(Archive) Results withheld/ deferred

Yes send copies of the emails and attachments showing the earlier reports and mentor comments. What they want to see is the way your work evolved and changed so that should show it quite well. (As I said earlier this is normal to have copies at different stages so good you have them otherwise it would be odd and quite suspicious) Don't bother with writing up the plans if you didn't do that at the time - it would be pointless and in fact would be sort of fabricating evidence. Stick with what you have. A 5% Turnitin match is on its own is not significant if a lot of it relates to headers and footers -so you could mention that this seems to be the main reason

@trephena, Thank you for all your guidance. So my course or action would be as follow: 1) Sending the mentors emails 2) Sending the different versions of RAP, SLS, Presentation, Reference and Appendices 3) Emailing them stating that I checked my submission on turnitin myself and the 5% match from other OBU student is only the header and footer in SLS and RAP. I hope this suffice.

Dear @trephena, Can you help me please. My results were referred to ACO. The final email I have received is: "I felt that your Misconduct related to the SLS rather than the report I have spared you this and said that a new report was not necessary but a completely new SLS was ESSENTIAL." I have received Malpractice for my SLS. Does it mean that if I paraphrase some parts of it and add new, it will fail me, even with 0% match? My Research report was failed due to bad referencing. I tried to correct it following the Turnitin report received from ACO. I followed the recommendations of ACO and tried to paraphrase passages of the report that were matched. When I submitted it to writecheck to see my progress, I have got 98% match. Does it mean that now I need to write a completely new report( I was told to do same topic and company for resubmission)? Do all fail reports go to live database? And if I try to paraphrase all my report and get low match score, it can be a fail. I feel so confused now as do not know what to do. ACO told to correct only the report, but this 98% match score scared me.

@shay88 - yes that sounds like a good course of action. The copies of your work particularly if they show the creation dates on the files should be valuable evidence so good luck! :-) @kate1974 - the matching you are seeing on WriteCheck is probably matching with your P32 submission. Ensure you reference and paraphrase appropriately and if you do direct citations ensure you use quotation marks (put please read my Article on Referencing - all 3 parts to check you are on the right line). In your resubmission statement tell the marker what corrective steps you have done but mention that you put it through Writecheck and are worried that it is showing matches to your previously submitted work, which is why it is so high. However I would say that 98% might mean that you have not adequately paraphrased and precised sufficiently - you should aim to get this % down if possible (just a suggestion) because the marker might think that you haven't made much of an effort to make adequate changes. If Topic 8 you will need to update so can you do a re-write in parts - how about looking for a few different sources to paraphrase perhaps and different writers to support the theory? That should reduce the % considerably. You can change your topic or company if you prefer provided you comply with the rules for T8 or T15 on industry sectors but it is a lot of work so you might need to consider submitting in P34 instead. Fails for the SLS are usually because there is inadequate self-reflection but if you had malpractice then it means that OBU thought that you had copied parts of other students' work and this breaks the rules. The way round this is simple - don't copy and make sure it is all your own work based on your own experience - that way there will be no problem whatsoever - so no I don't recommend paraphrasing. (Besides the marker will be expecting to see almost no matches in your SLS when they look at the Turnitin report expecially because the ACO has said that rewriting it is 'ESSENTIAL') So really you need to do what you have been told!).

@trephena.. thank you. do you came across any student whose result was referred to ACO but after providing sufficient evidence, he passed?

@shay88 - the ACO normally investigate areas of suspected cheating / collusion / copying or commissioning someone else to write the RAP - emphasis on the word 'suspicion'. If the suspicion proves to be unsubstantiated then the student's result is released. Whether this is pass or fail depends upon what grade the original marker had awarded it. The ACO plays no role in awarding the grade if the student is exonerated - so if it is already a pass and there is no evidence of malpractice or misconduct that grade will stand. It will only be changed to a fail if the ACO find that the marker awarded a pass on the assumption that the student had completed the work themselves but the evidence indicates otherwise and that there are definite irregularities. The ACO can then take the decision to fail the work (see the Info Pack for the category of ACO penalties). But to answer your question I am informed that between 10 - 15% of students are exonerated by the ACO and no penalty therefore is awarded. So if you are cleared you will get your result and get your marker grade or if a fail, the marker feedback.

