Submission
There are 2 opportunities per year to submit your work: May and November. You will be required to pay a submission fee that covers the administrative costs and marking before your work is accepted and this normally also means that you must be up to date with your account and subscription with ACCA.
Many students are puzzled as to why it takes so long to confirm their result when exam results are normally released in half this time. The degree is regulated by the Universities governing body in the UK which lays down specific requirements and checks in the process before a degree can be confirmed and also as OBU and ACCA are producing the programme jointly, both bodies are involved in the procedure.
Submission Period 30 deadlines:
| Latest date to complete the Professional Ethics module | 31 March 2015 |
| Earliest submission of RAP online | 1 May 2015 |
| Latest submission of RAP online | 20 May 2015 |
| RAP and BSc degree results dispatched | 23 September 2015 |
Submission Period 31 deadlines:
| Latest date to complete the Professional Ethics module | 30 September 2015 |
| Earliest uploading of RAP to Oxford Brookes University site | 1 November 2015 |
| Latest uploading of RAP to Oxford Brookes University site | 18 November 2015 |
| RAP and BSc results dispatched | Wednesday 25 March 2016 |
Submission Period 32 deadlines:
| Latest date to complete the Professional Ethics module | Thursday 31st March 2016 |
| Earliest uploading of RAP to Oxford Brookes University site | Sunday 1st May 2016 |
| Latest uploading of RAP to Oxford Brookes University site | Wednesday 18th May 2016 |
| RAP and BSc results dispatched | Wednesday 21 September 2016 |
The project must be submitted online at the Oxford Brookes University submission portal website by the date of latest submission. The link will close at 12.00 (midnight) GMT on the day stated on the project submission dates page. After this date, the online submission facility will close and you will have to wait until the next session before you can submit.
Should you experience any difficulties uploading your Research and Analysis Project, please contact the ACCA Office at Oxford Brookes on acca@brookes.ac.uk
Submission Fee Period 30
The Oxford Brookes Research and Analysis Project (RAP) submission fee for period 30 is £191.00.
You must pay a project submission fee to Oxford Brookes with any project submission.
Acceptable formats for uploading Research and Analysis Projects:
All work relating to the Report and written SLS must be produced using Microsoft Word (or similar) and will also need to demonstrate some IT skills these are normally in the form of an Excel-type spreadsheet and a PowerPoint-type Presentation. You will be required to upload your files between specific dates (as set out in the Info Pack) and you will receive your graded result normally just over 4 months later.
| .doc | Word 97 |
| .docx | Word 2000 |
| .rtf | Rich text format |
| .txt | Plain text |
| .wpd | WordPerfect |
| .odt | OpenOffice / LibreOffice |
| PDF file – only allowed for appendices | |
| .xls | Excel – all versions – only allowed for appendices |
| .ppt | PowerPoint – all versions – only allowed for appendices |
Assessment Criteria
The RAP is often the first real piece of academic work that most students will have ever produced and the approach to it is very different from exams as you are expected to conduct your own research and bring some of your own analysis to the report – something which cannot be done by just using textbooks and study texts alone. OBU also recognises that there will also be some variability in the standard of guidance and advice that you are given by your mentor. For this reason you are allowed up to 3 attempts to pass the RAP. Should you fail, unlike exams where to a great extent you have to work out for yourself exactly where you went wrong, you will get some feedback from the marker or moderator indicating both the areas that were failed and an outline of what you did wrong or omitted. This will help you with your resubmission. In most cases unless you change your topic and /or company the areas that you passed are carried over to your next submission and therefore any resubmissions should concentrate mainly on the areas failed although for some topics (notably Topics 8 and 15) you will be required to update the financial information and analysis to reflect the latest financial statements available (otherwise you could be failed either on Evaluation and Analysis, and/ or Understanding of Models and/or Application of Models – depending on which assessment criteria you have not been passed on previously)
Assessment Criteria in relation to the RAP
The RAP, Skills & Learning Statement and the Presentation are assessed according to the Criteria in Appendix 1 of the current Information Pack. These are split into 3 distinct areas:
Technical and Professional Skills
There are four criteria that must all be passed for your RAP to receive an overall pass. Essentially these skills will normally dictate the grade that will be awarded for the RAP if you pass at the first attempt. These are:
- Understanding of accountancy / business models
- Application of accountancy / business models
- Evaluation of information, analysis and conclusions
- Presentation of project findings
However you must also be assessed as competent in the Graduate Skills to secure a pass for the RAP overall.
Graduate Skills
There are three mandatory graduate skills in which you need to demonstrate competence:
- Communication
- Information gathering and referencing
- Information technology
If any of the seven criteria above do not meet the minimum assessment criteria your RAP will be failed. What this means is that to get the degree you will need to resubmit and update your report at some time in the future (but before the 10 year time limit is exceeded) and make the necessary improvements to secure a pass in the areas failed. Any resubmission involving previous failures in either Technical & Professional Skills and/or the Graduate Skills means that the highest grade that you will be able to achieve on a successful resubmission will be a C grade pass.