)
      • B5.2 Applied Partial Differential Equations (2024-25)
      • B5.3 Viscous Flow (2024-25)
      • B5.5 Further Mathematical Biology (2024-25)
      • B6.1 Numerical Solution of Partial Differential Equations (2024-25)
      • B6.3 Integer Programming (2024-25)
      • B7.1 Classical Mechanics (2024-25)
      • B8.1 Probability, Measure and Martingales (2024-25)
      • B8.4 Information Theory (2024-25)
      • B8.5 Graph Theory (2024-25)
      • BO1.1 History of Mathematics (2024-25)
      • BOE Other Mathematical Extended Essay (2024-25)
      • BSP Structured Projects (2024-25)
    • Hilary
      • B1.2 Set Theory (2024-25)
      • B2.2 Commutative Algebra (2024-25)
      • B2.3 Lie Algebras (2024-25)
      • B3.1 Galois Theory (2024-25)
      • B3.3 Algebraic Curves (2024-25)
      • B3.4 Algebraic Number Theory (2024-25)
      • B4.3 Distribution Theory (2024-25)
      • B4.2 Functional Analysis II (2024-25)
      • B5.1 Stochastic Modelling of Biological Processes (2024-25)
      • B5.4 Waves and Compressible Flow (2024-25)
      • B5.6 Nonlinear Dynamics, Bifurcations and Chaos (2024-25)
      • B6.2 Optimisation for Data Science (2024-25)
      • B7.2 Electromagnetism (2024-25)
      • B7.3 Further Quantum Theory (2024-25)
      • B8.2 Continuous Martingales and Stochastic Calculus (2024-25)
      • B8.3 Mathematical Models of Financial Derivatives (2024-25)
      • B8.6 High Dimensional Probability (2024-25)
      • SB3.1 Applied Probability (2024-25)
      • BO1.1 History of Mathematics (2024-25)
      • BOE Other Mathematical Extended Essay (2024-25)
      • BSP Structured Projects (2024-25)
  • Year 4: pick any 8 courses (up to 10 if you're crazy). Does not say which courses exist in PDF but we can get them from courses.maths.ox.ac.uk/course/index.php?categoryid=814 of the Oxford mathematics Moodle:
    • Michaelmas
      • C1.1 Model Theory (2024-25)
      • C1.4 Axiomatic Set Theory (2024-25)
      • C2.2 Homological Algebra (2024-25)
      • C2.4 Infinite Groups (2024-25)
      • C2.7 Category Theory (2024-25)
      • C3.1 Algebraic Topology (2024-25)
      • C3.3 Differentiable Manifolds (2024-25)
      • C3.4 Algebraic Geometry (2024-25)
      • C3.7 Elliptic Curves (2024-25)
      • C3.8 Analytic Number Theory (2024-25)
      • C4.1 Further Functional Analysis (2024-25)
      • C4.3 Functional Analytic Methods for PDEs (2024-25)
      • C5.2 Elasticity and Plasticity (2024-25)
      • C5.5 Perturbation Methods (2024-25)
      • C5.7 Topics in Fluid Mechanics (2024-25)
      • C5.11 Mathematical Geoscience (2024-25)
      • C5.12 Mathematical Physiology (2024-25)
      • C6.1 Numerical Linear Algebra (2024-25)
      • C6.5 Theories of Deep Learning (2024-25)
      • C7.1 Theoretical Physics (C6) (2024-25)
      • C7.5 General Relativity I (2024-25)
      • C8.1 Stochastic Differential Equations (2024-25)
      • C8.3 Combinatorics (2024-25)
      • CCD Dissertations on a Mathematical Topic (2024-25)
      • COD Dissertations on the History of Mathematics (2024-25)
    • Hilary
      • C1.2 Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems (2024-25)
      • C1.3 Analytic Topology (2024-25)
      • C2.3 Representation Theory of Semisimple Lie Algebras (2024-25)
      • C2.5 Non-Commutative Rings (2024-25)
      • C2.6 Introduction to Schemes (2024-25)
      • C3.2 Geometric Group Theory (2024-25)
      • C3.5 Lie Groups (2024-25)
      • C3.6 Modular Forms (2024-25)
      • C3.9 Computational Algebraic Topology (2024-25)
      • C3.10 Additive Combinatorics (2024-25)
      • C3.11 Riemannian Geometry (2024-25)
      • C3.12 Low-Dimensional Topology and Knot Theory (2024-25)
      • C4.6 Fixed Point Methods for Nonlinear PDEs (2024-25)
      • C4.9 Optimal Transport & Partial Differential Equations (2024-25)
      • C5.1 Solid Mechanics (2024-25)
      • C5.4 Networks (2024-25)
