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Reply to Martinodeo: This does make sense however what doesn’t make sense is the delay in getting the marker feedback. Surely this must be immediately available? Don’t understand why there has to be a 2 week delay in getting this out. Surely it would have been collated and reviewed during the above process to come to a conclusion on the pass/fail criteria as well as grading? That’s 2 weeks that could have been allocated to addressing the issues raised by markers which will be lost. You are right Martin - it doesn't make sense! Back in the day [between 2012 up to P36] Brookes used an automated system whereby students could log in and see their result and read the feedback. Since P37 however things have moved backwards and they now resort to informing students of their results as you know by email. I fully concur - it is not acceptable that a student should be told that they have failed and then have to wait 2 weeks or so for the feedback. Your feedback will have been completed at least a month ago [as a former marker I know this as FACT]! I suspect the reason the feedback is not instantly available is because it now has to be extracted manually from the system and this is both a laborious and time-consuming activity. IMO it would be better to prioritise informing those who have failed as early as possible and get their feedback sent actually before releasing the actual results to those who have passed . In other words making the 'lucky ones' wait the extra 2 weeks rather than delivering the double whammy bad news: 'sorry you have failed, and furthermore you are now going to have to wait another couple of weeks to find out why'! It also has been known that it has not arrived on the promised date [or even a day or two later] so follow this up with acca@brookes,ac.uk if you need it urgently because you think you want to resubmit in P43.

Thank you for the detailed reply @GillianM. That is a very odd way to go. You mentioned that they would have been done at least a month ago, which is logical. It's odd then that the email I received states the decision to fail me occurred on the 20th of September. Talk about last minute! I've gotten over the initial shock of the fail grade, given that my mentor was very pleased with the project, and now want address whatever they've come up with ASAP to submit in P43. Thank you for the advice, I will chase up with them. I am interested to see where I fell short. I hope the feedback isn't ambiguous notes which don't provide clear ways to improve.

martindeo wrote:y @GillianM. It’s odd then that the email I received states the decision to fail me occurred on the 20th of September. Talk about last minute!

Although the email says 20 September that would have been the date of the Exam Board Meeting and technically any result could be changed up to that point. [Though when a senor marker, I attended several EBMs and although they were a useful forum, as far as I am aware no marks were ever changed at the actual meeting - and the EBM is a bit of a formality in that respect] Go through the feedback and check it accurately reflects your report - but bear in mind you cannot appeal against academic judgment - just because you obviously are unhappy with the result that does not mean that you can dispute it. However if it wrongly reflects what you have produced then you may have a case for appeal. I had 2 separate causes last session to query. The first was very clear-cut: the T17 student had bee failed because it was alleged that they hadn't addressed part of the topic title and discussed the company response. True, they didn't actually have a section heading 'Company response' but we went through the report and highlighted about 1,000 words that referenced a company response. The student asked them how many words were needed for this aspect and sent in the highlighted version of his report - Result! His fail was overturned immediately. Case number 2 [T19] - not only had the student not received his feedback even a week after the promised date but when it arrived it was appalling [and I felt the marker must have devoted all of about 15 mins total max reviewing his work and writing the feedback, which I found unacceptable because, of course, I know how much the marker is paid for doing this job and diligence is assumed]. The comment: 'Your models do not adequately demonstrate the financial and operational consequences of the acquisition' was repeated against Assessment Criteria 1,2 and 3 with one additional brief comment for the latter. Since all of my successful T19 students had used the same models [though they did different companies], as a mentor I was curious about which models the marker thought he should have used. I therefore suggested to the student that he contact Brookes and ask for more guidance on how to deal with feedback as both of us were at a loss on how to approach his resubmission. They came back a couple of days later having decided, after all, that his work did just about reach the criteria for a pass!

GillianM – OBU Registered Mentor wrote:

martindeo wrote:y @GillianM. It’s odd then that the email I received states the decision to fail me occurred on the 20th of September. Talk about last minute!

Thank you for the clarification. Yes that's exactly why I am so eager to get the feedback, so I don't board "Oh I got shafted train". I'm pleased to see the appeals process can be successful, as long as there is merit of course. Let's see what the feedback brings. I wrote on Topic 16, which according to my mentor isn't a very common topic. Hopefully I won't wait too long for the feedback.

