Student Guide to BUSINESS 101

2nd Semester 2013

This Student Guide to BUSINESS 101 is an important and official document for all students in this course. It explains the course design, philosophy, and assessment model. It also contains the course schedule (e.g. all due dates), detailed instructions for your individual assignment, instructions for the various other course requirements, and details on all official course policies. You must look through this Student Guide at the start of the semester so that you are fully aware of what it contains. You can then return to the detailed information in this Student Guide as needed throughout the semester. The answers to most of the questions that we receive from students can be found right here in the Student Guide. An excuse of I did not read the Student Guide will therefore not be accepted if you miss out on the important official information and instructions that it contains. Schedule of due dates Coursework requirements to be submitted online outside of class time
Week 4 Date Friday 16 August 10:00 am Assessment or Deliverable Completion of all modules and tests in the Universitys online Academic Integrity course. Does not count for marks, but has significant penalty for non-completion
Note that if you are a repeating student, and you successfully completed this requirement last semester, then you do not need to re-take the Universitys online Academic Integrity course.

Tick

Friday 30 August 10:00 am Monday 16 Sept 10:00 am Friday 11 October 10:00 am

Formative 360-degree team feedback (to be submitted online in CECIL) Does not count for marks, but has significant penalty for non-completion Individual Assignment (to be submitted online to Turnitin.com) Counts towards 20% of your grade in the course. Final 360-degree team feedback (to be submitted online in CECIL) Does not count for marks, but has significant penalty for non-completion

Mid-Semester Break 7 10

Together, all of these in-class assessments will count towards 30% of your grade in this course
Week 2 The week of 29 July Assessment or Deliverable Practice Individual Test that will not count towards your grade, Practice Team Test that will not count towards your grade, plus Practice Team Application Exercises that will not be assessed. While this workshop will not count for any marks, it should still be seen as a real workshop. The tests and application exercises are built around required course materials that will be examinable in the final exam. You will need to know how to complete these testing and application exercise processes in subsequent weeks and so this practice week is vital to your success. Please ensure that you come to class prepared! 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 5 August 12 August 19 August 26 August 16 September 23 September 30 September 7 October 14 October 21 October Team Peer Review of Assignments Workshop (Note that all team members will have individual pre-work to prepare for this workshop) Individual Test 1, Team Test 1, plus assessed Team Application Exercise Individual Test 2, Team Test 2, plus assessed Team Application Exercise Individual Test 3, Team Test 3, plus assessed Team Application Exercise Individual Test 4, Team Test 4, plus assessed Team Application Exercise Individual Test 5, Team Test 5, plus assessed Team Application Exercise Individual Test 6, Team Test 6, plus assessed Team Application Exercise Individual Test 7, Team Test 7, plus assessed Team Application Exercise Individual Test 8, Team Test 8, plus assessed Team Application Exercise Team Presentation Workshop (Note that this will be the one team task this semester where teams will need to meet outside of regular class time in order to plan and practice for your team presentation.) Tick

Coursework requirements to be completed during regular class time

Mid-Semester Break

Contents Page Strategies for Success The Basics Course prescription Course learning outcomes Course workload and time commitments A triangle of learning readings, webcasts, and workshops Course design, philosophy, and structure The focus on content in this course The focus on process in this course The use of team-based learning in this course Your weekly team-based learning workshop Business communication tutorials Course assessment model The Universitys Online Academic Integrity Course The 360-degree team feedback process Contributing to the team process Policies and procedures Communication and email guidelines Missing a course requirement (e.g. what to do if you miss a test or assignment) Instructions Team peer review workshop instructions (for your week 3 workshop) Individual assignment instructions (For due date, see schedule on page 1) Scenario / the assignment question Requirements for your assignment Understanding the grading rubric and the assignment marking process What do I do if I think there was a mistake with my assignment mark? Seeking help and advice as you prepare your assignment 360-degree team feedback instructions (For due dates, see schedule on page 1) Team presentation workshop instructions (for your week 12 workshop) Student support and representation Frequently-asked questions 21 22 22 23 27 30 31 32 36 38 39 16 18 3 3 3 3 3 4 6 6 7 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

STRATEGIES FOR SUCCESS There are three things that you must do on a week-by-week basis in order to maximise your likelihood of success in this course: 1. Follow the week-by-week guide to the course: This can be found on the Course Home Page. The Course Home Page is the pink and blue themed web-page that you see every time you log into CECIL for BUSINESS 101. Here you will find your weekby-week reading list, links to all of the webcasts, and many other useful resources. Please make sure that you watch the This Week in BUSINESS 101 webcasts each week so that you dont miss any important reminders or announcements. 2. Attend your classes: All students are enrolled in a required weekly two-hour teambased learning workshop. For some (but not all) students, there will be an additional requirement to attend business communication tutorials. 3. Regularly check your official University of Auckland email inbox: We will send out regular email messages. Some of these messages will be general frequently asked questions announcements that all students in the course will receive. There may, however, be times when we will be sending you a personalised message. With about 2,300 students enrolled each semester, BUSINESS 101 and 102 represent a large-scale teaching operation. We must have efficient systems for communicating with our students. Please see the communication guidelines section of this student guide. The Basics Course Prescription: Businesses compete for ideas, customers, employees and capital. Entrepreneurs and managers make choices about how to create and capture value through innovation, differentiation of products and services, and how they utilise resources and organise activities. Explores frameworks for understanding how these choices are shaped by markets, technologies, government and society. Develops entrepreneurial thinking, management skills and professional capabilities needed in business. Restriction: MGMT 101, BUSINESS 191 Course learning outcomes By the end of this course it is expected that the student will be able to: 1. Understand and remember the course subject matter (foundational knowledge); 2. Apply this knowledge to business problems and situations (application, problemsolving, and critical thinking); 3. Work effectively as a member of a professional team (personal and career development); 4. Demonstrate integrity and good judgement in oral and written academic and business communication tasks, including the ability to both give and receive feedback (professionalism); 5. Relate knowledge from each of modules of this course to each of the other modules in the course (integration). Course workload and time commitments All Business School courses are designed with an expectation that an average student, hoping to achieve an average grade, will spend about 10 hours per week on work relating to the course. This can only ever be a guideline. Some students will need to invest more time, while others will succeed with less time. For BUSINESS 101, this means: Two hours per week attending your team-based learning workshop. About one hour per week engaging with webcasts and other online resources. For those who are required to attend business communication tutorials, either one or two hours per week attending your tutorial(s). The remaining time, on average about 6 or 7 hours for a typical student, will be used for individual study, e.g. reading, studying for tests, working on assignments, etc.

A TRIANGLE OF LEARNING READINGS, WEBCASTS, AND WORKSHOPS There is a well-defined set of study materials to guide you through this course. You might like to think of this as a triangle of learning, with each of the following components forming one corner of the triangle, and with you in the middle of this triangle: 1. Readings: There are two textbooks.
Bovee, C.L. and Thill, J.V. (2013). Business in Action (6th ed.). Boston: Prentice Hall. McCulloch, R. and Reid, A. (2012). Your Business Degree. Frenchs Forest: Pearson Australia.

In addition to the two textbooks, there are further readings that you will access online through the week-by-week guide on the Course Home Page. It is important to note that the reading list on the Course Home Page clearly distinguishes between required readings for the week and reading-on (e.g. optional, additional and/or extension) readings for the week: The content-based required readings for each week are the ones that you must study before you arrive at your team-based learning workshop. You will be tested on this content when you arrive in class. The process-based required readings for each week are there to support you, in a timely basis, on your assignment and on other process-oriented aspects of the course. The process-based required readings will not be tested in your teambased learning workshops but they could be examined on the final exam. The optional reading-on materials for each week are not compulsory. This means that they will not be specifically tested or examined in your team-based learning workshops or on the final exam. These extra readings are there for the extension of those students who would like to learn more about topics in this course. In this way, you are in the drivers seat because you can choose to make the course as challenging as you desire. 2. Webcasts: We have created a set of webcasts for you to view each week. The webcasts are like mini-lectures. Some webcasts are about course content while others are about process, e.g. helping you with your assignments or with other course requirements. You can watch these webcasts in your own time from any internet-connected computer or device. Make sure you watch the webcasts for each week before you arrive in that weeks team-based learning workshop. We will expect you to be familiar with the content of these webcasts. 3. Team-based learning workshops: In your team-based learning workshops each week, you will be working on activities where your team will apply a few of the key concepts from your required readings and webcasts. The workshops will not be covering all of the concepts that you will come across in your readings and the webcasts. They arent meant to. Instead, these workshops will guide you and your team through a process of looking in depth at a few key concepts in each topic area. Overall, this triangle of learning is about both breadth and depth. The webcasts and readings are about breadth, exposing you to a broad set of content related to that weeks topic area. The team-based learning workshops are then about depth, selecting and applying one or a few key concepts from the webcasts and readings. The following page contains a visualisation of the learning process in BUSINESS 101 and 102. As you look at this visualisation, make sure you take note of the many support systems we are providing to help you through your learning journey in BUSINESS 101 and 102. These support systems are included in the bubbles around the edge of this visualisation.

COURSE DESIGN, PHILOSOPHY, AND STRUCTURE BUSINESS 101 and 102 are not like your other first year courses. They are not meant to be. These two courses are unique in the following ways: BUSINESS 101 and 102 take an integrated approach to delivering course content. In contrast to most of your other first year courses, this means that our focus is not on how the study of business can be divided up into different disciplines or fields of study, but rather on how the study of business fits together. Beyond delivering course content, BUSINESS 101 and 102 also have a strong embedded focus on process. These courses have been purposefully designed to help first year students to build the platform of transferable skills that they will need to succeed throughout their degree studies and into their future business careers. BUSINESS 101 and 102 are not lecture-based courses. Instead, these courses are based on the principles of Team-based learning. This means that you will be taking part in an active rather than a passive classroom experience. The focus on content in this course Business 101 and 102 are separate courses but they are designed as an integrated package. The following chart provides a visualisation of the content-based story of both BUSINESS 101 and 102:

There are three modules in BUSINESS 101 this semester (1) Business and Society, (2) Business Organisation, and (3) Business and the Individual. Each of these modules will take a different perspective on the overall course story of understanding business.

The focus on process in this course The University of Auckland Business School has a carefully-developed Graduate Profile that describes the attributes (e.g. skills and personal qualities) that a student is expected to obtain by the end of an undergraduate degree programme. There are five headings: Knowledge Thinking and Inquiry Managing information Communication Values, attitudes and personal qualities The first attribute of Knowledge is about mastering a body of content-based knowledge in your chosen degree and major(s). As has been described in the previous section, there is a content-based story to BUSINESS 101 and 102 where these courses will contribute towards the total knowledge that you will ultimately build during your degree studies. Knowledge, however, is only one of the five attributes in the Graduate Profile. In terms of your first year experience, the Business School has purposely designed BUSINESS 101 and 102 to go beyond simply delivering subject content in business. We will also be focusing on developing important process skills that will help you to succeed in all of your future courses, as well as in your future business career. These include: Critical thinking (e.g. developing arguments, critically evaluating the arguments of others, and considering different points of views or different interpretations) Information literacy (e.g. learning how to use online databases to find evidence for yourselves, how to distinguish and evaluate this business information, and how to demonstrate good sense when drawing conclusions or making decisions based on it) Dealing with ambiguity (e.g. learning to appreciate the fact that many subjects and decisions in business are not black-and-white, and that business people rarely have full or perfect information when making decisions) Appreciating context (e.g. developing capacities to analyse context and to understand that the situation matters - what is right in one business situation may be wrong in another) Business communication skills (e.g. developing your business and academic writing skills, and your public speaking and presentation skills) Dealing with diversity (e.g. understanding and relating to people who are different from you an extremely important skill to have for any future business career) Giving and receiving feedback (e.g. developing the ability to give useful and appropriate feedback to others, and to engage appropriately and productively with the feedback you have received from others further skills that are greatly needed and valued by employers) The use of team-based learning in this course Given all of the content-based and process-based goals of these courses, the Business School made a strategic decision to design BUSINESS 101 and 102 on the principles of Team-Based Learning. Indeed, one of the things that most excites employers, when they hear about BUSINESS 101 and 102, is the strong focus on working in teams. If you look at almost any job advertisement that is directed at new University business school graduates, you will see that there is inevitably a requirement for applicants to be able to demonstrate strong skills in working and interacting effectively with others. Team-based learning is about learning through applying and using course concepts. Students are asked to build their initial understanding of course concepts prior to class, through engaging with assigned readings. Class time is then used as an opportunity for students to test and refine their understanding of these course concepts. Learning occurs through team discussion which is recognised as a very effective way of developing students understanding of concepts. This type of learning is not always easy or comfortable, but there is much research to suggest that it is effective. A more traditional course might see you sitting in a lecture theatre and listening passively to a speaker talking to you from the front of the room. In