      • C5.6 Applied Complex Variables (2024-25)
      • C6.2 Continuous Optimisation (2024-25)
      • C6.4 Finite Element Method for PDEs (2024-25)
      • C7.1 Theoretical Physics (C6) (2024-25)
      • C7.4 Introduction to Quantum Information (2024-25)
      • C7.6 General Relativity II (2024-25)
      • C7.7 Random Matrix Theory (2024-25)
      • C8.2 Stochastic Analysis and PDEs (2024-25)
      • C8.4 Probabilistic Combinatorics (2024-25)
      • C8.7 Optimal Control (2024-25)
      • CCD Dissertations on a Mathematical Topic (2024-25)
      • COD Dissertations on the History of Mathematics (2024-25)
Lecturer: Luc Nguyen
Video 1.
Mathematics and Statistics at Oxford University by University of Oxford (2017)
Source.
From the 2020/2021 Oxford physics course handbooks we can determine the following structure:
  • Year 1 (CP, "Coure Preliminaries", "Prelims"). Take all of:
    • CP1 Classical mechanics, Special relativity
    • CP2 Electromagnetism, circuit theory and optics
    • CP3 Mathematical methods 1. Complex Numbers and Ordinary Differential Equations. Vectors and Matrices.
    • CP4 Mathematical methods 2. Multiple Integrals and Vector Calculus. Normal Modes, Wave Motion and the Wave Equation.
  • Year 2 (Part A). Take all of:
    • A1 Thermal physics. Kinetic Theory, Heat Transport, Thermodynamics.
    • A2 Electromagnetism and optics
    • A3 Quantum physics. Quantum Mechanics and Further Quantum Mechanics.
    • Short options: at least one of:
      • Mathematical Methods
      • Probability and Statistics
      • S01 Functions of a Complex Variable
      • S07 Classical Mechanics
      • S10 Medical Imaging and Radiation Therapy
      • S13 Teaching and Learning Physics in Schools
      • S14 History of Physics
      • S20 History of Science
      • S21 Philosophy of Science
      • S22 Language Options
      • S25 Climate Physics
      • S27 Philosophy of Space-Time
      • S29 Exploring Solar Systems
      • S33 Entrepreneurship for Physicists
  • Year 3 (Part B). Take all of:
  • Year 4 (MPhys). Select two from:
Trinity term, the third and final term of each year, contains mostly revision from the previous two terms, after which students take their final exams, which basically account for their entire grade. Trinity is therefore a very tense part of the year for the students. After that they have summer holidays, until coming back for the next year of madness.
The official external course landing page: www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/courses/course-listing/physics. 2021 archive: web.archive.org/web/20221208212856/https://www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/courses/course-listing/physics) In those pages we see the rough structure, except that it does not have the course codes "A1" etc., and some courses are missing.
At web.archive.org/web/20221229021312/https://www2.physics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2011-06-03/course_v3_pdf_80151.pdf page 11 we can see the global course structure giving the two options, 3 year BA or 4 year Oxford physics masters:
Year 1
(Prelims)
|
|
v
Year 2
(Part A)
|
+-----------+
|           |
v           v
Year 3 BA   Year 3 (MPhys)
(Part B)    (Part B)
|           |
|           |
v           v
BA          Year 4
            (Part C)
            |
            |
            v
            MPhys
Practical courses notes: www-teaching.physics.ox.ac.uk/
The normal navigation to them was paywalled, but the static files are served without login checks if you know their URL. One way to go about it is to search by prefix on the Wayback Machine: web.archive.org/web/*/https://www2.physics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/contentblock/2011/06/03/*
The last handbooks we can find are 2020/2021, they might have move to a new more properly paywalled location after that year.
