Study resource review: OpenTuition.com

You've probably heard of this site by now, but in case not: OpenTuition is a website that provides "free resources to accountancy students" - these include study notes, video lectures, and a message board to discuss with fellow students and tutors. The site is heavily frequented and by virtue of the traffic they receive, they generate the necessary ad revenue to cover the hosting costs and keep the site running free of charge.

For a free website that contains no illegally pirated material, the quality is quite high. Based on some of the discussions on the site's message board it would appear many students opt to use OpenTuition exclusively, especially if tuition costs are a concern. Personally I'd advise against using their resources as one's primary learning materials if personal finances permit it. The value for money is great, but the study notes in particular do not scratch the surface of those produced by the leading tuition providers (e.g. Kaplan Financial, BPP Learning Media).

What follows is a quick review of OpenTuition's study notes, video lectures, and message board. 

Study notes

I've used the study notes, to varying degrees, for the following papers: F6 Taxation (UK), F9 Financial Management; P1 Corporate Governance, Risk and Ethics; P2 Corporate Reporting; P3 Business Analysis; and P4 Advanced Financial Management.

I will say unequivocally that the P1 notes are poor, designed only to be used with the lectures (and presumably jotting one's own handwritten notes on the vast white spaces on them), and note for, say, reading on the train. I wouldn't waste time on these unless it was for quick reminders of what's actually on the syllabus, because they don't go much further than this. P3's are much better in this regard. 

F6 and F9, both quite number-churning papers, had the most useful notes in my estimation, and students can get quite a lot of mileage out of these in terms of learning and practicing the calculations and computations required.

P2 and P4's notes were acceptable, but definitely only as supplements to more detailed texts - the content in those papers is too wide and too deep to trust only these notes. Again, they are better when it comes to the number crunching, e.g. the P2 notes provide good coverage of share-based payments, the P4 notes of option pricing.

Video lectures

The video lectures for all the aforementioned courses are worth a watch, especially if you were unable to attend a tuition course. I did attend in-person tuition courses, but occasionally I preferred OpenTuition's lectures (and lecturers!) to those I was attending. Still, it could be quite time-intensive to watch all the lectures for each paper, so if you don't think they're right for you after a handful of lectures, it might be time to stop watching and focus your study plan elsewhere. 

Perhaps it's because I enjoy being in a classroom, but I find the OpenTuition lectures that are actually recorded in classrooms to be more engaging than those recorded in a studio. For that reason I wasn't too fond of F6 and P4, but that may just be my preference. 

It is very important to note that note all syllabus areas are covered in the video lectures (for instance, the P4 lectures contain nothing on mergers and acquisitions), so students should beware being misled into thinking they've covered the whole syllabus just through completing the lectures. Also, the lectures aren't continually updated, hence P1 is still referred to its old name Professional Accountant rather than the updated Corporate Governance, Risk and Ethics.

Message board

To the best of my knowledge, the message board on the site is the most active of all ACCA message boards. Unfortunately, the signal-to-noise ratio is really low and the board is inundated with low-quality posts. It's not so much a community centred on discussion of accountancy and studying - it's really a bit of a mess. In short, it looks like the very lightly moderated message board that it is. The fact that there are few if any alternatives might be a failing of the ACCA, or may just reflect the fact that accountancy and finance discussions happen on the web if non-ACCA-specific fora.

Recommendation

There is little reason not to check out OpenTuition's free lecture notes and video lectures for whichever papers you are sitting. Ideally the notes should be used to supplement other published study materials. Steer clear of the forums and the comments if low-quality posting/moderation bother you. Or, more helpfully, register and try to help make it into a community of better discussion!