this course, by contrast, most of your class time will be spent actively doing things, e.g. applying and working with course concepts. Just think back to when you first learned to ride a bicycle. Could you have learned to do that just by listening to a lecture, or by reading a book, or did you actually need to get onto a bike and do it? Your weekly team-based learning workshop Each week, all students are required to attend their team-based learning workshop which will last for just under two hours. This takes place in a specially designed team-based learning laboratory, in classes of about 100 students. During the first week of the course, you will be formed into teams that will remain together for the duration of the semester. Each team normally comprises seven students. With the exception of preparing and practicing for a team presentation at the end of the semester, there is no requirement for you to meet or work as a team outside of the scheduled weekly workshop times. A typical model for most of your team-based learning workshops will see the first 30 minutes or so being spent on a readiness assurance testing process, and the remaining 80 minutes or so being spent on team application exercises. Typical Workshop Part 1 - The Readiness Assurance Testing Process: This ensures your individual accountability for being prepared to undertake work in class. When you arrive in class, your basic understanding of concepts will be assessed so that you, your team members, and your facilitators, know how well you are prepared. This readiness assurance testing process comprises (1) an individual readiness assurance test, followed by (2) a team readiness assurance test, followed by (3) a mini-lecture on any misunderstandings that students in the class might have. 1. Individual Test: You will complete each individual test using clicker technology. Since the test will take place at the start of your team-based learning workshops, it will be important for you to arrive in class on time. Each test is a multiple-choice quiz with 5 questions and so the tests will be marked out of 5 marks. These are individual marks that will count towards you final grade in the course. You will get one mark for each correct answer. To do well in these tests, it is necessary for you to complete all of the required readings for that week and to view that weeks webcasts. 2. Team Test: Having completed the individual test, your team will then immediately undertake the exact same multiple choice quiz, but now as a team rather than as individuals. This team testing process provides you with an opportunity to discuss and debate your individual answers with your team members in order come to a shared understanding as to what are the best answers. For the team test, you will not be using clickers. Instead, the team test is completed using a special scratch-off form. Each test will again be marked out of 5 marks, but this time these will be team performance marks and not individual marks. Your team will receive one mark for each correct answer, but it will now also be possible for your team to receive half marks. If your team selects the right answer to a question on your first scratch, then the team will receive one mark. If your team selects the wrong answer on your first scratch, but gets the correct answer on your second scratch, then the team will receive of a mark. 3. Mini-Lecture: While teams are working on the team test, your facilitators will be analysing the results of the clicker-based individual tests. After the team test concludes, they can let students know how the class has performed. A short and targeted mini-lecture of approximately five to ten minutes can then take place. Rather than lecturing on things that everyone understands, the facilitators can focus specifically in on helping to clarify any of the misunderstandings and gaps in students knowledge that have been highlighted through the testing process. Typical Workshop Part 2 - The Team Application Exercise Process: Through the readiness assurance testing process, the class will now have established a base-level of

understanding. For the rest of the workshop, team application exercises will then be used to deepen and refine students knowledge of the weeks key concepts. There will be a mix of application exercises each week. One of these team application exercises in each workshop will be assessed and it will count for 5 team performance marks. A few exceptions workshops that will be a bit different: While the above outlines the typical model for most workshops, there are some exceptions. Week 1 provides an introduction to the course and is not assessed. Week 2 is a typical team-based learning workshop, but on a practice basis where the tests and exercises will not count towards your final grade. Then, there are two weeks where there will be no readiness assurance testing process and where the entire workshop process will be quite different from usual: Team Peer Review Workshop: In week 3, teams will be working with a sample of real assignments that were written by students in last semesters course. (The system is designed to ensure anonymity and so you will not be able to identify the writers of the assignments that you are reading and reviewing.) All individuals in the team will have pre-work to prepare before arriving at the workshop. The output of this workshop will count for 5 team performance marks. For full instructions, please see the team peer review workshop instructions section of this student guide. Team Presentation Workshop: In week 12 (the final week of the course), each team will be delivering a presentation and preparing a poster slide. This task will marked out of 15 team performance marks. For full instructions, please see the team presentation workshop instructions section of this student guide. Business communication tutorials For some students, there will be an additional requirement to attend weekly business communication tutorials. Not all students will need to attend these workshops. The need to attend depends on students individual levels of proficiency. The tutorials are tailored to the different needs of our students and so there are different types of tutorials. Those students who we feel are most likely to benefit from this type of support will be receiving an email from John Thorpe sometime during the first week of the semester. John Thorpe is the manager of the Business Schools Educational Development Unit, and the manager of the Business Communication Tutorials in BUSINESS 101 and 102. During the enrolment process in Student Services Online, all students have already been tentatively enrolled into a ghost business communication tutorial stream. (A ghost stream is a tutorial where no specific day or time or room number was provided.) Those students who will receive an email from John, will be given instructions on how to sign up for a weekly tutorial time and room. Those students who are not required to attend tutorials can simply ignore their ghost enrolment with no need to do anything further. The business communication tutorials are good example of how the Business School has selected BUSINESS 101 and 102 to host process-based initiatives that aim to support students across all of their courses. For those who are required to attend, the tutorials will be relevant to your success in this course because they will develop language and process skills through linking closely to our course content, and to our assessments. The tutorials will also be relevant to all of your other first-year and future courses because the aim is to help you to develop the transferable business communication skills that you will need to succeed here at University and throughout your future business careers. If you are asked to attend business communication tutorials, then this will be a compulsory component of the course for you. From previous semesters, we have clear evidence that those students who were asked to attend these tutorials, and who did attend, were more likely to succeed in the course than those who chose not to attend. Note that if you are repeating this course for a second time, and if you have been asked to attend business communication tutorials, then your attendance and participation in the tutorials this semester will also be taken into account should you ever need to apply for a third and final chance to take the course.

COURSE ASSESSMENT MODEL The weightings for the different assessments in this course are: Individual Tests Individual Assignment Team Performance (Group Mark) Final Examination TOTAL: 10% 20% 20% 50% ------100%

This is not a course where you can miss classes and expect to do well. A full 30% of the total course assessment comes from activities that take place during your weekly teambased learning workshops, e.g. the individual tests, team tests, and assessed team application exercises. If you miss individual tests, you will not receive marks. If you do not contribute effectively to team process, there are mechanisms to ensure that you will not receive some or all of the marks that are earned by your team. In addition, the final exam will be designed so that those students who attend and participate in the teambased learning workshops will be best prepared to succeed in the exam. Final Examination: The final exam will be comprehensive in that it may cover anything and everything associated with the course. In addition to achieving at least 50 of the 100 total possible overall weighted course marks (e.g. 50% coursework plus 50% exam), there is a course requirement that students must achieve at least 45% on the Final Examination in order to pass the course. (The exam will be marked out of 100 marks and so students must achieve a final exam mark of at least 45 out of 100.) Individual Tests: There will be eight individual tests in total. This means that each test that is worth 5 marks will be weighted to be worth 1.25% of your final grade. Individual Assignment: The individual assignment will be marked out of 20 marks and will be weighted to be worth 20% of your final grade. For full instructions, please see the individual assignment instructions section of this student guide. Team Performance: The total team performance mark will come from a series of assessments that teams will complete across 10 different workshops. A team performance chart will be displayed on screen at the start of each team-based learning workshop so that all teams in the class will be able to track and compare each teams progress from week to week in earning these marks. Each teams total team performance score will be marked out 100 possible marks that will then be weighted to be worth 20% of your final grade. These marks will come from: Team Team Team Team Peer Review Workshop (week 3) Tests (5 marks each, weeks 4 to 11) Application Exercises (5 marks each, weeks 4 to 11) Presentation Workshop TOTAL: 5 40 40 15 ------100 marks

While the total team performance score out of 100 is a group mark, the assessment structure is designed to cover both the output of the team and the contribution of each individual. In the calculation of final grades for different individuals, most students will receive the total team performance mark that was achieved by their team. For some students, however, this will not be the case. For full details, please see the contributing to the team process section of this student guide.

10

THE UNIVERSITYS ONLINE ACADEMIC INTEGRITY COURSE All students who are enrolled into BUSINESS 101 this semester for the first time will find that they have also been enrolled by the University of Auckland into a separate Academic Integrity course. If you are a repeating student from the first semester of 2013, then you will already have completed this Academic Integrity course requirement last semester and so you will not need to do it again for a second time this semester. What is the Academic Integrity Course? - The Academic Integrity course is an online course designed to increase your knowledge of academic integrity, university rules relating to academic conduct, and the identification and consequences of academic misconduct. You are required to work through a series of modules outlining scenarios that you may encounter while studying at university. Each scenario provides information on relevant rules, resources and expected behaviour. To complete each module you must answer all questions correctly in a Cecil test. Why should you complete the Academic Integrity course? To increase your knowledge about University of Auckland academic conduct rules. To increase your confidence about sharing information and avoiding plagiarism. How do you access the Academic Integrity course? You should click on the link in the Academic Integrity course that you will see as one of your courses in Cecil. Alternatively, you can go to www.academicintegrity.auckland.ac.nz What do you need to do to complete the Academic Integrity course? You must work through five online modules You must get 100 in each of the 5 tests in order to complete. The modules can be completed separately. You have unlimited test attempts but must answer all questions correctly to complete the course. What is the deadline for the Academic Integrity course? - You will have until Friday 16 August at 10:00 am to complete the Academic Integrity modules and tests. This is a final deadline. This is so that you can complete this Academic Integrity course when it will be most useful to you in supporting your success in your individual assignment. Do I have to complete the Academic Integrity course? - Yes, the Academic Integrity course is a University and a Business School requirement. While the Universitys online Academic Integrity course is separate from BUSINESS 101, and is designed to support students in all of their courses, the Business School has asked us to set in place a course policy where students will be penalised unless they have completed the Universitys Academic Integrity course: If you do not complete the Academic Integrity modules and tests, then you will face a significant penalty and lose 5 course marks in BUSINESS 101 (typically to be deducted from your individual assignment mark if that was 5 marks or higher out of 20). This effectively represents the difference between one letter grade in this course and the next. For example, if you would otherwise have received an A- in BUSINESS 101, this penalty would take you down to a B+. This penalty becomes even more important if you fall close to the margin between passing and failing, e.g. if you would otherwise have received a C- in BUSINESS 101, then this would take you down from a pass to a fail in the course. Who do you contact if you have questions or problems? - There are short instructional videos available on the Academic Integrity website. These videos demonstrate basic use of the online course and Cecil tests. If you experience technical issues, have a question, or want to provide feedback, you can use the Academic Integrity feedback form. The feedback form is linked from each module in Cecil. Since this online Academic Integrity course is run by the University, and not by your facilitators or course coordinators here in BUSINESS 101, you must use the Academic Integrity feedback form within the Academic Integrity course in order to ask questions about that course.

11

THE 360-DEGREE TEAM FEEDBACK PROCESS At two points during the semester, you will evaluate the contribution of your other team members to your teams performance. This is a required component of the course. While you will not receive any specific marks for this task, there are significant penalties if you do not successfully complete this two-stage process. The 360-degree team feedback process will involve you providing both qualitative feedback (i.e. feedback comments) and quantitative feedback (i.e. points) for each of your team members, excluding yourself. This is how it will work: 1. An initial formative 360-degree team feedback process will take place in week 6, just prior to the mid-semester break. This will provide you with an opportunity to review how your team regards your contribution up until that point in the semester. 2. Towards the end of the course, in week 10, a second and final 360-degree team feedback process will take place. The 360-degree team feedback process is an important part of this course because it is so closely aligned with the team-based learning philosophy and key learning outcomes of this course. Our aim is to help you to develop skills in both giving and receiving feedback. In your future business career, you will often find yourself receiving feedback from others about your performance, e.g. your employer is likely to have an annual performance review system for monitoring your contributions. Beyond needing to engage with feedback that you have received about your own performance, there is also a high likelihood that your future career will see you managing or working with others in teamwork scenarios. Here, you will need to have skills in being able to provide others with useful and appropriate feedback about their performance. The main challenge with a 360-degree team feedback process like this is that it only works effectively if all team members participate and provide feedback. Students who do not complete the process, or who do not treat the process in a serious manner, really do let both their team and their facilitators down. Here are the two main reasons for this: 1. The output of this 360-degree team feedback process can become very difficult for everyone involved to interpret when some team members have not participated and/or when some team members have not treated the process seriously, e.g. when someone gives the exact same feedback comments to multiple members of the team, or when someone gives feedback that is inappropriate. In cases where several members of a particular team do not successfully participate, this can actually end up making the entire process quite a frustrating experience for the entire team. 2. There are rare circumstances where the 360-degree feedback that is received by a particular team member has the potential to affect that team members final marks in the course, e.g. where a particular team member has received consistently low feedback from all of his or her other team members. Even though this is relatively rare, the seriousness of this potential outcome means that it is always important to have the fullest possible set of feedback from all team members. For instructions on how to complete the formative and final feedback process, please see the 360-degree team feedback instructions section of this student guide. For further details on the penalties that will be applied if you do not successfully complete the formative and/or final 360-degree team feedback, please see the contributing to the team process section of this student guide. That section also explains those rare circumstances where the feedback received by a student can affect marks.

