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
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:
- cherwell.org/2023/11/10/oxfords-term-structure-needs-to-change-heres-why-it-wont/ some criticism of the term organization on Cherwell because the terms are too short which increases student pressure to learn fast
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?
- cherwell.org/2023/10/02/27000-for-a-library-card/ £27,000 for a library card? published on the Cherwell
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.
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.
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.
Course actually means "degree", not just one specific "course":
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.