BIPP accreditation removes 2 years from a BA(hons) in photography

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This is interesting...

If you successfully achieve a Licentiate (or higher) with the BIPP, you now have the option to continue on to a BA Honours Degree with the Open College of the Arts with just one further year of study.
The BA (Hons) Photography Degree is made up of 360 credit points. Your BIPP Licentiate submission could be considered as ‘prior experiential learning’ of up to 240 points – effectively 2 years of a 3 year course.

From here: http://www.bipp.com/oca

So, what are your thoughts on this? Personally, I have seen people achieve an "L" after about 12 weeks of learning with a camera (albeit they are talented) but is this really a subsitute for 2 years of study towards a degree? I would assume there is much more to a photography degree than simply creating 20 photos... :thinking:
 
Accreditation of prior learning Is used by many universities as a route to a degree. Mature students with senior management experience may need no other study.
But the "Proof" process is time consuming and arduous. sometimes more so than doing the required study.
Fellow Senior managers at the college where I worked were offered this opportunity, I only know one who completed the exercise. Though several completed regular MA's.

The IBP ( now Bipp) used to have its own set of Photographic Examinations taken at most colleges. Holders of the IBP final qualification gained automatic associateship. degrees were not available in this country at the time. The horse seems to be at the other end of the cart now.
 
Thats very interesting, but in the case of senior management, you would have had to work your way up to that over a period of years with a heap of experience... I am not sure that the same can be said of an "L" but then, everyone's personal circumstances are different.

But, its unlikely you could get a job in senior management with no experience whatsoever, but gaining an "L" is open to all, regardless of experience...
 
Speaking as someone doing the Oca degree course, I find this very interesting. Maybe I should have gone the 'l' route but I'm quite enjoying the current journey I'm on.
 
I'm a bit surprised at this to be honest, shocked actually. My wife has just finished a degree and knowing what she had to do for that, (admittedly the third year was the hardest) but it was a colossal amount of essay writing. To think you can skip that with just an L seems a bit odd.
As the unqualified member of the family, I'd be tempted to do it myself :)
 
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Ding, across all the institutions there is quite a high failure rate for the L and it has become a challenging qualification to achieve - the standard is going up year by year and a panel which might have been successful three or four years ago would likely fail now. I see quite a lot of candidates failing more than once, and many give up entirely.

It's much more straightforward to go for the L with the RPS (where they only require 10 images). The BIPP requires at least 20 images at Licentiate level in a very coherent Panel (I had to show a body of 42 for my Fellowship, and plenty of other stuff as well) as well as a 'book' describing your philosophy and the intent and technical processes behind each image, and also encourages candidates to show other supporting evidence and working practise, published work, exhibition etc. I would say there is a considerable amount of work involved not just in preparing the submission, but of course in the years you will have spent beforehand learning your craft. This is why the Licentiate is now being recognised more and is counting towards the degree.
 
Hi Carl, I feel the best way to approach a Licentiate (presuming we're still talking about the BIPP) would be to think about going on one of their Portfolio Review days. You don't have to be a member to do this. You will need to take with you between 30 and 45 images on a memory stick, and anything else which might be supportive (such as tear sheets from published work etc). These days are incredibly useful - you'll have about 45 min of one-to-one time with one of the Fellows and they will give you a really good idea of where you stand, and which images would make a good submission. If your work is already very strong then it's not unheard of for your pictures to be put before some of the other Fellows on the day (if they're around) and to get the verdict then. It's always best to give them a ring at head office and have a chat first, in case the process has changed from last year.

For Licentiate, the judges are looking for images which are of merchantable quality, in other words photographs which no customer could reasonably reject. So you will have to demonstrate that you are in control of camera craft, lighting, composition, narrative and expression, posing and framing, and of course postproduction and printing. There is also a bit of an art involved in putting a coherent panel together and a number of considerations will need to be observed with respect to layout - this is where the judges will assess your visual balance capabilities. Whilst the 'L' sounds straightforward in theory, it's actually much harder to achieve than many people realise (despite what some of the contributors to this forum will tell you, most of whom have not done it themselves).