12

CONTRIBUTING TO THE TEAM PROCESS The success of team-based learning depends on all members of a team contributing to the team process. When an individual has demonstrated a pattern of not contributing, it is only fair that this student should not automatically receive all of the marks that were achieved by the team. At the end of the course, therefore, there will be some teams where one or more team members might receive a team performance score that is different to the score that was achieved by the team. With so many students enrolled in BUSINESS 101 and 102, we need clear and transparent system for monitoring an individuals contribution to the team process. Therefore, we have developed two multipliers: (1) a Participation Multiplier, and (2) a 360-degree Team Feedback Multiplier. These multipliers provide a mechanism for identifying free riders, e.g. individuals who do not contribute fully to the team process. The formula for calculating the final team performance mark that each individual will receive towards their final grade (up to a maximum of 100 marks) is:
Final team performance mark received by each individual = (The teams initial team performance score out of 100 marks) x (the individuals participation multiplier) x (the individuals 360-degree team feedback multiplier)

The majority of students in the course will receive a participation multiplier of 1 and a 360-degree feedback multiplier of 1. This means that these multipliers will not have any impact at all on the team performance marks that most individual students will receive. Every member of most teams will simply receive all of the team marks that were achieved by the team as a whole. However, it is possible for some students in some teams to receive a participation multiplier that is lower than 1 and/or a 360-degree feedback multiplier that is lower than 1. For those students who do receive multipliers that are lower than 1, this will impact on their individual team performance marks. How we monitor and calculate the participation multiplier: If a student receives a participation multiplier that is lower than 1, then this will be because they have a demonstrated a pattern of not successfully participating in the team-based learning workshops. Successful participation in a team-based learning workshop means that an individual has attended, fully completed, and been committed to that workshop and to their team. A student will be allowed to not successfully participate in (or in effect miss or be late for) up to one of eight workshops in which individual tests take place (e.g. weeks 4 to 11) without this affecting their participation multiplier. If an individual does not successfully participate in two or more of those eight workshops, then this lack of participation will be reflected in that individuals participation multiplier. The tracking device for determining successful participation in the typical teambased learning workshops (weeks 4 through 11) will be the individual test. If a student misses the individual test, then either they were not there on the day or they were more than about 5-10 minutes late, e.g. they didnt arrive in class in time to provide an answer to even a single question on the individual test. Even if a student does arrive in class after the individual test has finished, but while the team test is under way, that student must still be considered to have not successfully participated in the workshop as a whole. After all, in order to be ready and prepared to contribute effectively to the team test, as well as to the subsequent application exercises, it is necessary for a student to have first engaged with and completed the individual test. For the two special workshops in which no individual tests take place, a slightly different system will apply. Successful participation in the team peer review workshop will be measured through a combination of attendance on the day plus the assessment by your facilitators of the individual pre-work you were asked to prepare before arriving in that workshop. Successful participation in the team presentation

13

workshop will be measured through your active participation in your teams presentation on the day. The table below illustrates how an individual student might achieve a participation multiplier at the end of the course that is less than 1.
Starting Participation Multiplier = If a student has missed a total of 1 individual tests, then If a student has missed a total of 2 individual tests, then If a student has missed a total of 3 individual tests, then If a student has missed a total of 4 individual tests, then If a student has missed a total of 5 individual tests, then If a student has missed a total of 6 individual tests, then If a student has missed a total of 7 individual tests, then Did not successfully participate in the team peer review workshop, then Did not successfully participate the team presentation workshop, then 1.0 No deduction Deduct 0.1 Deduct 0.2 Deduct 0.3 Deduct 0.4 Deduct 0.5 Deduct 0.6 Deduct 0.05 Deduct 0.15

For example, a student who has missed four individual tests, and who has also not successfully participated in the team presentation workshop, will receive a participation multiplier at the end of the course of 1 0.3 0.15 = 0.55. The student will effectively have lost almost half of the total team performance marks that were achieved by the team. Beyond the standard deductions in the table above, there must always be room for facilitator discretion in the determination of an individuals participation multiplier. For example, this might occur when the facilitators have repeatedly observed (or been informed by the team) that a particular student is attending workshops but is not really participating. Perhaps the student is always spending their time texting on a phone, or perhaps the student is always just sitting there doing nothing. As another example, the facilitators might have repeatedly observed (or been informed by the team) that a particular student is attending workshops for the tests but is then leaving immediately afterwards and is not participating in the team application exercises. Even if such students have always technically attended, they clearly have not participated adequately and should not receive a full participation multiplier of 1. How we monitor and calculate the 360-degree team feedback multiplier: If a student receives a 360-degree feedback multiplier that is lower than 1, this will be because the student has not successfully participated in the 360-degree team feedback process by providing feedback to their other team members.The table below illustrates how this works:
Starting 360-degree Multiplier = Did not successfully provide the formative 360-degree team feedback Did not successfully provide the final 360-degree team feedback 1.0 Deduct 0.2 Deduct 0.3

For example, a student who has missed providing both sets of feedback, will receive a 360-degree feedback multiplier at the end of the course of 1 0.2 0.3 = 0.5. The student will therefore have lost half of the total team performance marks that were achieved by the team. Beyond the standard deductions in the table above, there must always be room for facilitator discretion in the determination of an individuals 360-degree team feedback multiplier. For example, this might occur in the following situations:
o Perhaps one member of a team did submit all of their 360-degree team feedback on time. However, upon reviewing this feedback, the facilitator has noticed that it was not completed in professional manner. For example, an individual may have provided unprofessional or inappropriate feedback comments to some team members. Or, perhaps an individual has simply not treated this process seriously, e.g. they have cut-and-pasted the exact same feedback comments repeatedly for multiple team members. In these types

14

of situations, even though some feedback may have been submitted on time, the feedback has certainly not been successfully completed. A facilitator may therefore decide to use his or her discretion to apply the 0.2 (formative 360-degree feedback) and/or 0.3 (final 360-degree feedback) deductions to that students 360-degree team feedback multiplier. o The need for facilitator discretion could also occur when ethical issues arise. Providing 360degree team feedback to your other team members is meant to be an individual task. Team members should not be working together in order to determine the quantitative scores that they will give to other team members. If any such collusion or unethical game playing is found to occur, the individuals involved could forfeit all of their team performance marks and receive a 360-degree team feedback multiplier of zero.

Rare circumstances where 360-degree feedback RECEIVED can affect marks For the vast majority of students, the 360-degree team feedback that you receive from other students will not have any direct impact on your marks in the course. Rather, the 360-degree team feedback process in BUSINESS 101 and 102 is meant to provide a nonthreatening environment where students can begin developing professional skills in both giving and receiving feedback. The 360-degree team feedback multiplier outlined above is there to identify those students who have not successfully provided 360-degree team feedback to others. It does not consider the feedback that has been received by students within each team. That is therefore the one final area where a further, and quite rare, process of facilitator discretion can take place. If applied, such facilitator discretion could see the final team performance marks of some students in the course being manually adjusted either upwards or downwards. This is not an automatic process, nor is it something that any student can try to predetermine by looking at the 360-degree team feedback that was received within that students own team. Rather, your facilitators and course coordinators will be analysing patterns across the several hundred teams in BUSINESS 101 and 102. We will not be concerned with the natural range of average feedback scores that we tend to see when we look at most teams. Instead, we will be looking for rare instances where there is something truly significant or unusual happening in the overall pattern of 360-degree feedback within a particular team: Perhaps there has been a consistent pattern of other team members giving one particular person extremely low quantitative 360-degree feedback scores. From past experience, we know that such patterns typically tend to signal someone who has missed (or not successfully participated in) a large number of team-based learning workshops, e.g. someone who has effectively dropped out of the course. In most cases, this is therefore something that will already have been captured in the calculation of the participation multiplier for that student, and so the student will already have lost most of their team performance marks for the course. Perhaps there has been a consistent pattern of all other team members giving one particular person extremely high quantitative 360-degree feedback scores. From past experience, we know that such patterns typically tend to signal someone who is already doing extremely well in the course, e.g. any adjustment to their team performance marks would not have any effect on their final grade in the course. Due to the additional analysis and interpretation that is involved, your facilitators will leave any application of this last and rare form of facilitator discretion until the end of the course, e.g. after the final exams are graded but before the final results are determined and locked-in. At that point, we can address whether or not any further adjustment to an individuals final team performance score would make a difference to that students final grade, e.g. how close is the person to the margin between two different letter grades?

15

COMMUNICATION GUIDELINES Checking your e-mail You must regularly check your official University of Auckland email address (e.g. the email address that ends with @aucklanduni.ac.nz). The need to check your email is not just for this course, but also for all of your other courses. The University considers email to be an official means of communication with students. Official email can include, but is not limited to, communications regarding classes, lectures, examinations, assignments, and other informational notices. An excuse of I did not receive that information will not be accepted if you miss out on something that has been sent to you as an official email. Quick Tip: If you think you have lost or deleted any course announcements that we sent out to all students by Cecil announcement and email, then you can always log into Cecil and click on click on Announcements. There, in one place, you will see all of the FAQ announcements that have been sent out so far in the course. How you can communicate with your facilitators Your two facilitators are the people who you should contact in the first instance with any questions or concerns about this course. For something very brief, you can try to talk to them before or after class. Otherwise, you can send them an email message, or attend their office hours, or make an appointment. My stream is Business 101 Stream number __ Team number ___ Day ___Time _____ Facilitator Name Email Address

How you can reach other key people If you have administrative questions, e.g. about missing or incorrect test marks or about the process for applying for a special consideration for a missed assignment , then you can contact Karen Rich, the Course Administrator, at k.rich@auckland.ac.nz Please note that you will have 5 working days (one week) from the day on which an individual test mark is released on Cecil, to notify Karen by email if you think that a mistake has been made with your mark. If you have questions about the Business Communication Tutorials, then you can contact John Thorpe (the Business Communication Tutorial manager) at j.thorpe@auckland.ac.nz Guidelines for sending email messages During your time at the Business School, you will be part of a professional environment where our aim is to help you to prepare you for your future business career. With this in mind, it is vital that you build your business communication skills. This includes the ability to write clear and professional emails. For this reason, we have developed the following guidelines: Please use your official University of Auckland email address for all correspondence with staff of BUSINESS 101 or BUSINESS 102. Email from other email accounts (Hotmail, Gmail, etc.) may be returned to you unread. While it is possible for students to set up their University email to forward to another address, it is usually best practice to use your official University email address for all University activities. Before you send an overly long or complex message, ask yourself whether you are using email for an appropriate purpose. Would it be better instead for you to see your facilitators during their office hours so that you can explain things in person?

16

You should normally try to identify just one person to contact by email and then allow them a reasonable amount of time to respond to your message before you send another message Sometimes, however, you may feel that you really need to send the same message to more than one person (e.g. to your facilitator and to the course administrator). In that case, please send a single email message to both people. That is, you should put both peoples email addresses in the To: line and send one single message rather than two completely separate messages. This is so that more than one person does not end up wasting time replying to a message that has already been answered by another person. Make sure that you clearly identify yourself. Within your message, you must always include your name, student ID number, and details of the course and stream in which you are enrolled, e.g. BUSINESS 101 Stream 2. In the subject line, you should write something meaningful that clearly explains what your message is about. A sensible subject line might be Business 101: Question about my assignment. Make sure that you include a professional greeting, e.g. Dear Mr. Smith or Dear Grace or Dear Professor Brown. Similarly, make sure that you include an appropriate closure such as Best regards or Thanks. Make sure that your writing is clear and concise. In a professional environment, your reader will not be impressed by sloppy spelling and grammar. Also, your language must be appropriate. For example, do not use abbreviated text message language or phrases like Hey Bro. Be sure that you include as much information as possible so that the person you are sending your message to does not need to come back and ask for more information. For example, if you are saying that you have had a problem uploading my assignment to Turnitin then please make sure that you explain exactly what the problem was so that the person has the information needed to investigate. Remember that the facilitators and the course administrators receive many emails each day, often across multiple courses. Do not send an email message late at night, or over the weekend, and expect an immediate response. Instead, course staff will try to answer you on the next business day or as soon as possible. Also, do not leave your questions until the last day or two before an assignment is due. With so many students asking last-minute questions you will likely not receive a response.

An important warning about the use of Facebook Students will often use Facebook as a means of communicating and connecting with each other. That is fine, but you must remember that you cannot always trust information that has been posted on Facebook by other students. As just one example, we faced a situation several semesters ago where students had been using Facebook to share their study notes with each other in the lead up to the final exam. The problem was that one set of study notes contained significant errors about a key concept in the course. When we began marking the exam, we could not understand why so many students were providing very similar and very incorrect answers to one particular question, e.g. many students were getting a mark of zero out of 10 for that short-answer question. It was only later that we were able to trace this back to incorrect study notes that had been prepared by one student and shared widely on Facebook. You must therefore be careful and cautious when you are reading anything that has been posted by other students on Facebook. Facebook is not an official means of communication for this course.

