Advancing the quality of the OBU - OpenTuition Recommended OBU Mentors

Do they offer online mentoring to overseas mentees? I believe they are based in Singapore.

@far123 Yes they both mentor worldwide via Skype. We will only recommend mentors based on their proven track record and experience

@atab I'm really pleased that this is going well. It was a big decision whether we should recommend particular mentors as we try to be impartial but I felt so many students weren't getting the service they deserved and more importantly, needed. So many thanks for your feedback. We are prepared to consider other mentors in addition to TLL as obviously there are limits on how many students TLL can realistically take on at any time but we will only consider those who have an excellent reputation and proven track record. We will check out any claims made by mentors regarding pass rates and prize winners with OBU first, so that the quality of such mentors is assured. Good luck with your forthcoming submission - you are in great hands! :-D Update from Trephena: we are pleased that we can now offer a choice of recommended mentors to students both The Learning Luminarium and now from Period 37 onwards absolute mentoring with Gillian Moorse (both of these have helped out on this forum at various times during my vacation and posted replies to student queries)

@atab Thanks very much for the kind comments, and we really appreciate your sincere commendation. We are in the process of redesigning our website to provide an enhanced mentorship experience for our students. There is currently a downtime as we switch servers. For those who may need to contact us urgently, please kindly message us through opentuition, and we will respond to you quickly. We hope to get the new website up and running within the next 2 days.

I am a student using learning Luminarium, my mentor is very helpful and i have submitted my paper for period 29, waiting for the result now. thanks for trephena's guidance also!!

PS what's the cost implication of mentorship

UPDATED POST @ejike - you are unlikely to find a UK mentor who charges less than £300. However cost does not always correlate with quality, however if you try to skimp on a good mentor it could cost you more in the long run as each submission currently costs you £340. Word of mouth is the best method of choosing a mentor. As a guide The Learning Luminarium fees start at about £290 for their basic package and go up to £950 for their Platinum package that includes a marker type assessment and may save the hassle of a resubmission and its costs. It is a case of 'you pays your money and you takes your chance' but whoever you chose they must be an OBU Listed Mentor :-D absolute mentoring with Gillian Moorse costs in the region of £400 BUT includes a review of your final draft through the eye of a marker (Gillian was an actual marker and left the marking team in May 2018). Using her unique insight as a marker she will be able to predict how likely your work is to pass (and thus save you wasting the submission fee of £340 if it is not up to standard)

Hi Ejike, Our prices are actually in Singapore Dollars, and not USD. So at current exchange rates (according to Google), that would put our prices between £220 to £585. Additionally, for students requiring a slight reduction in prices, we have often customised packages that can meet both their monetary constraints and their needs. Our administration officer can better advise you on that. Thanks for all the kind words of encouragement! Our mentors would be very happy to know that they have made a difference! Regards, The Learning Luminarium

Apologies to The Learning Luminarium - I had assumed that the dollar prices were USD (maybe the website should state that it is Singapore dollars and have a currency website link to facilitate overseas students with their currency translation? - just a suggestion :-) )

@nati - I understand your frustration but essentially you need a mentor who can give you the greatest chance of a success and no one can guarantee that but a good experienced mentor should be able to increase your chances to about 85 to 90%, provided you follow their advice. I am not sure when you contacted the Learning Luminarium but between about 23rd Dec and 5 January most organisations would be taken a long festive break and would be more likely to send out automated or pre-written responses, so maybe that's what you got. For the best chance of success you would need a personalised package at this stage (one where the mentor reads your work and has the experience to assess it with the same critical eye as an OBU marker) and therefore this would be expensive as they would then feedback exactly what they felt needed to be improved and make suggestions how to lift your work to a pass - a time consuming process if it is done properly. Many students do 2 unsuccessful submissions but do go on to pass at their final attempt but to do so entails examining in critical detail what was wrong with the previous submissions and recognising how these defects can be rectified. Referencing is something that you should be able to correct yourself but evaluation is usually the one area where a professional can help as they have the academic experience to know how to go about doing adequate evaluation and analysis. Have you looked at my articles on our home page www.opentuition.com/obu where I look at resubmission and evaluation? I could only go into the latter briefly but an additional piece of advice to everyone is to stand back from their work and read it critically. Put yourself in the position of the marker who has dozens of RAPs to mark - is your work well laid out? Are the points made clearly? Are there good graphs and charts? These all help the marker cope with reading your work easily - whereas poorly laid out work that contains dozens of numbers is a sure way of giving the marker a negative impression of your ability. As one marker told me: Just as when you read a book or watch a movie:you want to be entertained and be stimulated, the marker wants to be captivated by an interesting piece of work not die of boredom or drowned in a sea of numbers which they struggle to make sense of.... make your work interesting, explain things properly - that's what they want.