You don't need formal qualifications of any kind to be a successful photographer - as you know that simply depends upon providing imagery which is desirable to your clients, and very good customer service and business understanding. However virtually every photographer I have met who has achieved a distinction has agreed that the process will force you to examine every element of your image making, and in so doing you can't help but improve and move forward. In other words, the process you go through can be hugely beneficial, and it's that (rather than the letters you'll also earn) which has the most value. Failing your first couple of submissions is very common, but the people who keep coming back and trying again usually end up submitting some very striking bodies of work.

So often on Talkphotography I'll see contributors making statements such as "you just pay your money and you're in, and you'll get some phoney letters after your name". This is grossly misguided because you simply cannot attain any letters after your name unless you decide to put yourself through the rigours of the distinction process - often repeatedly, before hopefully being successful. It's a personal choice, and usually a very fruitful one.

One of the very best ways of getting an idea of what a good panel consists of, is to look at existing successful panels. With the RPS you can get tickets to go and sit in the audience an assessment days, and at the SWPP Convention panels are assessed on the Wednesday and Thursday - it's quite fascinating (next week actually, in London). Broadly speaking the qualifications have now been more or less standardised between all of the main institutions, and you will tend to see some of the same judges acting for more than one Institute. Here are some samples of very well structured Licentiate panels where the applicants have fully understood that the judges need to see a variety of skills:

http://www.swpp.co.uk/improving_your_photography/Beale9040/index.htm
http://www.swpp.co.uk/improving_your_photography/Connor101066/index.htm
http://www.swpp.co.uk/improving_your_photography/Christie108103/index.htm
http://www.swpp.co.uk/improving_your_photography/Donovan75942/index.htm
http://www.swpp.co.uk/improving_your_photography/Hopewell-Smith98732/index.htm

As far as the degree submission goes, you can also contact the OCA direct.
 
I'm not sure how achieving the L here can account for 240 credits on a BA (Hons) programme. Where's the academic content coming from. Seems a bit unfair to drop someone straight into a third year of a BA and expect them to do a 8-10K word dissertation with no preparation for it. Students who do a FdA and go on to the Top Up year 3 often struggle as it is.
 
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Hi David, remember that this is a photography degree, and the BIPP have been working with universities for quite some time in order to help structure degree courses in a way which better reflects photographic working practices and technical knowledge, not to mention the introduction of business modules. As you yourself will know, this is in response to the very real fact that the majority of photography degree courses did not prepare candidates for the real world. Over the years I have had a lot of photography graduates approach me for assisting or second shooting roles, and I'm sorry to say that in most cases their skill set fell below our basic requirements. However a candidate with the BIPP Licentiate will have most of that covered already. Nor is it an automatic 'bye' into the third year of the Degree, there is also an application process to go through and supporting evidence to provide - as in Carl's case many if not most of the applicants will already have been through higher education, often in very academic disciplines therefore the ability to write essays and dissertations is not in question.
 
jamesoliverstone said:
This is interesting...

If you successfully achieve a Licentiate (or higher) with the BIPP, you now have the option to continue on to a BA Honours Degree with the Open College of the Arts with just one further year of study.
The BA (Hons) Photography Degree is made up of 360 credit points. Your BIPP Licentiate submission could be considered as ‘prior experiential learning’ of up to 240 points – effectively 2 years of a 3 year course.

From here: http://www.bipp.com/oca

So, what are your thoughts on this? Personally, I have seen people achieve an "L" after about 12 weeks of learning with a camera (albeit they are talented) but is this really a subsitute for 2 years of study towards a degree? I would assume there is much more to a photography degree than simply creating 20 photos... :thinking:
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Sounds mental.

A good photography degree teaches you large amounts of history of art theory relevant to photography.

A photography degree isn't about learning how to shoot pictures - that's what a GNVQ is for or similar. A degree is primarily academic. I don't see how you could replace two years of a good photography degree with a panel of pictures.

