Hi,
Another OU student here with a paper due later on today!
I got my BSc Open last December and am currently doing another course to turn it into a BSc(Hons) Open.
With the OU you can study courses to achieve a named degree eg BSc(Hons) Geography or you can pick and mix from all the courses that the OU offers and get a BA / BSC(Hons) Open. (Named degrees are a fairly recent addition to the system but there are now a lot of them.)
The assessment for each course will usually include upto six essays / longform answers and either an exam, at an examination centre on a fixed day at a fixed time, or an ECA which is the equivalent of half a thesis that you undertake in your own time. Some courses have exams and some have ECAs. At least one course that I know of has both and they are both compulsory. No course gives you the choice or doing either an exam or an ECA.
If you go for a pick 'n mix course choice then you can choose courses that only have ECAs and this will fit into your flying schedule much better than having to try to fit in an exam on a fixed day. I learnt that one the hard way when I was called into work on an exam day. Not clever.
The OU is set up for Distance Learning so don't worry about the on-line aspect of your education. Almost all courses will allow you to submit essays etc. on-line.
As far as teaching materials are concerned, I don't like the pure on-line courses as I end up wasting time and ink printing out all the screens so I can refer back to them at a later date. If you have a choice from the OU of the same course on-line or on paper I would go for the paper version everytime. Having said that the course books for my current course are also available on-line in a searchable form via Google Books, so that is very handy if I am on the road or want to search for a particular keyword within the text.
A 60 point course is the equivalent of half a full time University year and you can expect to be doing 18 hours per week for about 8 months. A 30 point course is nominally 9 hours but in practice they seem to be closer to 18 hours! It is not recommended to study courses totalling more than 60 points simultaneously. (Your ultimate goal is: BA/BSc = 300 points & BA(Hons) / BSc(Hons) = 360 points.)
What is good is the quality of the teaching materials. The last assessment I saw had the OU at number 10 out of all the UK Universities for its teaching quality. (This is not the derided Student Satisfaction Survey.)
Also good are the entry requirements. ie no A levels or O levels / GCSEs are required. It is Open.
Another good thing is that you can pay all or part of your course fees at Undergraduate level in Tesco Clubcard points. This year all my fees are being paid for this way. Just get a Tesco credit card to keep adding on the Clubcard points even if you shop at Waitrose or overnight at a Travelodge!
Yes there are bad points but if you need more info I can let you know some of them.
eticket