Assignment Brief Academic Year 2020-21
Internal approval: Albert Owusu, Date 17th September 2020
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| Assignment task | |
| To complete a 1500-word reflective report as evidence of developing skills and knowledge through the participation in 4 major challenges. The report will summarise the business angle of each challenge and reflect on the personal skills developed and potential areas for continuous improvement |
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| This assignment has been designed to provide you with an opportunity to demonstrate your achievement of the following module learning outcomes: |
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| LO 2 | Work effectively in a team. |
| LO 4 | Develop business skills, including presentation skills, emotional intelligence, meeting skills and use of spreadsheets |
| Task requirements | |
| The module will be organised around four compulsory challenges to help develop your skills required for success at university. You must get actively involved in each challenge. You are required to write an individual report to evidence your participation in the Challenges and to reflect on what you have learned through your involvement. The report must include coverage of the following-: The Challenges: An analysis of each challenge which focuses on the business angle eg branding, finance, operations. What knowledge did you learn about how businesses actually work? The Challenges are as follows-: Apprentice Challenge Presentation Challenge T-shirt Challenge |
| Module code and title: |
MG408 Graduate Challenge | Module leaders: | Otty Shambare |
| Assignment No. and type: |
CW2: 1500-word reflective report September 2020 Intake |
Assessment weighting: |
80% |
| Submission time and date: |
Submission by 2pm on Tuesday 15th December 2020 via Turnitin. |
Target feedback time and date: |
3 weeks after submission deadline |
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| The Skills: A reflection on the skills you have demonstrated during the challenges to include the following – Communication Skills/ Emotional Intelligence Teamwork Time Management and meeting skills Business skills and competencies developed e.g. presentation skills, use of Excel etc. Action Plan: An action plan on how you will develop these skills over the next 3 years at university. The report is a reflective piece but still requires you to demonstrate an evidence based approach to the coverage and consequently there is a need to support the discussion of both the challenges and the skills with reference to core module materials covered in seminar sessions and with additional external research. The research will represent not only materials covered on the Graduate Challenge module itself but also from other level 4 modules eg coverage of branding from marketing lectures, the inclusion of teamwork in from Introduction to People Management, business analysis skills from Global Business Environment or Financial Accounting. As the report is a reflective piece you do not need to worry about formal style, you can write in terms of “I”, “my” etc. The use of visuals in the appendix that are related to the tasks completed is highly advisable to add interest -for example t-shirt designs,key visuals from slide presentations and excel pricing worksheets. |
| Referencing and research requirements |
| Please reference your work according to the Harvard style as defined in Cite Them Right Online (http://www.citethemrightonline.com). This information is also available in book form: Pears, R. and Shields, G. (2019) Cite them right: the essential reference guide. 11th edn. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Copies are available via the University library. |
| How your work will be assessed |
| Your work will be assessed on the extent to which it demonstrates your achievement of the stated learning outcomes for this assignment (see above) and against other key criteria as defined by your programme team. You are being assessed according to the following criteria: Literacy (incorporating formal, concise, Business English, report format followed). 10% Research / Evidence-based writing (evidence of having read into some of the business operations and also into the themes eg Team Work, Emotional Intelligence). 20% Analysis of Challenges 20% Discussion of themes 20% Action Plan (needs to be SMART) 10% |
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| Referencing 20% |
| Submission details |
| You are reminded of the University’s regulations on academic misconduct, which can be viewed on the University website: https://bucks.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0024/9546/Academic-Misconduct Policy.pdf. In submitting your assignment, you are acknowledging that you have read and understood these regulations Please also note that work that is submitted up to 10 working days beyond the submission date will be considered a late submission. Late submissions will be marked and the actual mark recorded, but will be capped at the pass mark (typically 40%), provided that the work is of a passing standard. Work submitted after this period will not be marked and will be treated as a non-submission. This assignment should be submitted electronically. Please use the relevant Turnitin submission point in the Submit your work area in your VLE module shell. Please ensure that your work has been saved in an appropriate file format. Turnitin will only accept the following file types: Microsoft Word, Excel or PowerPoint, PostScript, PDF, HTML, RTF, OpenOffice (ODT), Hangul (HWP), Google Docs, or plain text. Your file must also contain at least 20 words of text, consist of fewer than 400 pages and be less than 40MB in size. You can submit your work as many times as you like before the submission date. If you do submit your work more than once, your earlier submission will be replaced by the most recent version. Once you have submitted your work, you will receive a digital receipt as proof of submission, which will be sent to your forwarded e-mail address (provided you have set this up). Please keep this receipt for future reference, along with the original electronic copy of your assignment. |
| Before you submit |
| Please use the provided checklist below to make sure you are ‘fit to submit’ your work We recommend you use this checklist as soon as you get this assignment brief to help you plan your work |
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| Fit to Submit: Assignment Checklist |
| This brief assignment checklist is designed to help you avoid some of the most common mistakes students make in their coursework. HAVE YOU READ THE ASSIGNMENT BRIEF? IF NOT, DO IT NOW! In it you will find details of the assessment task, word count, the assessment criteria your work is marked against, and the learning outcomes – the basis for the assessment strategy in each module. Students often lose marks by forgetting some of the more straightforward elements of their assignments. We recommend that you “tick off” each of the points below as you prepare your work for submission. If you need any help, ask your tutor and / or visit https://bucks.ac.uk/students/academicadvice/assessment-and-examination TICK Have you read and understood the assessment criteria? Have you met the learning outcomes? You will lose marks and your work may even be failed if you have not. Have you demonstrated you can think and write critically in the completed work? This means you have supported your arguments/explanations appropriately e.g. using relevant academic sources and you have offered discussion points which extends your own or others’ viewpoints to make reasoned conclusions/judgements. Have you maintained an academic tone throughout your work? Is your work formal, focused, developed and clear? Have you checked that the referencing in your assignment is in line with your programme requirements? Have you proof-read your work and used spellcheck software to check your spelling and grammar? Have you checked the presentation of your work is as specified by your tutor, for example, are font size, colour, style, line spacing and margins as the tutor specified? Have you kept to the word count (or equivalent)? If you are not sure, check with your tutor. Can you confirm that the work submitted is your own and not plagiarised? |