Ethical or confidentiality issues

@zee90. In principle there is nothing wrong with choosing a company that you have a close connection with. As far as the confidentiality issue goes that is something that your brother would need to sort out as he is the person who is employed by the company and therefore has a contract of employment with them and agreed to abide by any confidentiality rules. However provided you are not proposing to disclose any secret information (proposed campaigns, marketing budgets, or ‘intelligence’ acquired about competitors for example) and most of the material you are hoping to use is already in the public domain I would have thought there wouldn’t be a problem that they would object to. Your RAP will only normally be accessed to be marked however you now have to agree that it will be retained on the electronic data base Turnitin so it will be available to OBU staff in theory (although they too will have signed confidentiality agreements about not disclosing the content of students’ work)

One problem you may have is providing the ‘original’ analysis element input – this is supposed to be your work not your brother’s afterall! By all means you may cite your brother in the report (look up how to reference a personal interview) and mention the personal contact in your info gathering section. The only other slight problem may be in providing the ‘independent’ evidence from external sources to back up your analysis. So this is something to think about- you will need to show that you have used a variety sources not just relied on your brother! However that being said provided you put your own ‘stamp’ on it and follow the RAP Guidelines (markers will probably be able to tell if it has been written by a student or a professional in the business) then you probably have the makings of a good and successful report. 😀

I believe there are some organisations that offer a Turnitin checking service. Please see our forum Turnitin works? where some of the pros and cons of using Turnitin are discussed.

@emmu – I can only issue general advice. Sharing of work is forbidden under the rules and students will be penalised if caught. Letting someone see your work to get a rough idea of the layout and way to tackle the RAP is fine IF that is all they are going to do. It comes down to (a) the trust you have in the person (b) their personal integrity and (c) the risk you want to take. If you are happy about (a) and (b) then the risks are minimal. However anyone who pressurises you into handing over your work obviously cannot be trusted and lacks integrity.

@gershal – How can you even think this could be ‘ethical’?

Both of these are totally unethical as a student by submitting work is stating that it is all their own work. If some else has done any of the work for them then such a statement is a total lie.

Buying a RAP and submitting it is an act of Fraud and is actually a criminal offence in the UK. Such behaviour deserves to be referred to the University’s Misconduct Committee.

Those who both buy and sell RAPs should be banned from ACCA membership as they clearly do not understand ethical standards of behaviour and would be bringing the profession into disrepute

The reason I asked is due to the fact that it is not always the smart ones that gets the job and not all ACCA members merit the qualification. There should be something that can be done to improve the profession’s standard.