17

MISSING A COURSE REQUIREMENT What can you do if you are affected by illness or other adverse personal events? Missed individual tests You can apply for Aegrotat and Compassionate Consideration The University has a formal aegrotat and compassionate consideration process for missed written tests. (While we use clickers for the individual tests in this course, these tests are still considered to be written tests in line with these University policies.) Unlike with the similar process for missed final exams, the University does not charge any fee for students to apply for an aegrotat or compassionate consideration for a missed test. This process is managed centrally by the University and NOT by your facilitators or the course coordinators in BUSINESS 101 and 102. This means that you will need to apply at University Health Services. You must use the AS-46 Application for Aegrotat or Compassionate Consideration for Written Test form. Look under Written Tests at: www.auckland.ac.nz/uoa/cs-aegrotat-and-compassionate-consideration The instructions are on the AS-46 form. You must apply for each missed individual test at University Health Services within 7 days of the date of that missed test. If your application is approved, your mark for the missed individual test will be based on the average of your marks for your other individual tests. All aegrotat and compassionate marks for missed tests will be entered into Cecil at the end of the course so that you will know your complete coursework mark before you sit the final exam. Missed team tests and assessed team application exercises You cannot apply for special consideration for a missed team test or for that days associated assessed application exercise. The Universitys aegrotat and compassionate consideration process for missed individual tests does not apply to group assessments such as the team tests and associated application exercises in this course. If, however, you get an aegrotat or compassionate consideration application approved by the University for a missed individual test, then we will know that there was a valid reason why you were not there on the day to successfully and fully participate in that days workshop. Therefore, the workshop where you missed that individual test will not be counted negatively towards the calculation of your participation multiplier at the end of the course. As was discussed earlier in the contributing to the team process section of this guide, there is already some leeway built into this course for students to miss (or be late for) one of the eight test-based workshops in this course without this impacting on their team performance marks. A student would need to have missed two or more individual tests before those unsuccessfully completed workshops would begin to impact on the calculation of that students team marks via the participation multiplier. Missed individual assignment, or missed team peer review workshop, or missed 360-degree team feedback, or missed team presentation workshop You can apply for Special Consideration For all coursework requirements other than missed workshops where there were tests, there is an Application for Special Consideration form that you can use to explain why you have been prevented from successfully completing that course requirement due to

18

either illness or injury, or to other exceptions that were beyond your reasonable control. You can download this application form from Resources in Cecil for BUSINESS 101. To be fair to all students, any exceptions to course requirements cannot be granted lightly. Students must be able to present a clear evidence-based case for why they have not been able to complete a course requirement and for why this was beyond their reasonable control. Evidence of illness or injury is usually easy to provide via a Doctors medical certificate. Even then, however, each situation must be considered on its merit. If a student came down with an illness on the night before an assignment was due, for example, it would be reasonable to expect that the student would still be able to provide evidence of substantial work that was already underway, such as a near final draft. With other compassionate circumstances, e.g. accidents or other adverse events, the key is whether or not these were exceptional circumstances that were beyond a students reasonable control. The following list describes the types of situations that are seen as being reasonably under your control, and for which special consideration applications will NOT be approved: Lost work: Computer failure, lost or stolen USB sticks, the dog eating your assignment, file corruption, etc. It is always good and sensible practice to maintain a backup copy. Some students do this by periodically printing out their draft versions. Home internet connection was down or slow: The due time for most deliverables in this course is set for 10:00 a.m. This is so that students can submit their work here on campus through a Business School computer or through using the Universitys wireless network. If the Universitys systems happen to go down, we will always have clear knowledge and evidence of this having occurred. In the highly unlikely event of this happening on the day and time that a course requirement is due, we will then be able to advise students of further instructions. Unfortunately, we cannot accept an excuse of my home internet connection was down because this is too easy an excuse to make and there is no way for us to ensure we are being fair to all those other students who have managed to complete and submit their work on time. If your home internet connection is down, you can always come into the campus and use the facilities here as long as you have allowed yourself sufficient time. Poor time management: Stuff happens and leaving things until the last possible moment means that you have no wiggle room when unexpected events do occur, e.g. your home internet connection goes down. You must plan your work to give yourself some breathing space between the time when you are planning to submit and the final deadline at which submissions will be accepted. This means always planning to submit with plenty of time to spare. Other personal work or travel or sporting commitments: The University expects you to prioritise your University study and to plan your other life commitments accordingly. To be fair to all students, there are only rare cases where exceptions can be approved, e.g. if you are representing New Zealand at the highest level at an international sporting competition.

If your application for special consideration is approved, the outcomes will be as follows: If you missed the individual assignment, then the course will be re-weighted for you to be out of 80 instead of 100 course marks. (The assignment would have been worth 20%). If you did complete the individual assignment, but had last minute problems in trying to successfully submit it to Turnitin on time, then we will aim to get your assignment into the marking process so that it can be marked.

19

If you missed the formative and/or final 360-degree team feedback, then we will not apply any related deductions when we calculate your 360-degree feedback multiplier. If you missed the team peer review workshop and/or the team presentation workshop, then we will not apply any related deductions for each when we calculate your participation multiplier. If you missed multiple course requirements, and have had multiple different applications for special consideration approved, then the various outcomes above will be applied in combination.

Missed or impaired Final Exam You can apply for Aegrotat and Compassionate Consideration If you think you might miss the final exam, of if you think your preparation for the exam might be impaired due to personal circumstances, or if you have missed the final exam, then you can apply for Aegrotat and Compassionate Consideration. For full details, please refer to: www.auckland.ac.nz/uoa/cs-aegrotat-and-compassionate-consideration Aegrotat consideration is for temporary illness or injury. If this is something which prevents a person from sitting an examination, or which seriously impairs either examination preparation or examination performance, then this illness or injury can be taken into account if suitable evidence is provided. Compassionate consideration is for events other than illness. If these are exceptional circumstances beyond a students control which prevent the sitting of an examination, or which seriously impair either examination preparation or performance, then these circumstances can be taken into account if suitable evidence is provided.

These procedures should been seen as a last resort. If at all possible, it is always to your advantage to try to sit the final exam. Students who have missed an examination need to report, in person, to the Examination Centre as soon as possible. To be considered for aegrotat or compassionate consideration, there are requirements to apply within 7 days of the affected exam(s). Your coursework grades will be taken into account when the University considers your eligibility for an aegrotat or compassionate pass. The Department must be able to certify: 1. that your coursework in the course was well above minimum pass standard, 2. that if you did sit the exam, your mark in the examination was lower than expected taking your other coursework into account (delete if you did not sit the exam), and 3. that you are clearly worthy of a pass in the course.

20

TEAM PEER REVIEW WORKSHOP INSTRUCTIONS (for your week 3 workshop) In week 3, we will have a special workshop that relates to your upcoming individual assignment. We are going to complete a formative task where you will be working in your teams. Your team will be engaging with, and team peer-reviewing, some actual (but anonymous) assignments from last semester. We hope that you will find this to be a valuable experience. This workshop should provide you with insights and inspiration that will help you to succeed with your own assignment this semester. All students in your particular workshop stream will be assigned the same set of 5 sample assignments to read and review. These are actual sample assignments from last semesters course that are now being used in this semesters course for training purposes. Our aim in this workshop will be to assist students to recognise the key indicators of a quality assignment. We also want to build your understanding of how your own assignments will be assessed and marked when they are completed and submitted later in the semester. Pre-work: All individuals must complete some pre-work before you arrive in your teambased learning workshop in Week 3. The form you need to complete, and the sample assignments you need to review, can be found by looking under either: Pre-Work for your Week 3 Workshop in the Knowledge Map on Cecil, or Resources on Cecil. There you will see the B101 Week 3 Individual Pre-Work Form which you can download. There you will also find the sample assignments which you can choose to either download or read online. For example, the specific set of 5 assignments for Stream 1 will have the file name B101 Stream 1 Mon 12-2 Sample Assignments.pdf You must follow the instructions on the B101 Week 3 Individual Pre-Work Form and you must bring the completed section of the form along with you to your workshop session in Week 3. Your work will be checked when you arrive in class. If you have not completed this pre-work, then this will impact on your participation multiplier and on the team marks that you will receive in the course. Please see the contributing to the team process section of this guide for further details. Before starting any of this pre-work process, you must make sure that you have watched the This Week in BUSINESS 101 webcast for Week 3 (to be released on about Wednesday of Week 2, e.g. on about the 31st of July). That webcast will provide further advice about this upcoming workshop, and it will also show you visually where to go in Cecil to access the pre-work form and the sample assignments. Cautions A diverse range of sample assignments is being used for this workshop. While some assignments are of higher quality that others, there are things that could have been improved in each and every one of these assignments. These sample assignments should therefore not be seen on their own as exemplars of high quality assignments or as model answers for what you should write in your own assignment this semester. All of the sample assignments have been submitted to Turnitin. This is another reason why students should not be tempted to copy any of the content of these assignments when they prepare their own assignments in this semesters course. If similarity to these sample assignments is seen in assignments that are submitted in the course this semester, then those students will be at risk of being disciplined for academic integrity. Finally, it is important to note that that the pre-work for this workshop is meant to be an individual task. You should not be working with other team members, or friends, and you should not be communicating with others online about any of the sample assignments.

21

INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT INSTRUCTIONS (due Monday 16 September at 10:00 am) Before you begin any work on your assignment, you must make sure that you have read all of the detailed instructions here in this guide. You should also make sure that you have looked at the support resources that are available on the Course Home Page in Cecil. In particular, you should click the the link from the Course Home Page in order to read the Research Pathfinder guide. That guide provides you with specific advice on getting started with this assignment. Therefore, the information in the Research Pathfinder is considered to be part of the formal instructions for this assignment. During the semester, you should then ensure that you are frequently checking your email and that you are watching the weekly This week in BUSINESS 101 webcasts. As needed, we will be using Cecil announcements, plus those weekly webcasts, to provide further advice and to clarify any student questions that might arise about this assignment. Scenario Wendy Williams, is a senior manager working at the head office of New Zealands largest company, Fonterra. Having worked at the company for many years, Wendy is very aware of Fonterras efforts and initiatives in acting as a socially responsible company. However, she would like to gain an independent outsiders perspective on how others view the company. This is why she has hired you, as a management consultant, to prepare a business report for her. She has sent the following email to your business email address:

Dear (Your name here), I would like to employ you to prepare a business report for me. This report will focus on how Fonterra is perceived by those outside of the organisation. Firstly, before beginning to write your report, I would like you to spend some time reading widely in the popular business press (e.g. New Zealand newspapers and magazines) to research and analyse what has been written there in recent years about whether or not Fonterra is operating as a socially responsible company. Then, based on the findings of your analysis, I would like you to write a report on what you have determined from the perceptions expressed in the popular business press to be the three or four most important ways in which Fonterras business activities have been either praised and/or criticised from the perspective of corporate social responsibility. This report is meant to be informative and so, while I would like you to arrive at some conclusions, I do not want or need you to provide any recommendations. I look forward to receiving your report. Thank you and kind regards, Wendy Williams

Your Task The Assignment Question Suppose that you are the management consultant whom Wendy Williams has contacted. The email above, with its report specifications and scope, has been received by you. You have now agreed to accept the contract and to produce this business report, as per the specifications in her email and also to meet all of the following requirements:

22

Requirements for your assignment Your report must meet the word limit requirements: Maximum of 1500 words. You must not exceed this maximum limit of 1500 words. There is no minimum word limit. If you go much below a word count of about 1350 words, however, you are unlikely to be able to answer the assignment question with enough depth of discussion to achieve a good mark. This word limit DOES INCLUDE all of the text in your report, e.g. all of your paragraphs of text between the title of your report and the start of your reference list (including your in-text citations). This word limit DOES NOT INCLUDE any of the words in your reference list, or any of the words in the required addendum that contains your Research Annotations. (As will be explained below, there is a separate word limit for your addendum of Research Annotations.) You must take a word count of the text in your business report and include this word count at the end of your report, e.g. below the end of your Conclusion section and before the Reference List. Your report must follow the required assignment format: To ensure that your assignment document is appropriately formatted, you must use the Assignment Template. You can find this Microsoft Word document with the title AssignmentTemplate.docx under Resources on Cecil. The assignment template is simply a Microsoft Word document that has been set up with the correct default settings for this assignment, e.g. the correct font and font size, correct margins, correct line spacing, etc. The template will show you exactly where you should be inserting your word count. The template will also show you how to format your required addendum with its two Research Annotations. To begin writing your assignment, you should first copy the assignment template to your own computer by using Save As to save it with a new file name of your choosing. We require students to use this assignment template because it provides a level of consistency that facilitates the final marking of these assignments. The choice of font is easy on the eyes of the markers who will be reading hundreds of assignments. Therefore, you should not make any changes to the formatting provided within the template, e.g. do not alter the font, font-size, line-spacing, or margins. Your report must include the following components: You are to write a business report in a proper and complete business report format, e.g. it must include an Executive Summary, Introduction, Discussion, Conclusion, and References. Other than the required Research Annotation Addendum, which is explained further down this list of requirements, you must NOT include any other appendixes in your business report. This report also does NOT require a Recommendations section, nor does it require either a table of contents or a cover letter. Your report must be based only on secondary sources: This assignment is about undertaking secondary research, not primary research. You are not allowed to contact or interview any individuals, or to use any information that has been gained directly from approaching or talking to anyone at Fonterra. The information to be used in your report must ALL come from secondary sources, e.g. articles from business magazines, newspapers, etc. that you have located using the library business databases.