No it isn't particularly popular but a topic I like, though I have only mentored 3 or 4 students for it. The problem is you have to ensure that you are not just describing the risks but are evaluating them. Also they advise that you use internal documentation or the like [see Info Pack June 2021]. To be honest I think the best subject companies for T16 are banks - my students who used banks got higher grades and were able to draw on the CAMELS model and do some financial analysis as well as use a risk assessment matrix - so this helped countered the issue of the tendency for a T16 report to be more descriptive than evaluative.

GillianM – OBU Registered Mentor wrote:No it isn’t particularly popular but a topic I like, though I have only mentored 3 or 4 students for it.

My approach focused on first determining the benchmarks for the methods the company currently uses to manage risk, which is through a Risk Matrix and ISO certification. Then evaluating the company's actual performance against these benchmarks, as well as recommending the company look into incorporating a PESTEL analysis in their process as there is very little consideration for external risk factors that may influence the business. I know I as light on "number crunching", my interpretation of the topic was the evaluation of the robustness of processes to effectively manage operational and financial risk not the financial impact thefeof. Perhaps this is where I went wrong.

Sounds a reasonable approach. Possibly your referencing wasn't up to 'scratch' as that is a frequent cause of failure but it is probably pointless trying to speculate - see what the feedback says. Number crunching is only relevant as a form of benchmarking and depends on the sector - banks since the financial crisis 2007/08 have to pass stress testing and the like and have to balance risky investments with more solid ones so that's why they are important in that sector. However overall the risk assessment needs to be relevant to the sector and context. For example a power company would need to plan for power outages and balance its manpower and resources to be able to deal with extreme weather events whereas the latter would be relatively irrelevant in many other sectors

Well there's consolation in the fact that I wasn't completely off the mark. Thanks very much for sharing your thoughts here. Much appreciated

Guys how do you check your results Thanks

jagmeet wrote:Guys how do you check your results

Results where only made available by email.

Sorry for not getting back to you before now justmwas and your query 'does my re-submission statement have to be 500 pages long [sic - but I think you mean words here!] since I cannot utilize most of my previous feedback for a new topic and organisation' The Resubmission statement is actually intended to help you make an improved submission that is more likely to pass. In your particular circumstances you may take one of two approaches: Either you state you are using a different company and therefore the previous feedback is not really applicable [so brief statement to this effect], or you could take what IMO is a better approach. Namely, look at the previous feedback - does it say things like 'you have not linked the models to the company strategies adequately', 'your evaluation is mostly descriptive and does not consider the factors that have influenced the trends' etc. [or that sort of thing]? If so, it is important that you have considered these in the context of your new organisation so you could make the statement that although you have changed company, where relevant you have considered the feedback and how it might apply to your new company and have made changes such as ...... [and set those out] Remember the rationale for the statement is to help a student avoid failing again - it is not a penalty for failing but intended to make you appreciate previous mistakes so that you avoid repeating them!

jagmeet wrote:Guys how do you check your results

Results were sent via email only. Check your junk/spam folders. If you're using a new email address best to inform OBU. Use email address acca@brookes.ac.uk

Finally received the email that the Marker Feedback is available, only for the webpage to crash when trying to access it. Anyone else have the same problem?

Yup, Im facing the same issue. The site crashes with an error.

doflamingo1 wrote:Yup, Im facing the same issue. The site crashes with an error.

I did log it with OBU. Let's see what they come back with.

GillianM – OBU Registered Mentor wrote:

martindeo wrote:y @GillianM. It’s odd then that the email I received states the decision to fail me occurred on the 20th of September. Talk about last minute!

So finally managed to download the feedback report and honestly I expected more. I failed 3 sections Evaluation of information, analysis and conclusions Presentation of project findings Information gathering and referencing The comments don't make any sense though when compared to the assessment criteria. They totally contradict each other. For example under Evaluation of Information the comment is "Good start on the analysis but need to go further" According to the assessement critera a fail represent no analysis whatsoever. I guess this will fall under the blanket of "academic judgement" but I asked the question anyway. The other comments are in a similar or even less clear way. Presentation states must submit sample questions of the interview. The assessment criteria for this section doesn't talk about this at all. It's about structure of the document and how it's written. So no idea why that is there. Information gathering and referencing speaks about not referencing during Part 3 of the document, which is where I put down my own thoughts and interpretations. The marking criteria says that a fail is no referencing at all, notwithstanding the fact that I don't know how I am supposed to reference my own conclusions. Anyway, I've asked the questions I needed to, lets see what they say.

