When is obu submission complete

I’m afraid this would be one for the OBU Administration Office – except no doubt they are so busy dealing with the effect of the website crash yesterday I expect that they don’t have time to answer!

However I suspect that until you have the submission confirmation listing out the files you loaded, your submission is not complete….

@seth1 – The referencing Guidelines are normally ‘Best Practice’ (I suspect they are automatically issued to all OBU students – most of whom are actually physically attending the campus and meeting tutors regularly) but the variation you mention is obviously an oversight

Referencing is important as it is an academic protocol and as you probably appreciate to avoid any possibility of being accused of plagiarism. However OBU seems to recognise that it is difficult for the RAP students who are all ‘distance learners’, heavily dependent on a mentor who may or may not be knowledgeable about referencing and for whom the RAP may be their first ever ‘academic’ piece of work. Therefore they do not rigidly impose Harvard (or Harvard APA), however they do insist that every statement of fact, opinion of others and their ideas (and graphs and charts) etc is referenced in the text and must be identifiable in the Reference list. The idea is that the reader should be able to verify that the source exists (via an internet search for a book or journal article for example) or is available on the web if an internet source.

So to get back to your query – well egg on the face for OBU I suppose if they are showing two slightly different versions but as far as RAP students are concerned if you are thoroughly and systematically using some sort of referencing system (either a simplified version of Harvard e.g. no capitals without the ‘fancy’ bits or a numerical system that clearly identifies what is being referenced and ties up with the list), then there should be no problem.

Obviously if you go on to do a further degree then you will be expected to apply Harvard APA and all its bells and whistles but the Graduate Skills element for the RAP will normally be satisfied if you meet the criteria I have outlined 🙂

Oh one final thing – if there are internet website addresses / URLs in the text, tidy any of those up before submitting. (On the Harvard Referencing forum isookvi raised an issue about alternatives to Harvard on 28th April which I answered there so any queries please consult that forum) 😀