I signed up to study a Certificate in Real Estate through OTEN last year. I was already undertaking a business degree full time at university and found through research that OTEN offered online learning facilities. I was therefore able to study and work from home which was hugely convenient. I never had to go into OTEN for classes or even assignments and exams. The staff were really friendly and could answer any questions - over the phone and via email. The online portal is very easy to navigate and is pretty self explanatory. The reading modules are all available online and are downloadable. The assignments and exams are also available under each subject name. All coursework is submitted online, so there is no need to go to OTEN to submit assignments and sit exams. Too easy! I would definitely recommend OTEN and their courses for those who are unable to travel or those who prefer to study from home. If you are working full-time or studying, it is a great way to add extra skills and update your knowledge without sacrificing income and other commitments. OTEN is run by TAFE and the course formats are exactly the same. I was able to work at my own pace and submit assignments and complete exams whenever I had done the reading and had the time. read more

I have finished the Cert III in Education Support through OTEN and have NOT had a pleasant experience at all. I will be recommending people against this course through OTEN as it is a waste of money due to the running around I have been through, and OTEN's sloppiness. I have a huge problem with the fact that required readings with important content for the assignments are photocopied from a text book and scanned onto the website. This would be fine if every page was decipherable, but they aren't. In fact, I have taken 34 screen shots of pages where written content is indecipherable or incredibly difficult to make out (even after zooming in) I have excellent eyesight and pity anyone else who is enrolled in the course who does not and has to try and read it. There is more where that came from as well! My second problem is with the staff member who appears to be the only one knowledgeable enough to answer any of my questions and she is only in 2 days a week! The 2 days she is in she still does not consistently answer my questions that I usually email to her (but I sometimes call her directly) For example: it is nearing on 4 months since I asked her what the title of the textbooks are for the required readings of the fourth subject, and she still cannot tell me them (they only have links to sites where the pages of these unknown textbook are photocopied and then scanned in!) She apparently never forgot but I don't understand why it's taking so long. It appears the ability to delegate is appalling. There are too many students for just one person to handle, and she isn't handling it! My third problem is that the website is difficult to navigate. It is unclear which cluster is which in the 'course progress' page and it is irritating that every link opens up a new page. That gets very confusing, and I am quite computer savvy in my young age. My fourth problem is with the assessments. They have spelling errors and can be worded incorrectly making questions difficult to answer. Every single time I have sent out my assessments I have had to resend them due to a problem with the downloading on OTEN's end (I don't think that should be my problem, they should be able to convert the assessments to whichever format needed themselves). I also have had to request assessments to be sent out as a word document so that I can actually add to them. They keep getting sent out as pdfs and I do not have the software to convert them! I attempted to report these problems during the course to a 'manager' but the manager never got back to me like they said they would. I wrote this complaint on OTENs website and was contacted the next day. They were apologetic and sent me out a textbook as compensation and explained that it was a new course and that they are making changes. If i had known they were a new course when i signed up I would have gone through someone else! They refused to give me monetary compensation so I just took the textbook and am now warning people against them. They said the manager I spoke to was not even employed by OTEN... don't know how thats possible... Most of the content was common sense to me anyway, that's the only reason I passed. read more