Tick

Your report must include at least a minimum of 5 sources: You must locate an appropriate mix of at least five quality articles to cite in your business report. Since this is a practical and applied business report, most of your sources are likely to come from the popular business press, e.g. newspapers, magazines, trade journals, or other business publications. Some students will choose to use more than the five minimum sources. You must locate and retrieve your minimum of 5 sources using two specific databases: The Business Source Premier database contains a wide range of academic and business publications, including some New Zealand sources. The ANZ Reference Centre database contains a significant number of New Zealand magazines and newspapers, with the ability for you to limit your searches to various criteria, e.g. to certain types of publications. A minimum of five key sources for this assignment must come from the Business Source Premier and/or ANZ Reference Centre library databases. If you choose to use more than five sources for your report, then you can search further in those same library databases, or you can search in other library databases, or you can include high quality and credible sources that you have sourced from the internet. You must NOT use the textbooks for this course (or any other textbooks) as sources for this assignment and you must NOT use Wikipedia as a source. All of the sources that you do use and cite in your report, must be correctly referenced in your reference list. Please make sure you have clicked on the link to the Research Pathfinder guide from the Course Home Page in Cecil. It provides many hints on how to get started in finding appropriate sources.

23

You should use sub-headings within your discussion section: Sub-headings (or sub-sections) can help guide your reader and make your report easier to follow. What this means is that you should have Discussion as your main heading for that part of the report, but you will then also include some subheadings for different sub-sections within this Discussion. The Discussion section is the only part of a report where one would typically see such sub-headings, e.g. sub-headings are rarely found within an Executive Summary, or an Introduction, or a Conclusion. The key challenges you will find as you begin about how to best make use of some sub-headings are (1) to ensure that you do not too many subheadings, and (2) to ensure that you write sub-headings that communicate clearly and briefly to your reader what that particular sub-section is about.

You must use correct APA referencing format: This assignment requires you to use articles to support you own ideas in your business report. This means that the opinions and information that you gather from other sources must be correctly cited within the body of your report, and that each source must also be correctly entered into a Reference List at the end of your report. Academic integrity is an important component of the grading rubric for this assignment. While it can take some work to get your referencing right, we are providing many resources in this course to help you with this task please see the section below on why is there such a strong focus in this assignment on correct APA referencing?. You must treat the citing and referencing aspects of this assignment seriously. Otherwise, our experience has shown us that this can be an easy way for students to lose marks and fail this assignment: If you do not have any citations or any reference list at all within your assignment, then you have not followed instructions and have not met the assignment requirements and so you will receive a fatal flaw or zero grade. If you have a reference list, but you have not included any in-text citations within the body of your assignment, then it is impossible for your reader to know which source in your reference list has been used where within your assignment. This means that the whole purpose of correct referencing has been broken and so you will receive a fatal flaw or zero grade. If you have poor or sloppy referencing, then your mark for your assignment will reflect this in line with the academic integrity component of the grading rubric. As a general guideline, a student who achieves a not passable on one or more components of the grading rubric will not achieve a passing mark on the assignment as a whole. The instructions to markers are also that a student cannot achieve an A grade for their assignment without the use of correct APA referencing. For example, your reference list should be in alphabetic order. Also, according to correct APA referencing format, your reference list must contain only the sources that you have actually read, and that you have cited within the body text of your report.

You must include a required addendum of research annotations: After the last page of your report (e.g. after the reference list), you must begin a new page in your assignment document with the heading Research Annotations. For the two sources that you consider to be most important for your report, and that have been retrieved from either Business Source Premier or the ANZ Reference Centre, you must provide (1) a correct reference in APA referencing style (which you will have already written previously to include in your reference list), followed by (2) an annotation that includes the following required components: a brief summary of the content of the source (one or two sentences) a brief explanation of your search strategy to locate this source, e.g. which key words or terms did you enter into the search box in order to find this article? (one sentence) A brief explanation of why you chose to use this source for your assignment, e.g. your evaluation of why you feel this was a credible/useful/appropriate source for your assignment and of why you think citing information from this source has made your report stronger (three to four sentences) The word limit for your research annotations is separate and in addition to the word limit for the report itself. The maximum word limit for each of your two research annotations is 300 words. There is no minimum word limit for each research annotation. To cover the required components, we are suggesting that each research annotation should be written in about 5 to 7 sentences. It will therefore be possible to write an effective research annotation in fewer than 300 words. However, if you are too brief, then you will not be able to cover the key requirements. In the end, this is about you being able to justify and explain the critical thinking process that you went through in selecting the two most important sources that you decided to use for this assignment. Warning: While you are initially researching and reading in order to locate possible sources for your assignment, you need to be keeping a record of the search strategy and key words that you have been using to locate each source. Do not try to make these search terms up afterwards at the time you are writing your research annotations, e.g. dont make up the key words you say you entered to find a particular source because, since then, you have forgotten exactly how you found that particular article in

24

the first place. The person who marks your assignment is likely to follow the key words and search strategies that you have provided in your research annotations. If they are unable to find the source that way, then they will know that you are not telling them the truth about how you originally searched for and located that source. The Research Annotations are an important part of your assignment because this is about you developing your information literacy skills. The quality of your Research Annotations will therefore directly affect the mark that you will receive for your assignment. Every semester, we have students who tend to treat this research annotation task in a last minute rush where they then write very little that is of much use at all. That is an easy way for students to needlessly throw away potential marks and possibly fail this assignment: If you do not include this addendum of research annotations at all, then you will fail severely on the research addendum component of the grading rubric and the instructions to markers will be that you cannot pass, or nearly pass, the assignment as a whole. No matter how good the rest of your assignment might be, you will not be able to receive a mark that is higher than 8 out of 20. If you do include this addendum, but you do a sloppy or insufficient job, then your mark for your assignment will reflect this in line with the research annotation component of the grading rubric. As a general guideline, a student who achieves a not passable on one or more components of the grading rubric will not achieve a passing mark on the assignment as a whole. The instructions to markers are that a student cannot achieve a grade in the A ranges for their assignment without including a research annotation addendum of sufficiently high quality to justify such a mark. Please make sure you have clicked on the link to the Research Pathfinder guide from the Course Home Page in Cecil. It provides further advice on how to successfully complete your research annotations. You must submit your assignment on time to Turnitin.com: You will NOT be submitting a hard copy of this assignment. Instead, you must successfully submit the assignment electronically to the Turnitin.com website. In order for you to receive a mark, your assignment must be successfully submitted to Turnitin.com before the due date and time. Please do not leave this until the last minute. We will be providing you with further instructions and guidance closer to the time so please make sure that you pay attention to our Cecil announcements/emails and to the This Week webcasts. It is important to note that Turnitin only accepts a limited number of file types. If you choose to use software other than Microsoft Word to prepare your assignment, then you should ensure that you have looked at the assignment template and that you follow its formatting conventions and styles. Even if you do choose to use other software to write your assignment (e.g. Apples Pages word processing software), you must remember that you will need to save and convert your final version into a Microsoft Word document (or one of the limited range of other file types that Turnitin will accept, such as a pdf document) in order to be able to upload and submit your assignment successfully to Turnitin. Note - Late assignments are not accepted: Please do not leave things until the last minute. If you fail to successfully submit your assignment to Turnitin.com before the required due date and time, then you will be considered to have missed the assignment. No extensions can granted for this assignment. This is because there are tight schedules and huge numbers of assignments involved in this process. We need to turn the assignments around quickly through Turnitins electronic processes so that staff can begin marking. Because of this, late assignments are unmanageable and extensions will not be granted. The only exception to this is if you had last minute technical problems submitting to Turnitin where you subsequently have had an application for special consideration approved. For further information, please see the section in this guide on Missing a course requirement. Note - Any form of cheating will be severely penalised: The University of Auckland regards cheating as a serious academic offence. Plagiarism is one form of cheating. In coursework assignments submitted for marking, plagiarism can occur if you use the work and ideas of others without explicit acknowledgment. Work can be plagiarised from many sources, including books, journal articles, the internet, and other students assignments. The penalties for plagiarism can be severe, including losing some or all of the marks for the assignment. Major offences can be sent to the Universitys Discipline Committee, where further penalties can be imposed. The primary way of avoiding plagiarism is to reference your work properly. Beyond plagiarism, cheating also includes such things as knowingly allowing your work to be copied by someone else, making up some of the data or information in your assignment, and using material from commercial assignment services. One area where some students get into trouble every semester is in sharing their work and/or their assignment resources with other students. Our best advice in relation to your assignment is to not share your work under any circumstances. Once it has been sent on to others, you have no control over who else may access your work or distribute it further, potentially implicating you in the process. Note - Be careful with any third party assistance: While you are encouraged to improve your coursework writing skills and are permitted to seek assistance from third parties, you are advised that

25

there are important limits on the amount and type of assistance that can be given to you in completing your assignments, including group work. Third parties include fellow students, reading groups, friends, parents, Student Learning Centre tutors, and paid-for professional editing services. If you are not sure, then speak to your facilitator for advice before you hand your assignment in. Why has this assignment been designed in this way? Why does the scenario/specifications for this assignment ask me to do all of my reading and analysis before I begin writing my report? This is because this assignment aims to develop your skills in critical thinking and prioritisation. You are not supposed to be preparing a report on all of the reading and analysis that you have undertaken. Rather, you are preparing a report on what you have determined from your analysis to be the three or four most important ways in which Fonterras business activities have been either praised and/or criticised from the perspective of corporate social responsibility. Your client does not want to receive an information dump of everything that you might have read or learned through carrying out your reading and analysis. Instead, you are meant to prepare a report that focusses on the most important findings of your analysis and that arrives at some conclusions related to those findings. Why doesnt the grading rubric just focus on content, e.g. why is there also such an emphasis on such things as organisation and writing style? This is because this assignment aims to develop your skills in business communication. Success in business depends not only on what you say, but on how well you say it. Why am I required to use University Library Databases to locate and retrieve my five minimum sources, and why do I need to include the addendum of research annotations? This is because this assignment aims to develop your skills in information literacy. Most new students arriving at University today tend to be quite confident and comfortable in the use of computers. What they are not so good at, however, is using computers in a sophisticated manner to locate high quality sources of business information. This involves developing information searching skills, and it also involves using critical thinking to compare and judge the credibility of different sources in order to select the best or most appropriate sources to use for a given purpose, e.g. to select the best sources to use for a business report. Without clear assignment instructions like this, and without having the extra research annotation addendum task, our past experience has shown us that many first year students would approach an assignment like this by simply doing a few unsophisticated Google searches, and then using a convenience sample of the first few sources they found to use for their assignment. In contrast, the Universitys online library databases offer you a much more efficient means for locating high quality business and academic articles to use as sources for your University assignments. Using these databases is certainly more effective than undertaking random searches for information on Google. One of the learning outcomes of this assignment is to prepare you for future courses where you will be expected to have already developed your skills in using the Universitys online library databases to locate relevant and appropriate/credible academic and business sources for your assignments. You will also need to develop your understanding of the difference between an academic article and a more general article that you might find in the popular business press. Your future courses, in subsequent years of your degree, will expect you to already have these information literacy skills and so they will not be providing all the types of support that we are providing you with for this assignment, e.g. the Research Pathfinder guide which you can link to from the Course Home Page and which provides you with clear and useful guidance on how to get started with using the University databases to locate appropriate sources for this assignment. Why is there such a strong focus on using correct APA referencing in this assignment? This is because this assignment aims to develop your skills in academic integrity. In your writing as a business student, you are expected to put down your own thoughts and ideas, but at the same time to also use ideas, facts, or opinions from others to support and strengthen what you say. When you use the ideas, facts, or opinions of others, however, you must always acknowledge and cite/reference where these ideas, facts, or opinions have come from. APA is the default referencing style for the Business School and so it is important for you to learn how to reference correctly in this particular referencing style in your first year of studies. This is because you will be expected to use this same referencing style as you continue throughout your degree at the Business School. There are many course resources to help you with your referencing: From the Course Home Page in Cecil, you can click the link to access the APA Referencing Guide for business students. This is a very comprehensive resource that has been provided by the Library. As just one example, you will see that there is a link that shows you exactly how to reference sources from the Business Source Premier database. Also in the APA Referencing Guide for business students, there is an example of a perfectly formatted reference list. If you follow the example in the APA Referencing Guide for business students, then there really is absolutely no excuse for you to have an incorrectly formatted reference list in your assignment. Your McCulloch and Reid (2011) Your Business Degree textbook is full of useful information, e.g pages 5557 cover quoting and paraphrasing, and pages 62-67 cover referencing.

