Resubmission Queries

I am writing just inform other student about other possibilities. As I was having a problem about RR as u can see from above I mailed them about this problem and asking them about it. I mailed them 2 weeks ago and today i got their reply as it was shocking for me because they went through my project again and passed me . I checked my OBU account and i was passed with F class honors, here is the reply which I got . Dear Muteeb thank you for your email in relation to your feedback and your area of failure for referencing. I have reviewed your case and consider that you did provide sufficient evidence to pass your referencing and therefore recommend that you be given a C in your RAP result. I have copied in our Programme Portfolio Manager who will undertake the necessary paperwork to alter your result. kind regards Jane I am happy at last all my effort showed its colored. As this post was just to let other students know about this possibility.

Muteeb can you please tell what was the issue with your report that they passed you after reviewing it? May be that would help me too.

@hamdi90 I failed in referencing only although I did it in my project, so when they reviewed it they found enough evidence of my referencing. my grade sheet is bellow, 3. Evaluation of information, analysis and conclusions Fail Reasons for fail and advice for improvement: This was a well prepared project, your layout and structure was good, and in some aspects you met or surpassed the required criteria. However you did not meet all the criteria to pass. Your analysis cannot be reasonably assessed because of your poor referencing practice. 6. Information gathering and Referencing Fail Reasons for fail and advice for improvement: Unfortunately your work is inadequately referenced. Corporate sources i.e. Porter five forces analysis in particular are not referenced. This is a key academic skill and without adequate referencing I cannot differentiate your contribution from that of others. Both the ratio analysis and the business analysis need to be thoroughly referenced. Referencing is a key academic skill and one that you must demonstrate competence in before a degree can be awarded. Please see the guidelines on how to reference properly using the Harvard system. You have appeared to have used the financial accounts but these are not referenced. I hope this will help

I passed my RAP but failed one part of my SLS. The results came: Self Reflection - Pass Communication ( including Presentations) -Fail So I was not sure which part is communication even after so many enquiry from collegues. I finaly called Oxford Brookes University and they told me I should only resubmit the presentation and the resubmission statement. well i have uploaded these two but the system is telling me I should resubmit the SLS as well. I am confused now, whether I should edit(redo) the SLS or just send the previous one unedited.

 I have passed the Self reflection part of my SLS but failed the Communication (including presentations) part. Reasons for fail and advice for improvement:The main focus of your presentation slides MUST be the objectives, findings, conclusions and recommendations of your report. Only 3 out of 12 slides deal with these aspects - and 2 of them do not have much content. Much more on the findings is required ; when you redo your presentation slides , make sure they contain the relevant information and are clearly visible. I do understand i have to redo my presentations but am not sure which part of my SLS is the communication. is there anywhere else i need to redo besides my PPT presentation

@gshava - I agree this is confusing as technically the SLS is in 2 parts self-reflection (the written part) and communication (the Presentation). However I have known even OBU markers refer to these parts as the SLS and Presentation respectively! If you passed self-reflection and are submitting on the same topic and company then you do not have to re-submit this as the pass will be carried forward. I did a recent post on the Forum ''Inquiries Topic 8' which specifically dealt with the Presentation so suggest as you failed on this you read my hints and tips on how to do an effective presentation as this would probably help you :-)

Hi, I failed my first submission rap with two reasons 6 Information gathering and Referencing - Fail Reasons for fail and advice for improvement: There are a number of verbatim quotations from sources which have either not been acknowledged as quotes, or have not been referenced at all. Research Report Assessment F Reasons for fail and advice for improvement: Interesting primary research and a good summary of theories of risk and risk management. Needs more incisiveness for a higher grade. I was doing Topic 16 A Critical Evaluation of the Financial and Operational risk management within an organisation. I have tried to correct on the referencing, and what exactly does the marker mean Research Report Assessment. I tried to rearrange it on my correction trying to link the overall research approach in part 1 and linking the research questions in part 1 to the conclusions in part 3. I am not sure and afraid to send and fail do you think there is more i can check . Please help