However I also signed up to the first course in photography with the OCA some years ago and to be frank, it was the biggest waste of £500 (or whatever it was) that I've pretty much ever spent. From seeing that and investigating their other courses, I would not consider the OCA to be a degree that is worth as much as other degrees.
 
Charlotte, the problem is that the vast majority of students undertaking a photography degree do so in the belief that they will then walk into a desirable and well-paid photographic job, or that they will be snapped up by a leading studio. We know this is not the case, in fact the vast majority of the students will never go on to work in photography and in fact the academic element will not necessarily help them in many other fields either. This is why there needs to be some separation between the art theory and history of art you mention - there are plenty of such degree courses out there (some which also include photography modules), but there is certainly a good argument for biasing a 'photography degree' towards actual photography (particularly as some photography students have already undertaken a foundation course in Art and Art history).

I did find your comments about the OCA interesting - but I will also say that I have heard a lot of photography students saying the same thing about their degree course, and leaving in the first year. It's not going to be for everyone. This can be due to a lack of real-world relevance in terms of the content, or insufficient challenges, or even poorly motivated tutors. The key thing when choosing any course is to do sufficient research and to speak to other students who have been through the process. Whether one degree is worth more than another degree will depend very much on its content and its relevance to the individual, and the reasoning behind that decision.

I think there are a couple of quite long threads floating around on the forum about the OCA, but I can't remember if these are about the degree or other courses they run. I have not had any contact with the OCA so cannot comment personally, so for me it is always interesting to hear others' perspectives.
 
Lindsay D said:
Charlotte, the problem is that the vast majority of students undertaking a photography degree do so in the belief that they will then walk into a desirable and well-paid photographic job, or that they will be snapped up by a leading studio. We know this is not the case, in fact the vast majority of the students will never go on to work in photography and in fact the academic element will not necessarily help them in many other fields either. This is why there needs to be some separation between the art theory and history of art you mention - there are plenty of such degree courses out there (some which also include photography modules), but there is certainly a good argument for biasing a 'photography degree' towards actual photography (particularly as some photography students have already undertaken a foundation course in Art and Art history).
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Actually, those looking for a practical experience are generally not looking for a degree at all. The Fine Art degree students I know spend perhaps only 30% of their time working on practical areas of the subject. The other 70% is theory. The same goes for a friends students, he teaches degree level filmmaking and theory.

If you want a practical course you need to look into qualifications like diplomas and GNVQ's. That is what they are there for, they are for trade skills such as carpentry, personal training and... photography. The problem is that as a society we place no worth on these qualifications. I hold a GNVQ in personal training and I can tell you, it wasn't an easy thing to get and was about as difficult as the first year of the degree I'm doing at the moment. We need to put more weight on the practical courses and stop telling people that they're inferior.

Degrees are intended to be academic. Anyone signing up for a degree and thinking that it is not going to be academic has been severely misinformed, or they have not educated themselves properly. There is very little argument for biasing a photography degree towards the actual taking pictures. A degree is an entry to the world of academia, not to learn trade skills. People wanting to learn physical skills should take a more appropriate course for them, or do an apprenticeship or similar. You should come out of a photography degree with the equivalent amount of theory knowledge as someone who has completed say, a chemistry degree - another subject with a practical element, but where the practical element does not take over.

My one lamentation when it comes to my own degree is that I could not get on the photography degree that had the most academic oriented study in the country and so I settled for history of art instead.

Being able to replace the first two years of study for a degree with a panel of 20 pictures is nothing more than crazy. I know someone who put together his panel and passed in about six weeks from start to finish - including shooting pictures - and that was around his day job. How does that compare to the roughly 35 hours a week I spend studying for the first year of my degree? I only expect this time-commitment to go up in the second year as well. Still, I suppose it is marginally better than those people who buy their degrees on the internet for cash.
 
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CharlotteM said:
If you want a practical course you need to look into qualifications like diplomas and GNVQ's. That is what they are there for, they are for trade skills such as carpentry, personal training and... photography.