26

There are also the BUSINESS 101 and 102 Online Library Support modules that you can access from the Course Home Page in Cecil. There, for example, you will see that there is an entire tutorial on academic honesty and referencing with clear advice on how to quote, paraphrase, reference, and cite. As a final useful tip, make sure that you take look at the cite tool on the article page of Business Source Premier. You can use this tool to create and copy a correct APA reference that you can paste into your assignment. Similarly, if you email an article from within Business Source Premier, you can select an option for the correct APA citation to be sent along with the article.

Lecturers in your future courses will expect you to know how to reference correctly in APA format and so you will not be provided with these types of resources again in the future. Why are you so strict with the word count for this assignment? This is so that we can be fair to all students. It is unfair, for example, for one student to exceed the word limit without any consequence, if other students have complied with the instructions. Therefore, the instructions to markers are that they should simply stop reading when the word count has been reached. This could have a significant negative impact on a students mark, for example, if this means that the marker has stopped before reading the conclusion of a students assignment.

Understanding the Grading Rubric The grading rubric for this assignment is included on the next page. Your markers will be using that grading rubric to provide you with broad assessments as to how you have done on each of the five grading rubric components, e.g. Content, Organisation, Writing Style, Academic Integrity, and Research Annotations. Students often think that there must be a clear and direct connection where their numerical mark out of 20 can somehow be calculated from the Grading Rubric, e.g. I got three excellents, one capable, and two passables, and so my mark should be X out of 20. The relationship is not, however, quite so clear-cut: For example, there might be a beautifully written assignment that scores Excellent for Organisation, Writing Style, Academic Integrity, and Research Annotations, and yet it does not effectively address the assignment question and so it receives a NonPassable for Content. Despite receiving the four Excellents, this assignment would still likely receive a low and failing mark because it has not adequately addressed the assignment question. Similarly there might be a nicely written assignment that receives Excellent for most components, but that receives a Non-Passable for Academic Integrity. Depending on the seriousness of any Academic Integrity issues, this assignment could receive a very low mark, or even a zero mark, despite it having received a number of Excellents on the other criteria. As a general guideline, if an assignment scores not passable on one or more components of the grading rubric, and most especially when this occurs for either Content or Academic Integrity, then that assignment will receive a failing grade.

27

The grading rubric for your individual assignment

Excellent Content A very clear focus on the report purpose/question is maintained Strong skills in analysis are demonstrated and all aspects of the question are very well addressed Highly convincing arguments are used and are supported by relevant material Capable A clear focus on the report purpose/question is maintained Skills in analysis are demonstrated and all aspects of the question are well addressed Convincing arguments are used and are supported by relevant material Passable The focus is adequate but could be improved in some places Adequate skills in analysis are demonstrated and most aspects of the question are addressed Inconsistent or unconvincing arguments are sometimes used and/or are sometimes unsupported by relevant material There is reasonable logic, but some arguments and paragraphs could be better sequenced Paragraphs are sometimes underdeveloped The report is adequate but the structure and/or professionalism could be improved Readable but clarity can be improved in various places Not Passable Overall, the focus on the report purpose/ question is unclear or inconsistent Analysis is weak and most content in the report did not address the question

Inconsistent or unconvincing arguments are generally used and are unsupported by relevant material

Organisation

Arguments and paragraphs are very logically sequenced

Arguments and paragraphs are logically sequenced

Arguments and paragraphs are not logically sequenced

Paragraphs are fully and very effectively developed The report is very professional and is very clearly structured with all required components Writing Style Clear and highly readable

Paragraphs are fully developed The report is professional and is clearly structured with all the required components Clear and easy to follow

Paragraphs are not sufficiently developed The report is not clearly structured and/or is missing key components Not readable, hard to follow, may have inappropriate or overly informal use of language Many errors in punctuation, grammar and spelling that affect readability Poor control of sentence structures Significant errors in referencing and citation

No or almost no errors in punctuation, grammar and spelling Skilful control of sentence structures Academic Integrity All sources are correctly referenced and cited

May have a few errors in punctuation, grammar and spelling Good control of sentence structures All sources are correctly referenced and cited

May have some errors in punctuation, grammar and spelling Room for improvement in sentence structures Has integrity overall, but there may be a few formatting errors in referencing and citation Quotations may be used somewhat too often Annotations are missing key components and/or are weak in justifying why the sources were selected

Quotations are used very effectively (if they are used at all) Research Annotation of Key Sources Annotations are very effective in incorporating all of the key components and are highly convincing about why the sources were selected

Quotations are properly used (if they are used at all) Annotations incorporate all of the key components and are convincing in justifying why the sources were selected

Quotations are overused or inappropriately used Annotations are inadequate or very unconvincing or confusing and hard to understand

28

The marking process Your markers will be marking these assignments electronically within Turnitin.coms marking systems. After the assignments have been marked, you will be advised on when you can log back into Turnitin to view your assignment mark, and to engage with all of the feedback that will have been provided by your marker. It is really important that you do this. Your marker will have spent considerable time reading your assignment and providing feedback. Turnitin advises us when students have not looked at this feedback. Every semester, we have a minority of about 30% of students who never go to look at their feedback. This can only be considered as a huge waste of time for your markers, and a loss of an important learning opportunity for those students. Feedback on your assignment will be delivered in several different ways within Turnitin: You will be able to click a button to view or listen to the overall summary comment that has been provided by your marker. Markers have an option as to how they can provide this overall feedback. Some will have written it as a paragraph or so of text. Others will have voice-recorded it as a minute or two of verbal comments. In either case, the marker will have provided an overall summary of what they thought about your assignment, and the marker will also have identified himself or herself so that you will know exactly who it was who marked your assignment. You will be able to click on another button to view the grading rubric, e.g. to see how your assignment was assessed by the marker as being either excellent, or capable, or passable, or not-passable on each of the five components of the marking rubric (content, organisation, writing style, academic integrity, and research annotations). Finally, you will be able to view your entire assignment in a window where individual comments provided by your marker will now appear as an overlay to your assignment, e.g. where you marker will have commented on various specific strengths or weaknesses within your assignment. In terms of your numeric mark out of 20, your markers will be using standard grading scheme for the Business School as shown below:
Grade A+ A AB+ B BC+ C CD+ D% 90-100 85-89.99 80-84.99 75-79.99 70-74.99 65-69.99 60-64.99 55-59.99 50-54.99 40-49.99 0-39.99 Implies a Mark out of 20 18, 19 or 20 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 8 or 9 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7

As this grading distribution suggests, numeric marks between zero and 20 can signal everything from a D- to an A+. It is important to note, however, that the Excellent, Capable, Passable, and Not-Passable categories do not each represent a similar range of this overall mark distribution. Indeed, numerical marks from 0 to 9 are all effectively in one category Not Passable because these are all failing marks that are less than 50%. Marks in the A+ range are possible, but they will only go to those assignments that are truly outstanding, e.g. ticking not just excellent on every aspect of the grading rubric, but effectively being at the highest level of excellent on all aspects. Marks in the A and Aranges go to assignments that are excellent across all of the marking rubric criteria but not to the truly outstanding level required for an A+. Marks in the B ranges are for assignments that can range from good (a B-) through to polished and very good (a B+). Marks in the higher C ranges are for assignments that may be good but that have some

29

gaps or weaknesses, whereas a C- is for assignments that are barely adequate. Please note that failing or barely adequate marks do not necessarily imply that the entire assignment is of poor quality. Rather, the assignment has simply been considered as not passable on one or more components of the grading rubric. What do I do if I have any trouble understanding the assignment feedback? If you have any questions or concerns about understanding your feedback comments, then you should first approach the person who marked your assignment. (Your marker should have identified himself or herself in the overall feedback comment that was written or voice-recorded for your assignment within Turnitin.) Note that in seeking further advice from your marker, you will need to carefully explain your questions or concerns, e.g. you should not simply go to their office hours and hand them your assignment and say give me some more feedback. What can I do if I think there was a mistake in the assignment mark I received? If you are not just seeking help to better understand your mark and feedback, and if you instead believe that a significant mistake has been made by the marker, then you must make any formal objections in a timely manner, e.g. within 5 working days of the assignment marks being released. It would be impossible for us to have a full re-marking system within BUSINESS 101 and 102 if we had to do this for every student who might disagree with their mark. Instead, therefore, what we can offer is a moderation system. The way this works is: (1) You should send an email to the person who marked your assignment including your full name (as it appears in CECIL), student ID number, stream number or stream time and day, and your team number within that stream. (2) You must include a clear justification, of between 200 and a maximum of 400 words, to explain exactly why you feel your assignment mark is materially incorrect. Note that it is not appropriate for students to be arguing at the close margins for an extra mark or two out of 20 marks. Instead, you need to be building a case for why you feel that the assignment mark you received was materially (i.e. significantly) incorrect, e.g. your assignment deserves an additional 3 or more marks. Please keep the Business Schools grading scheme in mind when building your justification for why you feel there has been a clear and significant mistake in the marking. In saying that you deserved a mark in the A ranges, for example, you are implying that your assignment was excellent across all of the marking rubric components. Similarly, in saying that the mark you received was materially incorrect because you received a C+ (12 marks) rather than an B+ (15 Marks), you will need to be able to clearly justify why this was not an assignment that was good but with some gaps or weaknesses and why this was instead a very good and polished assignment. (3) Your marker may choose to speak to one or two other markers in order to gain another opinion. In rare cases, where strong disagreements persist, this could then be elevated to the level of the course co-ordinators. If you do ask us to re-look at your assignment, it is important to note that during this moderation process it is possible for your mark to go up, or to go down, or to not be changed. Every semester, we have cases where students become extremely distressed when they have asked for moderation of their assignment mark, and their mark subsequently goes down. However, if marks were only ever able to move one way, then what sort of a fair and objective moderation process would we have? In terms of thinking about how the Business Schools marking scale works, note that the final mark for an assignment represents the markers overall assessment of that assignment. It does not come from a marker starting with a perfect mark of 20 and then taking away marks for specific things that a student has done wrong. Rather, markers determine their overall assessment and mark by first considering everything they have

30

ticked on the marking rubric. They then consider that a typical B grade assignment (70% or 14 out of 20) would be a capable assignment that covers everything expected. From there, they can then finally consider whether the current assignment being marked does more or less than that. It is important for all students to realise that we have a team of very experienced markers and that we have very robust marking systems where careful moderation processes have been built in to ensure that there is fairness and consistency in the marking process. In the end, however, it is also important to remember that these markers are human beings. Two different markers, for example, are quite likely to look at the same assignment and focus on slightly different things in their comments. Similarly, while two experienced markers are quite likely to tick similar boxes on the grading rubric for a particular assignment, there could easily be some variations in some of the exact boxes that they choose to tick. At the overall level of determining an overall evaluation for an assignment (e.g. the mark out of 20), however, there is far less variation. Of course, it is very common for two different markers to determine a final mark for a particular assignment that might differ by one mark, or sometimes by 2 marks. However, all of our experience shows that it is much rarer for there to be significant and material differences of opinions, e.g. 3 or more marks out of 20. That is why we normally ask students not to argue over one (or even two) marks because that represents the natural variation that will always exist in any large scale marking process.

Seeking help and advice as you prepare your assignment You are always welcome to go see your facilitators during their office hours, or by appointment, or you can send them questions about your assignment by email. Different facilitators will prefer to manage this help and advice process in different ways and so your facilitators will let you know how best to approach them for assistance. Dont simply turn up at your facilitators offices or email them a draft assignment and say something like here, read this and tell me what mark I would get. This is not a fair expectation because it would effectively be like requiring staff to undertake a doublemarking process in the course. That is simply not workable with our large numbers of students. Instead of simply saying read this, you must try to approach your facilitators with specific questions where they can provide you with some useful advice, e.g. I am worried about this particular aspect of my assignment. Please also do not leave things until the last minute. If you send an email on a Thursday or Friday, when the assignment is due on Monday morning, you will not get a response from your facilitator plan your time to get any assistance early! You should ensure that you have sought assistance from your facilitators before the end of Week 4. Start your assignment early! Start now!