@langton - suggest you look at the assessment criteria (Appendix 1 of Info Pack). You need to apply a critical approach to your work so are there ways you can evaluate your Findings from a few different angles? From your comments it seems you failed only on Point 6 and it sounds that if you passed 3 Evaluation, Analysis and Conclusions you are almost there. So don't give up now. Thoroughly reference your work, don't do too many long passages that you have cut & pasted - where this is unavoidable uses quotation marks "like this" to indicate they are not your words as well as a reference but try to paraphrase some if you can. In fact re-reading your feedback comments I think you actually only failed on this last point I.e. referencing. and the marker was saying that your work would only have got a higher grade I.e. one above 'C' if it had been more 'incisive'. This actually means you were very, very close to a pass but couldn't be given one because your referencing let you down. So sort the referencing out, try to put in a bit of critical evaluation (just for good measure) and you should pass this time all being well :-)

@Haider Ijaz - Chill Baby, chill! :-D It sounds as if you have done everything possible this time to get your pass so I hope you are rewarded with one... You say you have updated the RAP including the SWOT, referenced well (and no it doesn't matter if you use Forbes a dozen times if it is relevant and referenced as it is a reliable business source :-) ) Once you have passed a section unless you change your topic or company the pass you had previously is carried forward - so you should be fine on most sections and the graphs are all you need to prove IT skills (and you probably used PowerPoint too for the Presentation before) so don't worry on that one either. If you read p.22 of the Info Pack it is Evaluation & Analysis that is the great decider between passing and failing so I always recommend that provided you have mentioned a few limitations in the data gathering, use the words for E & A. The Info Pack guidelines are very general e.g. someone doing T6 would need to look at the motivation theories in a bit of detail in Part 2 and use a fair amount of words in that section whereas in Part 3 where they are applying the theory this does not take so many words as it does for E & A for T8. I am reliably informed that the markers go by the overall word count and don't do a breakdown within the RAP for each section (although I have known them do this in the SLS if some answers to the questions are considered too brief e.g. less than 300 words for a question) Here's hoping then it's good news for you in March, so return to post your result then :-) Good luck! Trephena

@Haider Ijaz - Absolutely! Good luck! :-)

@gshava It is quite unusual for someone to fail and just have the Presentation outstanding - so it seems the system hasn't been programmed to accept this alone!!! I suggest that you add a note if possible to your Resubmission statement (don't worry if it takes it over the 500 limit) to say that you are submitting the original SLS because the system will not accept your submission without it. However you have been assured by the OBU office that as you have passed the Self-Reflection SLS previously only the Presentation is outstanding. If you had a pdf version of the Resubmission statement ready to load and you cannot therefore amend as suggested why not load a file as an Appendix but call/ save it as 'Note to Marker re SLS' and put in a note more or less of what I said above? Either way the marker should see it. ( I am told that the earlier mark sheet(s) are electronically made available to the marker, so they should see that that you have indeed passed the SLS previously anyway but the additional note will just ensure that you have covered yourself) :-D

thank you so much Trephena. I will consider your advice.

HELP !!!! looks like I made a huge mistake :(((((( In financial and Ratio Analysis I have compared 3 years of target company with its own and with 3 year of competitor company to make it 7500 words I am going to fail ? should I not submit the project this time ???

@faizy7 - I'm not sure I fully understand your problem -are you saying that you are not comparing the performance of your main company with a competitor at all? If you are saying that you have looked at the 3 year trends for your main company(rather than taken a, year by year approach) I actually think that can be preferable as strategies and company policies (a) cover more than one year usually (b) there is often a time lag and (c) focusing on exact yearly figures rather than data trends often produces a report that is heavy on figures and light on sensible and reasoned evaluation. I understand from OBU that T8 should be a 3 year analysis for your main company but just the latest year for the competitor will be adequate for a pass in accordance with the Assessment Criteria (provided the E&A and everything else is satisfactory). So I hope that helps. :-) However if you are not drawing comparisons between the two companies at all - then yes that is likely to fail as it will not fulfil the Criteria as the E&A will not be sufficient. It is always an individual decision whether to submit or not. Read my submission check list at the top of our Forums list to help but the final decision must be yours.

no I have compare year by year of Target (3 years of Target) but I also included Year by year analysis of competitor ( 3 year of Competitor)

@faizy7 - not a problem if you have done 3 years for both (one year for the comparator is the minimum). A pass depends on the quality of your E &A - don't just throw figures and percentages at the marker -that is not analysis -it is just number-crunching and anyone can do that with Excel/ calculator! They expect to see researched reasons that back up the trends and not just figures and obvious observations.