Group of students that represent students academic views about the courses.
users.physics.ox.ac.uk/~lvovsky/B3/ contain assorted PDFs from between 2015 and 2019
Syllabus reads:
  • Multi-electron atoms: central field approximation, electron configurations, shell structure, residual electrostatic interaction, spin orbit coupling (fine structure).
  • Spectra and energy levels: Term symbols, selection rules, X-ray notation, Auger transitions.
  • Hyperfine structure; effects of magnetic fields on fine and hyperfine structure. Presumably Zeeman effect.
  • Two level system in a classical light field: Rabi oscillations and Ramsey fringes, decaying states; Einstein
  • A and B coefficients; homogeneous and inhomogeneous broadening of spectral lines; rate equations.
  • Optical absorption and gain: population inversion in 3- and 4-level systems; optical gain cross section; saturated absorption and gain.
Professor in 2000s seems to be
But as of 2023 marked emeritus, so who took over?
Ewart is actually religious:
This dude is pure trouble for Oxford!
www-thphys.physics.ox.ac.uk/people/AndreiStarinets/sr_mt_2022.html (archive) contains 2022 problem sets and notes, well done Mr Andrei Starinets!
www-pnp.physics.ox.ac.uk/~barra/teaching.shtml As of 2023, contains some good 2015 materials: web.archive.org/web/20220525094139/http://www-pnp.physics.ox.ac.uk/~barra/teaching.shtml It was called "Subatomic physics" back then.
2015 professor: Alan J. Barr.
Possible 2022 professor: Guy Wilkinson (unconfirmed): www.chch.ox.ac.uk/staff/professor-guy-wilkinson
users.ox.ac.uk/~corp0014/B6-lectures.html gives a syllabus:
  • Heat capacity in solids, localised harmonic oscillator models (Dulong-Petit law and Einstein model)
  • Heat capacity in solids, a model of sound waves (Debye model)
  • A gas of classical charged particles (Drude theory)
  • A gas of charged fermions (Sommerfeld theory)
  • Bonding
  • Microscopic theory of vibrations: the 1D monatomic harmonic chain. Mike Glazer's Chainplot program.
  • Microscopic theory of vibrations: the 1D diatomic harmonic chain
  • Microscopic theory of electrons in solids: the 1D tight-binding chain
  • Geometry of solids: crystal structure in real space. VESTA, 3D visualization program for structural models; an example crystal structure database.
  • Geometry of solids: real space and reciprocal space. Reciprocal Space teaching and learning package.
  • Reciprocal space and scattering. A fun way to discover the world of crystals and their symmetries through diffraction.
  • Scattering experiments II
  • Scattering experiments III
  • Waves in reciprocal space
  • Nearly-free electron model
  • Band structure and optical properties
  • Dynamics of electrons in bands
  • Semiconductor devices. Intel's "A History of Innovation"; Moore's Law; From Sand to Circuits.
  • Magnetic properties of atoms
  • Collective magnetism. A micromagnetic simulation tool, The Object Oriented MicroMagnetic Framework (OOMMF); OOMMF movies of magnetic domains and domain reversal.
  • Mean field theory
Problem set dated 2015: users.ox.ac.uk/~corp0014/B6-materials/B6_Problems.pdf Marked by: A. Ardavan and T. Hesjedal. Some more stuff under: users.ox.ac.uk/~corp0014/B6-materials/
The book is the fully commercial The Oxford Solid State Basics.
Students choose only one of the Cx courses.
Then there are PhDs corresponding to each of them: www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/graduate/courses/mpls/physics
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