@trephena, Thanks. I will keep you posted with my case as well.

@trephena, thank you for your advice. Its very helpful!

@trephena, I need to ask one more thing. I am sending ACO the word files of drafts, does the word author that shows up in properties matters? Like the author name is not the name of the student? Would that matters? Its the weird thing that I have recently heard and was informed that this could be the issue that ACO might have? Need your guidance here as well.

I would seriously recommend that you DO NOT amend anything in the drafts, as this will change the date of last modified and can cause suspicion among the marker. Let the date remain old, lol The issue you are referring, I think it shouldn't really matter, because author name in the properties are usually set with the name of the PC. At the end, I think change in date could cause more problem then the author name in properties. Regards

@ehsan, Thank you for your guidance. The more people I discuss with, the weirder the details get. I saw in the file details that I saved, some times it shows my name and in some files it shows my cousins name and remaining files, it shows the name of the person I dont even know. Would that raise a flag?

No one can be sure what marker will do, it depends entirely on marker. Well, but, I guess red flag would definitely be raised if you changed the modification date just before submitting them. Though there are few cheeky softwares that can change the date to which you want, lol Regards

@ehsan, Oo i know about that stuff but i dont wanto jeopardize my case. the last saved date is when I made the thesis in may. thats fine but the last saved by is different. I have an option in my file to remove the last saved name from the details. Just to be sure I might remove them. Never knew I had to work hard on this thing after putting all my efforts in making a good thesis

That would certainly change your modification date, Its your call, do what you think is less risky. Regards

Hi @ehsan and @trephena, I m posting the update so far on my case. I sent them all the drafts I had and the mentors communication and emailed them mentioning that my turnitin report shows that 5% plagiarism is for the footer only and if I remove the footer it will be less than 1%. I got a reply back that I have done a survey and showed the results in Appendix but havent used discuss anything in RAP. she wanted me to explain that. I have responded to her email as well and now waiting again and hoping for the best. Thanks guys for all the support

Thanks for keeping us updated @shay 88. In most respects as far as an ACO case this sounds very hopeful. You don't say which topic you did but if the survey was integral then a marker might fail on not using it appropriately e.g. with T6. If T17 or T20 then a survey is usually superfluous and with T18 it is debatable whether a survey is needed or not. To a certain extent it depends on the rest of the evaluation /analysis and whether that has met the criteria for a pass. If you are exonerated then you get the marker feedback sheet as the marker will have either already passed or failed your work. The ACO apparently will normally not interfere with this unless something comes to light in their investigation and they can then turn a pass to a fail (but not the other way round as all fails will have been checked by a moderator [senior marker] and the ACO are not assessing against the pass criteria just evaluating whether the work was done in accordance with the rules)

Hi @Trephena, I have received the result with following letter. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The coursework you have submitted for assessment for the Research and Analysis Project was been referred to me for investigation because of concerns about its originality. 1. Your project was passed through Turnitin and a final overall match of 13% was identified. Having closely examined the evidence available to me, I have concluded that the match may be due to poor academic practice rather than misconduct. I am not wholly satisfied with the evidence you presented and I have some concerns regarding the authorship of the work. I strongly advise you in future not to use material from a source. However, I am able to inform you that you have been exonerated and I will be advising the admin office to release your result. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I m not sure what does this poor academic practice mean and not wholly satisfied with the evidence. Secondly, would there be a change in grade or exonerated means I will get the result that was originally awarded? Thanks.

@trephena, I forgot to mention my topic again. It was T18 and my company was Nestle

@shay88 said: Hi @Trephena, I have received the result with following letter. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The coursework you have submitted for assessment for the Research and Analysis Project was been referred to me for investigation because of concerns about its originality. 1. Your project was passed through Turnitin and a final overall match of 13% was identified. Having closely examined the evidence available to me, I have concluded that the match may be due to poor academic practice rather than misconduct. I am not wholly satisfied with the evidence you presented and I have some concerns regarding the authorship of the work. I strongly advise you in future not to use material from a source. However, I am able to inform you that you have been exonerated and I will be advising the admin office to release your result. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I m not sure what does this poor academic practice mean and not wholly satisfied with the evidence. Secondly, would there be a change in grade or exonerated means I will get the result that was originally awarded? Thanks.

