Partner organisations which offer courses leading to OU awards and also provide student support are in Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Hungary, India, Romania, Russia, Singapore and Slovakia. In Hong Kong and South Africa, partner institutions offer OUBS programmes as their own awards. 200 OUBS central and regional academic and support staff and more than 800 part-time tutors support and teach students. Management tutors work with the materials provided by the course teams. The asynchronous nature of CMC is a particular characteristic of the medium.
Users can log-on from any location and at any time using a computer at home or at work.
The OUBS introduced CMC as integral part of course learning and communication on its MBA entry course for graduate or professionally qualified managers. It takes a year of part-time study. B800 acknowledges that students come to it with a variety of management backgrounds. The course seeks to provide a creative environment, where mangers pool their different skills within group work, a considerable challenge for a distance taught course. Computers play an important role as a learning and communications medium.