RAP Submission and Assessment Criteria

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.

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.

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.

More about OBU:

What is OBU and Eligibility?

The Research & Analysis Project (RAP)

The Role of the Project Mentor and how to choose a Mentor?

The OBU RAP Information Pack

RAP Submission and Assessment Criteria

The Resubmission Statement – how a good one is your key to success on resubmission

The Academic Conduct Office (ACO)

How Open Tuition can help you get your OBU BSc (Hons) Degree

Visit also OBU Forums for expert advice from contributors who have had years of experience in helping students prepare for their RAP submission and in some cases contributors who themselves have gained their degree by going through the OBU RAP process.