First of all congratulations, on being exonerated! Now, though ACO won't change your grade, but you might have failed, as stated poor referencing. So, be ready for that. And, keep us informed too. Regards

@ehsan, I was excited about a while ago but again after seeing your response, I m back to the same old grumpy feelings. Are you sure its a fail for poor referencing. I m not sure why is not she convinced if I have given her every draft I had plus the total was 13% from atleast 40 references. I dont think it should fall under poor referencing as mostly were referenced.

I didn't mean you will definitely fail, but she mentioned poor referencing which is more than probable.. I think you just copied and pasted text from source to project directly, which is bad.

@shay88 - as I explained above the ACO do not normally interfere with the marker's decision. What your officer was saying is that she did not think you had done anything dishonest (i.e. deliberately copied) so she was exomerating you. Normally now you just get the feedback/ mark sheet - what you would have got if there had been no referral in the first place. The marker/ moderator had obviously had doubts about your work -the reason it was referred. Very occasionally if the Turnitin score is high but the marker just referred but did not fail, the ACO officers (who are all very senior markers) can if there has been a lot of copying and pasting decide it constitutes what is called 'bad academic practice' ( not enough paraphrasing and use of own words -see Golden Rule no. 10 in my article on Referencing where I explain this) and the marker really should have failed it. Then they may change the result to a fail. However I would NOT expect this for a 13% score but one over 30% might be more likely. So chill baby, chill -and let @Ehsan And me know the final outcome :-)

@Trephena, Thanks for your post. It calmed me down. I am definitely going to inform you what ever happens. Hopefully expecting an email by tomorrow.

Hi @trephena, It been almost 10 days and I have not received any mail for releasing my result. Does it normally takes this time or should I be contacting someone? Thanks

I was thinking we hadn't heard back from you! I can't really say. I suppose it depends on the ACO workload. Normally you should get a decision letter and depending on the decision they then release the result or tell you. If you are exonerated then you get the mark sheet (so you get whatever grade the original marker gave it), but if the decision is malpractice or above you don't get any feedback. This is because normally it means a zero grade (a fail in everything) and as there were irregularities the original feedback is deemed invalid (so I presume you are just told this). For academic negligence [bad academic practice] normally it will either have already been failed on at least [6] referencing (possibly on Evaluation too) or the ACO will change any pass on [6] to a fail as academic negligence means although there was no intention to cheat you have not acknowledged sources so technically it is plagiarism. However with negligence you still get the feedback. I did hear something about not releasing exonerated results where students have failed during the current submission period as otherwise they might rush to resubmit and not spend enough time doing adequate revisions but as mentioned previously it may just be your officer is tied up with other cases.

Hi @trephena and @ehsan, I have not received any email yet but I check at obusubmission website and my results have been released. My RAP has been passed with a grade B andI have been awarded a BSc (Hons) in Applied Accounting degree First Class Honours. Big shout out to you guys. You have been really helpful in keeping me calm in this tough situation. Thank you both the mods for all the guidance. Big Cheer.

Congratulations, that's a big news. After all the patience has resulted in a sweet fruit. Enjoy.

Many, many congratulations @shay88 ! Worth the wait, pity about the stress in between (but am sure this will soon be forgotten as you celebrate). :-D Also good for future ACO cases who come here and read stories like yours. If you have acted honestly it is normally apparent and you will be exonerated and we are glad to help on here and explain parts of the process. ( However those who know they have copied and got someone else to do their work will not get our sympathy vote - as we don't support anyone who has cheated - you got what you deserved if you have been caught by the ACO while others have worked hard for their degree)

@Trephena and @Ehsan. Thank you guyz and now I can get my CPA Canada which was pending because of this. And yea students should not be worried if they have not plagiarized or has some one to do their work. These ACOs are experienced enough to differentiate between a mistake and a deliberate copy-paste. Cheers Mates!

Hi all, This was my second submission at first i failed the project (Topic 8) and due to various reasons such as poof referencing and incomplete financial analysis. After so much effort i have worked on topic number 17 and i dont even know why they have deferred my results. Internet is the only resource that we can use for obtaining information required for the project. As far as i know i have done my best and i have taken so much effort and spent money for re submission fees aswell. Has anyone else been though this hurdle?