Hello guys. I paid late for my submission that is earlier on this week and the portal says that your results are being withheld. Does it mean that the RAP is being investigated by Exam Conduct Officer or it is for the fact that I paid late?. Previously, the portal was saying the RAP is not yet marked and I am still waiting to receive an official email from OBU with the results.

I would suggest you follow up with OBU and ask why it's been withheld. The "not marked" status only changed after I was told the marker feedback was available, so that's not a useful indicator. It's over 2 weeks since results came out which is more than long enough to have informed you why the results are withheld.

Thank you. They said I should wait a little bit.

Vicky001 wrote:Thank you. They said I should wait a little bit.

Hope it won't be too long

Failed the RAP and received the feedback but no feedback on statement of learning,what does that mean?

GillianM – OBU Registered Mentor wrote:

martindeo wrote:y @GillianM. It’s odd then that the email I received states the decision to fail me occurred on the 20th of September. Talk about last minute!

Hi Gilian, I did topic 18 and the marker said I need to include market share, revenue and advertising cost etc. I did discuss on market share of the industry, a analysis on profits but not much on advertising cost. However, the marker also said i need to do more financial analysis on the company too. If i did that, i'll need more than 7500 words. And btw, i did mentioned about pricing strategy etc. My mentor said i did well than most of her students and i was the only one who failed. You think its worth it to appeal? Pls help.

The trick when it comes to word count is to allow at least 5,000 words [possibly 5,200 - 5,300] for the Analysis, Evaluation and Conclusions and cut the amount of words used at the very beginning of the report. I normally suggest that at least a third of the A, C & E section should be dedicated to assessing the effectiveness of the marketing strategies via an appropriate financial and statistical analysis. Depending on your company as well as what you have mentioned above this might also look at repeat buying habits, customer churn and revenue trends for both the main company and some of its rivals over the last 3 years or so.

Good luck martindeo Yes it is annoying when the relationship between the reasons for a fail do not seem to correspond with the assessment criteria [it is not unknown though...unfortunately]. I do have an issue that the markers don't consult the criteria appropriately. Too often students can do a very good report that should get an A but because the criteria are not consulted the marker just gives it a B - when if they had bothered to evaluate the report against the relevant gradings, some student should have rightly been awarded an A...

GillianM – OBU Registered Mentor wrote:Good luck martindeo

Thank you Gillian. I'll settle for a C pass no problem. It's just frustrating that it appears they didn't even read the report. It also appears that they don't pay attention. For example I was criticised both for not including a copy of the interview questions as well as being criticised for not expanding on the included interview questions. Yet under the "evidence" section I included a table of who was interviewed and when, as well discuss the feedback within that section. I followed the approach you mentioned by asking for clarity on the remarks as I don't understand what they want from me. I also inserted the comments made by the marker and marking criteria for the failed sections and asked can they please clear up why the markers own language is in line with at least a C grade pass compared to a fail grade or asked how the marker comments on something that doesn't relate to the marking criteria at all. I'm hoping to have success with this "matter of fact" approach however I won't be holding my breath.

Anyone who passed with Chapter 18?? i need help

I failed in all the parts of RAP as well as SLS, feedback was “Incorrect Industrial Sector” and Fail in all the parts. I chose Topic 8 and selected a Firm in Energy sector. And now I’m planning to Resubmit the same topic in Period 43 since the updated Info pack says that there in No Industry Sectors requirement anymore for Topic 8. Now I’m confused since they have changed the Topic 8 itself so can I resubmit the same project or will I have to make a new RAP. Please help

Since they deemed it was not within the stipulated industry requirements for P42 but as long as it is within the remit of Topics 4,5 & 8 going forward, then I do not see an issue with resubmitting your original report [subject to the rules of updating the financial information]. You will need to complete the resubmission statement and say this, and effectively, that now you expect your original company to be acceptable since it complies with the requirements of Topic 4/5//8 [as appropriate]

Did you get a reply from Oxford Brookes?

mariamohi wrote:Did you get a reply from Oxford Brookes?

Not yet, I sent a follow-up email just to confirm they had received the email I sent on the 6th. Still no reply other than the automated response. Probably very busy at this time. Will post here once I get feedback