31

360-DEGREE FEEDBACK INSTRUCTIONS (due Friday 30 Aug and Friday 11 Oct) As has been explained earlier in this guide, there are two times in the semester when you will be evaluating the contribution of your other team members to your teams performance. This is a required component of the course. While you will not receive any specific marks for this task, there are significant penalties if you do not successfully complete the formative and/or final 360-degree team feedback process. For further detail on these penalties, please see the contributing to the team process section of this guide. Warning There will be significant penalties if any collusion or unethical game playing is found to occur. Providing 360-degree team feedback to your other team members is meant to be an individual task. Team members should not be working together to determine the feedback they will give to other team members. This behaviour typically becomes quite obvious to your facilitators when they look at the patterns that such game playing tends to generate within the overall class 360-degree team feedback received in each stream. Successfully completing the 360-degree team feedback process You will complete this process online in Cecil by going into the selection tree for Course Tools under the Knowledge Map in Cecil. The This Week in BUSINESS 101 webcast for week 6 will provide a visual screen shot to show you exactly where to go in Cecil. This 360-degree team feedback process is NOT about someones personal qualities, e.g. it is not about who sings the best, or who tells the best jokes, or who is the smartest, or who dresses the best. Rather, this is about you providing professional feedback about the relative contributions that other members of your team have made to the team processes that occur throughout this course. This contribution to the team process is about a team member being engaged and taking part, and it should reflect your assessment of such things as: Participation: did they always attend and participate in tests and team-based application exercises, or did they provide appropriate explanations if they were away on occasion for a clearly justifiable reason? Preparation: were they prepared when they came to class? Engagement: did they contribute productively to team discussion and work? Respect for others ideas: did they encourage others to contribute their ideas? Rationality: were they rational when disagreements occurred, e.g. would they change their opinion when there was a better argument for a different view? Other: this list is not comprehensive, and so you might consider other factors. Providing QUANTITATIVE feedback The process of providing quantitative feedback (i.e. points) will require you to differentiate, e.g. the system will not allow you to give the exact same number of points to each and every member of your team. This requirement to differentiate is necessary because otherwise students tend to take the easy route of just giving everyone the exact same score, and that does not lead to effective or useful feedback for anyone. What this does mean, however is that there will always be some spread in the average/total scores that are received by different team members. That is natural and expected. For the quantitative feedback, you will have an AVERAGE of 20 points to give to each of your team members (not including yourself). For example: if you are in a team of 7 then you will have 120 points to allocate to your other 6 team members; and if you are in a team of 6, then you will have a total of 100 points to allocate to your other 5 team members. The system will allow you to give multiple people the same scores but it will NOT allow you to give every person exactly 20 points. You must demonstrate some discrimination.

32

For example, if you are in a team of 7 and you therefore have 120 marks to allocate to the other 6 people in your team, these are some examples of how you might distribute these points: 21 + 20 + 20 + 20 + 20 + 19 = 120 24 + 23 + 22 + 18 + 17 + 16 = 120 22 + 22 + 22 + 18 + 18 + 18 = 120 As another example, if you are in a team of 6 and you therefore have 100 marks to allocate to the other 5 people in your team, some similar distributions might be: 21 + 20 + 20 + 20 + 19 = 100 22 + 21 + 20 + 19 + 18 = 100 24 + 24 + 20 + 16 + 16 = 100 There are only a few examples and there are many possible ways to distribute points. It is up to you to find an appropriate distribution of points that reflects the pattern of contributions that you have seen within your team. You should normally not give any person a score higher than 25 or a score lower than 15. When added up and averaged across all of the members of a team, a range of scores between 15 and 25 is normally more than enough to give your other team members (and your facilitators) clear signals about who in the team is contributing more or less to the team processes in this course. Given these instructions, there is nothing to stop a student from choosing to allocate fewer than 15 points, or more than 25 points, to another member (or members) of the team. In general, we would like such lower-point or higher-point allocations only to occur in relatively rare circumstances. However, there may be situations such as the following: - If a member of your team is rarely there, or if they are always there but they are always unprepared and/or they rarely do much at all to contribute, then this pattern of behaviour could justify allocating that member considerably fewer than 15 points. - If you see a name in the system for someone who is not in your team, then give that person a zero and allocate all of the remaining points across the other team members. Please also email k.rich@auckland.ac.nz to let her know there is a mistake with your team. - If you have made decisions to give an exceptionally low number of points to one or more team members, then this will likely result in the need for you to give some of the other team members scores that are higher than 25. After all, you will still need to distribute all of the remaining points across the remaining members of the team in a way that signals their relative contributions. - If you having problems with a particular team member, and if you are comfortable in doing so, you may also want to discuss this with your facilitator during office hours. Providing QUALITATIVE feedback The process of providing qualitative feedback will require you to write a comment for each of your other team members. Each comment can be a maximum of 1000 characters, or about 150 words. If you do not want to compose your feedback in Cecil, please remember that you can always write these comments in a Word document first, and then cut-and-paste them into Cecil before the due date and time. In general your comments can be shorter than 150 words and can be written in about two to three sentences. Your qualitative feedback should answer the following questions: 1. What is the single most valuable contribution this person makes to your team?, and 2. What is the single most important way that this team member could alter their behaviour to more effectively contribute to your team? Remember that good feedback is descriptive (describes behaviour), specific, and based on evidence (provides examples where possible).

33

Getting the names of your other team members right We will be handing out team lists with photos in class so that we can try to avoid mistaken identities, e.g. cases where feedback is given to the wrong team members: One challenge is when there are two people in a team with same first name, e.g. there is more than one person named John. Here, the other team members will need to make an effort to learn the surnames of the two Johns so that they know which person is which when they are providing 360-degree team feedback. Another challenge is when a person uses a different name in person from the name in which they have officially enrolled into the course. For example, an overseas student might use an English first name in everyday contact but they are enrolled in Cecil only under their formal name. In cases like this, the other team members will need to make an effort to learn the formal names of these students. There is nothing that can be done to correct the 360-degree team feedback results if mistaken identities have occurred. However, one purpose for having the formative 360degree team feedback process is to highlight and catch any errors so that the final (end of semester) 360-degree team feedback process will run as smoothly as possible. It is therefore vital for all team members to reinforce to each other the importance of getting each other's names right. If there has been a clear and obvious mix up of different team members within your team during the formative feedback process, then you should try to have a discussion within your team in order to ensure that these same mistakes do not happen again. Note that some of the he or she errors we sometimes see are not necessarily mistaken identities - our experience has shown that these can actually be errors in grammar made by some students. If you are missing from a team or showing up in the wrong team When you go into Course Tools to complete the 360-degree team feedback, you may find that you are missing from a team list, or that you are showing up in the wrong team. This could happen, for example, if changed your enrolment during the first few weeks of the course (e.g. moving streams) and if this was not picked up by the Course Tools system. In such cases, you should not complete the 360-degree team feedback process. Instead, please email k.rich@auckland.ac.nz to let Karen know that there is a problem. You can then use the Application for Special Consideration Form (downloadable from Resources in Cecil) to explain your situation. Once again, this is one of the reasons why we have a formative 360-degree team feedback process early in the course. Not only does it allow students to gain some early feedback, but it also allows us to capture and correct any errors in the system before students complete the final 360-degree team feedback process. Interpreting the 360-degree team feedback you have received from others In general, the feedback that you have received from other students will NOT have any effect on the actual marks that you will receive in this course. Rather, this is meant to be a valuable learning exercise where you can begin developing skills in both giving and receiving feedback from others. The rare exceptions, where the feedback received by an individual might affect that individuals marks, are explained in the contributing to the team process section of this guide. Once the due date for each 360-degree team feedback process has passed, you will be able to return to Course Tools in Cecil to see the results. You will see two tables: The first table is one that every member of the team will see. It is a summary table, providing an overview of all of the quantitative scores that were received by each and every member of the team. This table can be used to identify general patterns across the team, e.g. which team members received the highest average feedback scores from their peers, and which team members received the lowest average feedback scores from their peers. The table will not include any of the comments that were given and received by the various team members. The table will also be sorted and disguised in order to make it difficult for anyone to identify exactly who gave which scores to whom.

34

Usually, making sense of this summary table will be quite straightforward because you can simply compare the average/total scores received by different team members. The table is easy to interpret if it is full and complete, e.g. if all team members have provided feedback to all of the other members of the team and so there is a full and complete matrix of numbers to consider. The table is not so easy to interpret when there are gaps, e.g. some team members have not completed the 360-degree team feedback process, or some team members have only partially completed this process, e.g. they provided feedback for some team members but not for others. If this happens during the formative 360-degree team feedback process, all that teams can really do at this point is to stress to each other the importance of everyone completing this process correctly at the end of the course. The second table is a personalised one that only you will see. It will provide you with the full set of numeric scores and feedback comments that you have personally received from your other team members. You will then be able to engage with, and reflect upon, this feedback. In the business world, it is just as important to develop skills in receiving feedback as it is to develop skills in providing feedback. When you receive feedback from others, this provides opportunities for personal development. Receiving feedback from others, however, is not always an easy process. The feedback you will receive will be based upon the different perceptions of the different people who have provided that feedback. It is hard to say that something that has been said is unjust or wrong if the feedback has been given in a fair and professional manner and if it actually reflects the honest feelings of that other person. In this sense, it is important for you not to get too worried about any one particular piece of feedback. Rather, it is important to look for the general pattern of feedback comments and points that you have received from the other members of your team. If one piece of feedback is a clear exception to the rest, then you can consider it to be an outlier. That piece of feedback might reflect the views of that one other person, but those views may not be shared by the rest of the team. In summary, 360-degree feedback exercises like this are very common in the working world. For any future business career, it will be important for you to develop professional skills in both giving and receiving feedback. Feedback will always be somewhat subjective, however, as it reflects the personal views of the people who are providing the feedback.

35

TEAM PRESENTATION WORKSHOP INSTRUCTIONS (for your week 12 workshop) In Week 12, our final week, each team will be delivering a presentation as part of a student-led review of the course. This presentation will be marked out of 15 marks and will contribute to your teams final score out of the 100 total team performance marks that are available in this course. Time limit: Each team should plan a presentation of about 3 to 3 minutes in length. This works out to about 30 seconds on average for each person in the team. You will have an absolute maximum of 4 minutes before a bell will ring and your team will be cut off. You do not want this to happen as it will impact on your teams mark. All team members must speak: One person should introduce the presentation (but not all of the presenters) and another person should conclude the presentation. The other team members will then fill in all of the content between this introduction and conclusion. The presentation does not need to be split up so that everyone speaks for exactly the same number of seconds. You should be aiming for a presentation that flows smoothly and naturally. It is ok to let your more confident speakers speak for a bit more time than the others. With such short average speaking times, and with time for you to practice in advance, we should not see people simply reading word-for-word from notes or cue cards. It is ok to have a few notes to glance at if you lose your way or forget, but please try to keep eye contact with your audience so that they can connect with you. Content: Each team will be assigned a different key concept from the course this semester. The team will then prepare and practice a presentation that must incorporate the following three components, but does not need to be limited to just these three components: (1) An explanation of the concept, (2) A practical applied example, ideally related to New Zealand, that helps to illustrate or explain the concept, and (3) An explanation of an interesting connection or link between this concept and one other concept from the same week in the course, or from anywhere else within the course. - In terms of an explanation, you should aim to bring the essential essence of the topic to life in
a crisp and sharp explanation. You will not have the time to go into huge depth of detail, especially if you are to incorporate the other components of your presentation.

In terms of a practical applied example, this will be up to each team to interpret in line with the concept that you have been assigned. The main thing is that we dont want these to feel like textbook presentations where students simply present content or materials that have come directly from our readings or webcasts or workshops. Rather, we want you to find a practical real world example or story or situation that illustrates what this concept means in practice. In terms of an interesting connection or link, try not to jump at the first thing that comes to mind. Instead, treat the selection of your link/connection as an opportunity for discussion within your team that will serve as valuable preparation for your exam. If you look at past exams, you will see that there are often questions that ask students to make connections between seemingly quite different concepts from seemingly quite different modules in the course. Those exam questions sometimes surprise students who may think but we did not specifically discuss any such connection between these topics during the course. Questions that ask students to make connections between topics are very powerful because they require students to demonstrate true understanding of each concept, e.g. simple rote-memorisation of course content does not always lead to success when answering these types of questions.

Organisation: While your presentation must incorporate the three required components, it does not need to be set out in any given order. There is huge flexibility for teams to decide how best to approach their presentation. For example, we have already had questions about whether teams might incorporate any rapping or performance aspects. That is absolutely fine, as long as it is appropriate and adds value, and as long as the presentation still feels professional as a complete package, e.g. there is an effective and business-like introduction and conclusion.