Thank you again trephena, i think you were right. I called again the university for the second time for clear confirmation and I was told clearly taht they do not need my SLS. I told them the system won't allow me to send without it and they advised me to write just a note to say I have passed the self relctiin and upload it in place of the SLS

@gshava - maybe they read my advice (haha!!!) :-D

Hey I submitted my RAP and SLS in Period 21 (2010-2011). i was able to pass the SLS but i failed in Research Report. The main reason for failure was because of 1. Information gathering and referencing 2. Evaluation of information, analysis and conclusion. In both these areas i received a fail grade. My topic was financial analysis. Now after a long period i would like to re submit a research report but change the organisation because previously i selected the wrong companies and i couldnt find a suitable competitor. There was also not much press coverage and i didnt have access to information so i was unable to get much information. The marker commented that most of the information was from annual report and this was one of the reasons for my failure. Can someone please help me answering the following questions 1. Can i change the organisations and if i do should i also make a new SLS ? 2. Should i get in touch with mentor again because i dont want to contact her again as she didnot really help me much in the first time ?

I really have lost touch with applying business models i studied in p1 and p3 although i got good marks above 80 % in each paper. I no longer remember them much and i would need to re learn them. Where i work i do carry out analysis but that is very detailed. I dont know how deep i need to go into the analysis because of this i need to know the level of analysis which needs to be done.

@usman009 - as you are talking about nearly 5 years ago you will find the requirements for the RAP have changed considerably since then. You really need to famaliarise yourself with the latest Information Pack before you begin. I suggest you also look at our homepage www.opentuition/boy where we have articles and FAQs that in particular deal with evaluation and analysis. The areas you failed are the most common but the standard is even higher now to meet the assessment criteria than it was back in P21 so you need to use our search facility for questions you may have and read the answers. Please post any queries to the relevant forum topic (it is not necessary to open a new topic each time). You will need a mentor to verify the work is your own

Please find my results below: 1. Understanding of accountancy/business models Pass 2. Application of accountancy/business models Pass 3. Evaluation of information, analysis and conclusions Fail 4. Presentation of project findings Fail 5. Communication Pass 6. Information gathering and Referencing Fail 7. Information Technology Pass 8. Self Reflection Pass 9. Communication Skills (inc Presentation) Pass I have few queries regarding the resubmission: 1. Do I have to resubmit and update my SLS and SLS Presentation in line with updated RR? 2. Do I need any mentor to submit his detail during resubmission ? If not, then do i really have to care about my previous mentor whether he is ACCA approved mentor or not? I would appreciate any help. Thanks in advance :)

@sfarhan06 You will not have to load your SLS / Presentation at all. However one of the main purposes of the mentor is to certify that the work you are submitting is your own and this applies to all work submitted for the BSc. For P30 ONLY you may use a mentor who fits the qualification requirements under the 'Old Rules' i.e. they do not have to have done the online mentoring course but they either have to be a fully paid up ACCA member, college tutor or workplace supervisor (in the last two cases you need to email the OBU office and forward the mentor's CV to get OBU agreement that the mentor is suitable unless they are already on the listed mentor list). From P31 ALL mentors must be on the listed mentor list (As you have failed on Evaluation & Analysis I suggest that you read my article on our homepage www.opentuition.com/obu as this may be useful for your resubmission and also my article on the Resubmission statement)

Thank you for the reply. It means I have to submit a mentor details like the way I did it for P29, doesn't it? For P30, I can use my previous mentor since he was an acca member. Anyway, I have read that article. It was very helpful. Thank you so much for that. I need another advice. The company I have prepared research on has published its report on april 2014. As to info pack, I can use 2014 data, but it is not a must. However, the comparator company has not published its report yet. It would hamper the comparability of my data if I consider 2014 for one company. What should I do?

