The Open University is a UK University with powers granted through its Royal Charter to award degrees, diplomas and certificates. It is permitted to do this for its own academic programmes and in order to enable other organisations which do not have their own degree awarding powers to gain recognition of their academic programmes. open University awards are recogniesed awards under section 214 of the Education Reform Act 1988 and the Open University is a Recognised Body for the purposes of tha Act, listed in the Education (Recognised Bodies) Order 1997.
Open University Validation Services is the unit of the Open University charged with providing a national and international accreditation service for a comprehensive range of academic and educational institutions, and industrial, commercial and professional bodies and providing a validation service for their higher education programmes.
Open University awards and Open University Validated awards have parity of esteem within the university and with awards from all other UK Universities. the term 'Open University Validated Award' is used for those Open University awards achieved through programmes validated by Open University Services and the term 'Open university Award' is used for Open university awards achieved through the open and distance learning programmes offered by the Open University. Both terms have equal standing.
All Open University awards are quality assured by the Open University. The quality and standard of validated awards is assured by operating a robust system of peer review, drawing upon a national and international body of expertise. This ensures that the programmes of study that lead to validated awards are compatible with other UK awards in similar subject and at a similar level.
Utrecht School of the Arts is an accredited institution of the open University which offers programmes that have been validated by the University and lead to the awards of:
MA Arts Management
MA Design
MA MA Creative Design for Digital Cultures
MA Fine Art
MA Performance Design