Hi Nati, In general the customised packages can be done for individuals who may for example work with a limited budget, require more readings, or for their mentors who work in a very short time frame. Others include students who have for example passed their SLS and PPT but failed their RAP. For these ones, we are able to offer a slightly different package at a cheaper price. For resubmission we do not have "most expensive packages" as you described, and would most certainly not offer it if it was clear in the email it was a resubmission project. So if you would like a customised package, do explain your situation and our administrative assistant can better assist you. The generic emails are often in response to more general email inquiries about price and packages. Others for example ask for "a guaranteed pass" which often receive a reply detailing the physical impossibility of guaranteeing a pass, and recommending a package with great individualised attention designed to provide the greatest insurance against failure, which could have been the email reply you got. We also do receive a large number of emails attempting to take advantage of the "customised packages" and asking if we have a package for someone with a budget of $150. Again, those emails get a generic reply, and I certainly do sincerely apologise if yours fell through the cracks. You can also PM us directly through OT. This account is directly managed by our team of mentors. I wish you all the best for your final submission and certainly hope you clear this submission!

Dear Sirs. I need your advice regarding the mentor from Learning Luminerium. I contacted them to find out the details of services and the price they would charge me. I thought the £220 one cover the service of reading my papers but they said not included. While, I contacted the individual mentors on the OBU list and some of them are similar price but including reading my essay. I actually reading my essay is a basic service all mentors have. The thing is that it is hard for me to pick individual mentor because I am not sure that the quality is good. Could you please give me your advice and is it nornal that mentor would not read your project essay? thanks a lot.

Hi Pinkmonkey, Yes, as we have probably highlighted in the email, given how detailed (our students will testify to this) our readings are, it's not uncommon for a single reading to take a mentor three to four hours to complete. As such, packages with readings are available from SGD800, to compensate for the time and effort our mentors put in for each reading. As we have also highlighted, the basic package is for students who have had previous report writing experience, and therefore can clarify all queries during the three meetings. We have had a few working finance professionals who have chosen the package, and all have passed very well. We regret we are unable to offer a package within your budget to meet your needs. If we can do anything else to assist, do let us know! Our reputation for quality is dependent on our ability to retain quality mentors. As such, we offer our mentors significantly higher remuneration than other competing OBU providers. Hope you can understand that.

wish i could enroll to your package...but want to know if i could get discount ;) ,thnx

Hello Trephena, I found myself a mentor last Oct for Period 30 submission and much to my dismay, he came back to me saying that OBU has a new rule and that is either he is my senior manager or I must be a student of his. May I know how true is this new rule? I have looked through all the websites but I could not find this 'new rule'. Also, is there any chance I can check if an individual is an approved qualified project mentor? Thank you

@jessicasmith - all mentors for P30 have to be OBU listed. The rules have been changed in this respect. Please see Section 6 of the Information Pack 2014/2015 - there should be a link to it if you look on our homepage: www.opentuition.com/obu you may find the following link in respect of your final query also helpful: https://www.oxfordbrookesmentoring.co.uk/ If you have any specific queries relating to OBU rules that these links do not answer then you must contact their admin office directly as obviously we at Open Tuition have no say in the way the rules are changed/adminstered Regards Trephena

Thank you very much for the recommendation. I have put off completing my RAP for two years because I can't decide on a mentor. It's really nice to finally have a recommendation from a website I trust.