36

Presentation Visual/Poster: To support your presentation, your team must prepare a single PowerPoint slide, or a single-page electronic Poster in pdf format (landscape, not portrait format). This will be displayed on the screens around the room while your team is presenting. This is to be a single slide/visual and not a full PowerPoint presentation. This must also be a static visual/poster, e.g. no animations or videos or music can be incorporated. We will be providing further instructions closer to the time. Your team will need to work though those instructions carefully in order to decide exactly what to include within this visual. It cannot be too dense or cluttered or else people in the audience will not be able to read it. At the same time, it should not be too sparse. Your team must prepare and submit this visual/poster in advance so that it can be uploaded into the CECIL dropbox by 4 oclock PM, two working days before your presentation will take place. On the day, this will allow your facilitators to arrive with a pre-set package of visuals/posters that can be easily displayed behind each team as they present. If your teams visual has not been successfully submitted on time in advance of your presentation, then your team will simply have a blank screen showing during your presentation which will impact on your marks (see marking rubric below). CECIL Dropbox Submission process for your Visual/Poster: Only ONE person from your team must do this. Your file name, whether it is a pdf or a Powerpoint file, must contain your course, stream, and team number, e.g. B101Stream2Team4 so that we will know which poster belongs to which team. (Please remember that there are more than 300 different teams when you look across all the streams of BUSINESS 101 and 102 this semester.) Once your teams file is ready for submission: 1. Click on the Activities & Marks function for BUSINESS 101 in CECIL. 2. Click on the Activity called Team Presentation Visual/Poster Upload. 3. Click on the Browse... button under the Submit a File to Dropbox area. A file browsing dialogue box pops up. The maximum size file is 51200kb or 50mb. 4. Select the file you want to submit and click the Open button. 5. Click on the Upload this file button to make the submission. (The Upload this file button can be found in the tool bar at the top of the CECIL screen, between "Submissions" and "Print".) The screen will refresh to show the file name that you've submitted. Note that if you had already submitted a file, you are allowed to resubmit up until the due time and any resubmission will simply overwrite the existing file. Marking rubric: We will be marking using the following rubric. Remember that since this is a team mark, we are marking the team and not the individuals. Much depends, however, on how well the team works together to achieve an effective overall presentation.
Element Content ABOVE STANDARD Content very relevant to topic Level of content very appropriate for professional/business audience Visual/Poster very effective in line with the instructions given, and adds real value to presentation Organisation Content very clearly organised / structured Excellent use of timing Delivery Audible and clear voices with correct pronunciation Excellent audience eye contact and gestures, not reading from notes STANDARD Content relevant to topic Level of content appropriate for professional/business audience Visual/Poster effective and appropriate in line with the instructions given BELOW STANDARD Content often not relevant to topic Level of content not always appropriate for professional/business audience Visual/Poster not that effective or appropriate in line with the instructions given Content not clearly organised/structured Poor use of timing Frequently not clear and audible No eye contact and/or gestures, reading directly from notes

Content clearly organised/structured Uneven timing or too long/short Not always audible and clear voices or sometimes not correct pronunciation Some eye contact and gestures, with minimal use of notes

37

STUDENT SUPPORT AND REPRESENTATION

Student Feedback: Student feedback was actively sought last semester through course and lecturer evaluations, and through the student representation system. In response, key changes to the course from last semester to this semester are: the purchase of a full new set of clickers to be used for the individual testing process, plus the upgrading of the software that manages this process. the introduction of a new timer mechanism for better managing the team application exercise process. the introduction of a simplified assessment structure, where the individual tests will now be worth 10% of a students final grade in the course, and where the team performance mark component will now count for 20% a students final grade. the continuation, following last semesters first trial of this new innovation, of a team peer review workshop in week 3 where students will work with a sample of assignments from the previous semester on a formative exercise that aims to support success in this semesters assignment improvements to the assignment submission process on Turnitin.com Student Representation: We will be seeking students to act as Class Reps in BUSINESS 101 and 102. Class Reps can be extremely helpful to facilitators and course directors as a method of gaining informal and formal feedback on the course. Class reps will represent the course on Staff Student Consultative Committee meetings that will take place twice during the semester. We encourage students to act in this capacity. The Auckland University Students Association (AUSA) provides an excellent, and free, short course for those students who become Class Reps. This evidence of your involvement in University activities, and the training will also look great on your CV! Inclusive learning: Students are urged to discuss privately any impairment-related requirements face-to-face and/or in written form with your team-based learning workshop facilitators. University Health Services: Your ongoing health and wellbeing is the key to your success while you study. As a University of Auckland student, you are encouraged to enrol with University Health Services (UHS) for the duration of your degree study. UHS is a diverse primary health care provider with practitioners who specialise in student needs. This professional service covers most aspects of primary health care, with dedicated doctors and practice nurses providing quality and affordable care. This is also the service that provides support for aegrotats and special conditions for the individual tests and final exam in BUSINESS 101 and 102. Please see the following website for more information on what UHS has to offer: http://www.auckland.ac.nz/healthservices He Tukana Programme: The Business Schools He Tukana programme is a tutorial and mentoring programme designed to help first and second year Maori and Pacific students enrolled in the Business School to succeed academically. The concept of tukana is based on the principles of the tukana-teina relationship; our tukana (management team, tutors and mentors) are dedicated to assisting new teina (students) on their pathways to success. Our distinguished alumni indicate our history and ongoing commitment to producing high quality business leaders, professionals, and academics. He Tukana programme is a developmental and support programme, not a remedial programme. Students who have participated in He Tukana have achieved better academic results than those who have chosen not to participate. He Tukana aims to provide opportunities, activities, tutorials, and mentoring with 3 key focus areas: (1) Academic Excellence and Achievement, (2) Social and Cultural Development, and (3) Networking and Career Development. For more information or to register, please contact Abigail McClutchie at the He Tuakana Co-ordinators office, Room 260-162, Business Student Centre First Floor of the Business School, or call 3737599 xtn 87120 or email: a.mcclutchie@auckland.ac.nz for further information. Resolving problems with this course: As a general principle, the University encourages the prompt and informal resolution of all student concerns and complaints in a collegial and non-adversarial manner. Informal procedures - If you have a problem with a course please approach your facilitator in the first instance. If you feel uncomfortable in directly approaching your facilitator, then please contact your Class Representative, who may talk with your facilitator of the course coordinator, or pursue the matter at a Staff Student Consultative Committee (SSCC) meeting. You may approach the University Mediators Office or the Student Advocacy Network at any time for assistance. If these are deemed inappropriate then you or the Class Representative could approach the Associate Dean Academic Programmes. Formal procedures - In the event that the matter is not resolved satisfactorily at an informal level, you may approach the Head of Department. For BUSINESS 101 and 102, this will be the Head of the Department of Management and International Business. If the grievance seems to have no reasonable ground, the Head of Department shall state in writing why, in his or her judgement, the grievance is without merit. If, however, the Head of Department sees reasonable ground for the students complaint, then the Head shall meet with the staff member and/or with the student and staff member together in an effort to resolve the students grievance. If neither of these approaches is appropriate - It is anticipated that the majority of student grievances will be resolved at the above stage. However, if the student is dissatisfied with the response and/or redress (or lack thereof), he or she may then appeal to the Associate Dean Academic Programmes in writing. The Associate Dean will, after appropriate consultation, inform the student of the findings with respect of their case and if necessary arrange a meeting with the student, either individually or with the staff member(s). Finally, if the student is dissatisfied with the response and/or redress (or lack thereof), and all other reasonable attempts to resolve the grievance have been attempted or exhausted, the grievance may be referred to the Deputy Vice Chancellor (Academic). The Deputy Vice Chancellor (Academic), or nominee, will then convene the Academic Grievance Committee.

38

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Business Communication Tutorials Can I attend business communication tutorials even though I was told I do not need to? If you are not required to attend weekly Business Communication Tutorials, but you would like to do so, then yes you can approach John Thorpe at j.thorpe@auckland.ac.nz to ask him about joining an appropriate tutorial stream. Individual Tests What happens if I dont identify myself correctly on my clicker? We will be using clickers for the individual testing process. Please ensure that you enter your correct details (e.g. your NetID) into your clicker. Otherwise, the system will not be able to identify you and you wont receive any marks in Cecil. Your NetID is the first part your University email address, e.g. four letters followed by three numbers such as ssmi027. What happens if I am late for an individual test but the test is still under way? Latecomers must not simply walk into the room and pick up a clicker and start the test. Instead, you must go first to one of your facilitators and request a paper form. The facilitator will mark the form so that you will only be allowed to answer the questions that are still remaining on the test that is already underway. After the individual test has ended, you must hand your paper form to your facilitator before the team test commences. If you do not hand in your paper form before the team test commences, then you will be considered to have missed your individual test (see below for the implications of that). What happens if I miss an individual test? If you miss an individual test, e.g. you were not there in time to answer even a single question on the test, then you will not receive any marks for that missed individual test. The exception to this is if you have had an aegrotat or compassionate consideration application approved by University Health. (This process is not managed by the course coordinators here in BUSINESS 101 and 102.) For further information, please see the section in this guide on missing a course requirement. Can I take the test in a different workshop stream at a different time? No, it is not possible to take the individual test in another streams workshop at different time. This is because the individual and team tests are taken as a combined package, and so you would not be able to be there with your team for the team test. Also, as we are trying to manage test results for over 2000 students who are enrolled across BUSINESS 101 and 102 this semester, the clickers in the room need to be set up to only accept results from those students who are formally enrolled in the stream that is currently taking place. What happens if my mark for an individual test has been released on Cecil but I think that a mistake has been made? If you think you have an incorrect or missing mark for an individual test, then you should notify Karen Rich (the Course Administrator) by email at k.rich@auckland.ac.nz so that she can look into this for you. You must notify Karen within 5 working days (one week) from the day on which each individual test mark is first released on Cecil. Team Tests Can our team appeal a question on our team test? Yes, your team can appeal a question on your team test if your team got the answer to that question wrong, e.g. if your team took more that one scratch to uncover the right answer. Your team may want to argue that the question was ambiguous, or that the answer was incorrect. This is a team appeal process. Individuals cannot lodge appeals based on questions that they got wrong on the individual test but that the team got right on the team test. If that is what has happened, then the individuals argument was not strong enough to convince the whole team that the other answer was better. At the end of the team testing process, but before any class discussion takes place, your facilitators will ask if there are any teams who would like to submit appeals. If your team wants to appeal a question, the facilitator will hand you the necessary pink form and ask you for a very brief verbal explanation of which question you want to appeal and why. Only those teams who say they want to appeal at this point in the class will have their appeals accepted by the facilitators, e.g. other teams cant decide later, after subsequent class discussions, that they would also like to appeal a question. Your team will have until the end of the class session to prepare your appeal. The appeal needs to be based on your teams own logic and not directly on any subsequent class discussion that might take place in that days workshop, e.g. dont simply paraphrase your facilitators words back to them. You course, team, and stream numbers must be written down clearly on the top of the appeal form. You must build an effective case, e.g. you will need to write a concise and focussed justification rather than a long and rambling argument. Team Peer Review Workshop Will my assignment possibly be used for the team peer review workshop next semester? A sample of 25 to 35 assignments from this semester will be used for educational purposes in next semesters course. This is for training purposes in order to assist future students to recognise the key indicators of a quality assignment. The small proportion of this semesters students who will have their assignments sampled in this manner can be reassured that the system is designed to ensure anonymity. Future students will not be able to identify the writers of the assignments that they are reading and reviewing.

39

Final Exam and Final Grades When will I learn the final exam timetable? The examination timetable will be released by the University about six weeks after the start of each semester. Prior to learning your exam schedule, you should not book any travel arrangements where you would depart before the end of the exam period. Your teaching staff do not have advance notice of your examination date, nor can they influence when it will take place. Will I know my full coursework mark before I sit the final exam? Yes, for almost every student, all of your coursework marks (worth 50% of your final grade in the course) will be visible within Cecil well before you sit your final exam. Your last individual test is in Week 11 and so those marks will be released before the end of Week 12. Your participation multiplier and your 360-degree team multiplier will also be released before the end of Week 12 so that you will know whether or not those multipliers are going to impact on your team performance mark. This will only leave your final team performance mark. That will be visible Cecil as soon as possible, and before the end of the study break. Since you will be tracking your team performance mark in class throughout the semester, you will already know your teams total initial team performance mark for everything that has taken place up until Week 12. The last missing mark will be for the team presentation that takes place in your final workshop in Week 12. As soon as those team presentation marks have been finalised, your total team performance mark out of 100 will be released on CECIL. When will I learn my final grade? Your final grade will be released by the Universitys Examinations Office in due course, at least several weeks after you sat the final exam. The release of final grades is managed centrally by the University and not by us here in BUSINESS 101 or 102. What happens if I receive an NA or Not Applied grade for the course? If there have been possible academic honesty issues with your assignment, and if you have not yet responded to repeated requests to come in for a meeting or to sign-off the completed Academic Misconduct: Assessment and Report form, then we will not be able to release a mark for your assignment, or a final grade for the course. Instead, at the end of the course your transcript will show NA (for Not Applied) until you respond to our requests. Receiving an NA instead of a letter grade is serious because it means that you will not be considered to have passed the course, and you will therefore not be able to subsequently enroll in any courses that require BUSINESS 101 or 102 as prerequisites. Since BUSINESS 101 and 102 are required core courses, this effectively means that you will not be able to complete the requirements for your degree. Who can I talk to about my final exam if I fail the course? University policy does not allow your facilitators or course coordinators to show you your exam paper, or to comment on the marking of the exam, or to discuss your final grade. If a student has been awarded a D grade in BUSINESS 101 or 102, even when they had high coursework marks, then this must most likely be due to the final exam mark. Students do not have the right to request remarking of their final examination script. You can, however, apply for recount and/or for a copy of the exam script (please see below for details). How can I apply for a recount or a copy of my exam? Students may apply, within four weeks of receiving their official results, to have their examination script marks recounted (not remarked). A recount of marks involves a careful rechecking of the marks recorded by the examiner. Recounts ensure that no answer, or portion of an answer, has been overlooked. A student may also apply for a copy of their final examination script. Do not contact your lecturers directly because they cannot give out any information on final exams. Please see the following websites to apply for a recount: http://www.auckland.ac.nz/uoa/cs-recounts and/or to apply for a copy of your exam script: http://www.auckland.ac.nz/uoa/cs-return-of-exam-scripts

40