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Introduction and guidance

The Open University — Wed, 30 May 2018 15:26:28 GMT

Welcome to this free badged open course, Can renewable energy sources power the world?.

The course is made up of eight weeks, with approximately three hours of study in each. It is suggested that you do one session per week, but you can work through the course at your own pace, so if you have more time one week there is no problem with pushing on to complete another session.

The eight weeks cover the following:

Introduction to renewable energy
Solar energy for heating and daylighting
Solar photovoltaics
Bioenergy
Hydroelectrivity
Wind energy
Wave energy
Towards a renewable future.

After completing this course, you will:

understand at an introductory level the basic physical principles underlying the operation of renewable energy systems
understand the key role of the Sun as the main source of renewable energy
be aware of the essential characteristics of energy demand and supply in the UK and the world
be aware of the principal renewable energy technologies and their main characteristics
be aware of some of the factors that are working to promote the deployment of renewable energies and those acting to inhibit it.

Moving around the course

In the ‘Summary’ at the end of each session, you can find a link to the next one. If at any time you want to return to the start of the course, click on ‘Full course description’. From here you can navigate to any part of the course. Alternatively, use the session links at the top of every page of the course.

It’s also good practice, if you access a link from within a course page (including links to the quizzes), to open it in a new window or tab. That way you can easily return to where you’ve come from without having to use the back button on your browser.

What is a badged course?

The Open University — Wed, 30 May 2018 15:26:28 GMT

While studying Can renewable energy sources power the world? you have the option to work towards gaining a digital badge.

Badged courses are a key part of The Open University’s mission to promote the educational well-being of the community. The courses also provide another way of helping you to progress from informal to formal learning.

To complete a course you need to be able to find about 24 hours of study time, over a period of about 8 weeks. However, it is possible to study them at any time, and at a pace to suit you.

Badged courses are all available on The Open University’s OpenLearn website and do not cost anything to study. They differ from Open University courses because you do not receive support from a tutor. But you do get useful feedback from the interactive quizzes.

What is a badge?

Digital badges are a new way of demonstrating online that you have gained a skill. Schools, colleges and universities are working with employers and other organisations to develop open badges that help learners gain recognition for their skills, and support employers to identify the right candidate for a job.

Badges demonstrate your work and achievement on the course. You can share your achievement with friends, family and employers, and on social media. Badges are a great motivation, helping you to reach the end of the course. Gaining a badge often boosts confidence in the skills and abilities that underpin successful study. So, completing this course should encourage you to think about taking other courses.

How to get a badge

The Open University — Wed, 30 May 2018 15:26:28 GMT

Getting a badge is straightforward! Here’s what you have to do:

read each session of the course
score 50% or more in the two badge quizzes in Session 4 and Session 8.

For all the quizzes, you can have three attempts at most of the questions (for true or false type questions you usually only get one attempt). If you get the answer right first time you will get more marks than for a correct answer the second or third time. Therefore, please be aware that for the two badge quizzes it is possible to get all the questions right but not score 50% and be eligible for the badge on that attempt. If one of your answers is incorrect you will often receive helpful feedback and suggestions about how to work out the correct answer.

For the badge quizzes, if you’re not successful in getting 50% the first time, after 24 hours you can attempt the whole quiz, and come back as many times as you like.

We hope that as many people as possible will gain an Open University badge – so you should see getting a badge as an opportunity to reflect on what you have learned rather than as a test.

If you need more guidance on getting a badge and what you can do with it, take a look at the OpenLearn FAQs. When you gain your badge you will receive an email to notify you and you will be able to view and manage all your badges in My OpenLearn within 24 hours of completing the criteria to gain a badge.

Get started with Week 1.

Acknowledgements

The Open University — Wed, 30 May 2018 15:26:28 GMT

This free course was written by Godfrey Boyle, Rodney Buckland and Sebastian Tyrrell.

Except for third party materials and otherwise stated (see terms and conditions), this content is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Licence.

The material acknowledged below is Proprietary and used under licence (not subject to Creative Commons Licence). Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following sources for permission to reproduce material in this free course:

Every effort has been made to contact copyright owners. If any have been inadvertently overlooked, the publishers will be pleased to make the necessary arrangements at the first opportunity.

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