Hi Learning Luminarium It's really nice to have a recommended mentor from Open Tuition. I was a bit concerned about the attention to detail on your website, it might be in your interest to get it proof read as they are a few mistakes. This put me off a bit, given what service it is you offer. But it's not put me off fully as you are recommended by open tuition. I have started my project and I have chosen project 8. I think I have read nearly every thing there is to read about the Rap and SLS. Please can you contact me as I am unsure what mentor package would be best suited to me. Many thanks Jenny

They are OK. Write to them, they answer really in full. As for me, I got all the information from them but decided to come back to my RAP after taking my last ACCA exam in June) money, time and the other issues) my issues... Good luck!

Dear Jenny, Our mentors have received your query and will be in touch very shortly. Thank you for pointing out the errors on the website too. The website's creation and maintenence are outsourced to an external vendor. We had just very recently transferred our web based content over to a new server and are still experiencing teething problems with the new system and layout. Nevertheless, the principal mentor has directed the vendor to look into the issues highlighted. Thank you Nati for your kind words. We have always tried to provide as much assistance as we possibly can to all who contact us. What you experience is an indicator of the timeliness and depth of the assistance you'll receive during the course of your mentorship. We hope to welcome you on board some time in the future.

how much learning luminarium charge for review service as my RAP is ready now

Hi Abdullah, Could you drop us an email so we can better understand your requirements and what you'd like us to do? Email address: [email protected]

REVIEW OF THE LEARNING LUMINARIUM I am hoping this thread will be of some help to students who are submitting or resubmitting their RAP and considering a mentor. I used The Learning Luminarium to help with a re-submission in period 30. My project was based on topic 8 and titled "An investigation into the business and financial performance of J Sainsbury plc over a three year period." My first RAP was also based on the same topic and company. I failed due to a lack of ratio analysis and insufficient information in my PowerPoint slides. My experience of TLL was positive overall due to the following: - Response time by email was within 24 hours and often less. This was very important to me as the previous company I used took longer to reply. This meant I could be waiting for days stuck on something or ended up answering my own query by the time I got a response. - I asked many questions and these were all answered clearly, the mentor provided examples which helped as I had something to work on and could go away and do more analysis / evaluation. - I paid for a reading and review of my failed RAP (Part 3 only) a second review of my updated RAP and the required mentoring until I resubmitted. I feel the cost was reasonable given the service provided. I will update this thread when my results come out and am happy to answer any queries anyone has. John

How can I register for OBU RAP

@phillipnjazi - as long as you meet the basic rules - see our topics dealing with how to get started and our homepage www.opentuition.com/obu You do not need to specifically register to start however you will need to find a registered mentor before you are allowed to submit so you should register as a mentee on the OBU mentoring website and consult the latest OBU RAP Information Pack. If you are talking about registering with The Learning Luminarium then contact them via the link or personal message and they will discuss how the packages they offer might suit your particular needs

@LearningLuminarium I am currently looking for a mentor and for some reason I am too in doubt about every mentor I come across, probably because preparing a research is something new to me. However, being recommended by OT surely gives me some assurance. Yet, I have some quires to make: - It says on your website that you provide learning materials, what do your learning materials include? Does it include video instructions and samples of successful projects? - Do the meetings have fixed dates and timings or will they be scheduled as we go along? Because I am a full time worker and I will need the mentor to be flexible on the timing of meetings. After clearing my doubts, I will register soon for November Submission. Many thanks,

Hi Mahoysam, Yes, we include video instructions, mentor authored articles on common pitfalls of the project, as well as adapted samples created by our mentors designed to reflect what a realistic and achievable end product looks like. Mentorship timings are always decided between students and mentors. Our aim is to provide a flexible package that meets the needs of every student. As such, our packages will always be customisable. We have also private messaged you. Hope my response helps!

Many thanks - All clear :)

I am just writing to show my appreciation a big help by LearningLuminarium to pass my OBU program and to help whoever look for a mentor with high quality and experience. It took me ages to chooce right one which would not a easy but looking back I was glad that I chose the right mentor who helped me a lot. Not only my mentor Adrian but also ESPECIALLY Irwin ) From my honest experience, I can highly recommend LearningLuminarium.

@pinkmonkey - thank you for the kind words. Adrian and I are very glad that we could support u in achieving your goals! Words of appreciation, such as this, motivate us to continues working harder. Thanks and congratulations on your pass! Irwin The Learning Luminarium