Degrees are intended to be academic. Anyone signing up for a degree and thinking that it is not going to be academic has been severely misinformed, or they have not educated themselves properly. There is very little argument for biasing a photography degree towards the actual taking pictures.
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By its very nature, photography does involve the actual process of image making, in that respect it is quite a practical subject, whether you want to call that "trade skills" or not! Therefore I think it is fair to say that a photography degree should have a reasonable element of actual photography - if it were purely academic then as I have said there needs to be a distinction between that and purely an art degree. It is not unreasonable for a photography degree student to expect to build upon good camera skills and other areas of technical understanding. That doesn't mean it is not "academic" in the same way that my science degree involved a big element of lab work - you may want to describe that as trade skills, but without those skills many of us would have been unemployable.
 
CharlotteM said:
Being able to replace the first two years of study for a degree with a panel of 20 pictures is nothing more than crazy. I know someone who put together his panel and passed in about six weeks from start to finish - including shooting pictures - and that was around his day job. How does that compare to the roughly 35 hours a week I spend studying for the first year of my degree? I only expect this time-commitment to go up in the second year as well. Still, I suppose it is marginally better than those people who buy their degrees on the internet for cash.
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Charlotte, have you attempted the BIPP Licentiate? Because I would struggle to believe that somebody could merely pick up a camera and knock together a successful panel in six weeks - unless they had a considerable amount of experience under their belt first in which to learn the necessary skill set. I've met an awful lot of quite skilled licentiates who have failed several times but who have spent many months if not years working very hard to meet that standard. Perhaps your friend is exceptional, but he's certainly not the norm and basing your assessment of Licentiate standard on that is folly at best. I know very well how hard one has to work to gain a good degree - I have a degree in a very challenging subject. But it took me many more years of hard work than that to achieve my photography credentials, and I don't recall the luxury of 35 hour week either!
 
I find this discussion very interesting indeed, but I am still trying hard to see how anyone can justify a simple panel of 20 images of merchantable quality are any replacement for 2 years of acedemic study... happy to be proved otherwise, but if I were in my 3rd year of a photography degree, I would be quite upset about this, as it seems to make a mockery of the entire process imho.
 
Lindsay D said:
Charlotte, have you attempted the BIPP Licentiate? Because I would struggle to believe that somebody could merely pick up a camera and knock together a successful panel in six weeks - unless they had a considerable amount of experience under their belt first in which to learn the necessary skill set. I've met an awful lot of quite skilled licentiates who have failed several times but who have spent many months if not years working very hard to meet that standard. Perhaps your friend is exceptional, but he's certainly not the norm and basing your assessment of Licentiate standard on that is folly at best. I know very well how hard one has to work to gain a good degree - I have a degree in a very challenging subject. But it took me many more years of hard work than that to achieve my photography credentials, and I don't recall the luxury of 35 hour week either!
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He'd been shooting on and off for several years. But every picture he entered he shot and printed in six weeks - that was the bet.
 
jamesoliverstone said:
I find this discussion very interesting indeed, but I am still trying hard to see how anyone can justify a simple panel of 20 images of merchantable quality are any replacement for 2 years of acedemic study... happy to be proved otherwise, but if I were in my 3rd year of a photography degree, I would be quite upset about this, as it seems to make a mockery of the entire process imho.
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To be honest, it makes the mockery of just about every degree out there.

If I wasn't looking to specifically work in art (and get my Masters and PhD) I'd have certainly taken this option as a quick and extremely cost effective road to a degree.
 
Lindsay D said:
I did find your comments about the OCA interesting - but I will also say that I have heard a lot of photography students saying the same thing about their degree course, and leaving in the first year. It's not going to be for everyone. This can be due to a lack of real-world relevance in terms of the content, or insufficient challenges, or even poorly motivated tutors. The key thing when choosing any course is to do sufficient research and to speak to other students who have been through the process. Whether one degree is worth more than another degree will depend very much on its content and its relevance to the individual, and the reasoning behind that decision.