@sfarhan06 - yes the position re mentor details will be the same as for P29. You will have to use the 2014 data as it was available more than 90 days before the submission period opened (in fact you should have used it for P29 surely or do you mean it was published on April 2015 not April 2014?)

My bad. It would be april 2015 when the AGM held and Annual report for 2014 was published.

@sfarhan06 - Yep thought that's what you probably meant! This is a bit awkward as the comparator FS aren't available and as the main company 2013 accounts have now been superseded but are now a bit dated. This is the approach I would do bearing in mind you are not compelled to use 2014 1. Use the 2013 for both companies and base your comparisons on those 2. Make a statement in the Limitations section and state the actual date 2014 FS were published for main company 3. Introduce a section at the end called 'Update' and again mention that the accounts were only made available in April 2015 and 2014 was not available for the comparator. 4. In this updated section I would cover Revenue, GP, NP and EPS for the main company and make relevant comments and try to do a few good explanations 5. You could (if appropriate/feasible) use the 2014 FS for the SWOT and PESTLE 6. Base your Conclusion on both the main analysis and the update Note: if you are struggling with the word count then trim Parts 1 & 2 of superfluous material - the marker on a resubmission will be focusing on Part 3 if you failed E & A and will be wanting to see that you are looking at what has driven performance rather than just mentioning that one company has out performed the other (let the graphs show that)

Thank you so much for the advice, very helpful indeed. Among very few things that the OBU marker has remarked on my RAP feedback, Ratio analysis not being properly analysed is the significant one. One of the reasons why I can't discuss ratio earlier is word count. For whole financial analysis, I had allocated 2500 words. Among them, 1500 words were to discuss the important elements in Financial statemens. But I realised I might have discussed much on this part rather ratios. My questions are: can I trim or delete this FS analysis part ( Revenue, operating income, balance sheet and cash flow analysis) , and increase ratio analysis? There is nothing exciting happened in Balance sheet, and marker stated that this part was not discussed/helpful as to my research objectives. Can I delete this part, and discuss on Gearing ratios instead? Those tare same and related I reckon.

@sfarhan06 - The very last part you should trim is the Findings section as that is the 'clever part' that shows you can think for yourself and is what is key to getting a pass. Parts 1 & 2 are the areas you need to edit first (is anyone really bothered why you chose company XYZ? - I doubt it!). There is one thing you need to do if you have failed section 3 Evaluation, Analysis and Conclusions and that is Explanations, explanations and explanations! Ratio Analysis is merely a tool to assist with evaluation and too many figures without demonstrating what really has driven those figures will lead to another fail. As I advise time and time again SHOW the ratio results in a graph and then you do NOT need to state lots of figures - readers/markers are fully capable of seeing the position for themselves and what they want is for you to tell them the factors (from the SWOT & PEST for example or the management strategies) that have caused movements in the trends. I suggest that you read my article on Evaluation on our homepage www.opentuition.com/obu where I try to explain how to adopt the correct approach

@zeest - certainly you need to give the marker some in depth explanations - that is much better than lots of ratios. If the organisation is a service entity then the quick ratio is next to useless and unless the asset ratio / turnover shows anything significant those two would be the first I would chop out. The investor ratios are usually very important for the market so I would include gearing and probably keep ROE. You could take out some and (those that you are not going to explain as there is no real information just as graphs in the appendices. However you do need to explain profitability ratios and dividend policies and EPS in as much detail as possible. From comments in the student feedback what the markers absolutely hate are (a) comments that just say that one company has outperformed the other (without explaining why this should be so) (b) statements of the obvious (something the markers can see for themselves from the graphs) and (c) 'explanations' that read like notes to the accounts -so avoid making these types of mistakes and research well so that you can explain things properly.