I think there are a couple of quite long threads floating around on the forum about the OCA, but I can't remember if these are about the degree or other courses they run. I have not had any contact with the OCA so cannot comment personally, so for me it is always interesting to hear others' perspectives.
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The OCA thread covers more than just TAOP (the first module) as many of us have moved on.
http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/threads/oca-the-art-of-photography-course-discussion-part-2.508113/
 
jamesoliverstone said:
I find this discussion very interesting indeed, but I am still trying hard to see how anyone can justify a simple panel of 20 images of merchantable quality are any replacement for 2 years of acedemic study... happy to be proved otherwise, but if I were in my 3rd year of a photography degree, I would be quite upset about this, as it seems to make a mockery of the entire process imho.
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I've heard more than one photography degree student remarked that they felt they had learnt next to nothing in the first year or two, and things only became interesting and challenging in the final year. But nevertheless I agree it is an interesting discussion and I also think it's worthwhile feeding back one's views, which is (or should be) your right as a BIPP member. It would probably be quite interesting to hear the fuller rationale behind it as there is probably quite a lot we've missed, or maybe we've made the wrong assumptions - it has been my assumption that the licentiate is not automatically a waiver but would need to be supported by other things, such as a pre-existing degree, and other evidence. I would think (hope) that to be the case, at any rate. For example, if I was a Licentiate, with a degree (or equivalent) already under my belt (therefore there was no question that I could handle academia, years of essay writing etc) and if I was a working photographer, then my view is that I should not have to do the whole three years of the photography degree. That is also the system in operation with entry to many other degree disciplines. However if I did not have those pre-existing credentials then a licentiate "on its own" should not automatically allow entry.
 
I have also read this thread with interest. I am an ex photography student with the OCA (and possibly soon to be a returning one). Before starting my degree course level 1 (HE5) modules I looked at playing the Accreditation of Previous Experiential Learning (APEL) card as I had 35 years of amateur photography behind me. However, at that time (5/6 years ago), I found that there would be as much work involved in preparing an APEL submission as there was in completing the first module. It's not just a panel of images or a BIPP certificate although both could be part of your submission.

I think we are loosing sight of the requirement here i.e. "The BA (Hons) Photography Degree is made up of 360 credit points. Your BIPP Licentiate submission could be considered as ‘prior experiential learning’ of up to 240 points – effectively 2 years of a 3 year course." ......... the key words are "could" and "considered" and "up to".

You would still have to prepare quite lengthy/extensive evidence that you (throughout your photography experience to date) had amassed the level of both practical and theoretical knowledge that would be expected of someone who had completed the levels 1 & 2 of the degree course the traditional way. This can be very difficult, hence the amount of work involved for a submission. It's not just a case of producing the bit of paper with your BIPP accreditation and claiming a 'bye' for the first two years worth of degree work.

Incidentally, the other method of getting a 'bye' on the early modules is by playing the Accreditation for Previously Certified Learning (APCL) ......... i.e. where you have some form of previously gained certificate (say an HND, City & Guilds or other certificates in photography) which may get you some credits towards your degree course. This is true of many degree courses.

It s not uncommon to make a submission for APEL, ask for a bye for the first two years, only to find that you are given 40 or 60 points towards level 1. Also, there is no guarantee that you will get any credits at all. A common reason for this is applications where the individual can demonstrate good technical skill levels but offer up very little evidence of theoretical knowledge of photography as an art form (whatever that is ;) ), the study of different genres or movements, how photography fits into post-modernism art etc etc. Could you include an article you had written on the New Topographics movement, the woks of Thomas Struth ..... etc etc. That, along with demonstrating practical / technical photography knowledge would go a long way towards gaining you credits.

The OCA is accredited by the University for the Creative Arts (UCA) who are involved in the assessment along with OCA & independent assessors.

Hey, my first post on TP :) ...... hope it adds something to the conversation.

Cheers for now, Dave B.
 
Personally I don't see the issue. Either you have the photographic skill, or you don't.
 
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