Student Guide to BUSINESS 101
Semester 1, 2013 (1133)
IMPORTANT NOTE: All students must read through this guide - carefully,
and from start to finish - at the beginning of the course. You will then
be able to refer to this guide again as needed during the semester.
While the official University Course Outline provides an overview of the course, it is
this Student Guide to BUSINESS 101 that contains the information that you will
need in order to succeed, e.g. detailed course instructions, course policies,
assessment due dates, and answers to important frequently asked questions.
CONTENTS
A. Introduction 2
B. Schedule of due dates for BUSINESS 101 this semester 3
C. Course Communication 4
- How we will communicate with you
- How you can communicate with us
- Guidelines for using email
D. Course design, structure and philosophy 6
- Team-based learning
- A triangle of learning
- Personal and professional development
- Business communication tutorials
- Academic integrity course requirement of the University
E. Assessment structure 12
- Individual assessment
- Team assessment
F. Contributing to the team process 14
- Explaining the Participation multiplier
- Explaining the 360-degree feedback multiplier
G. Missing a course requirement: What to do if you are affected by 19
illness or adverse personal events
- Missed final exam
- Missed individual test(s)
- Special consideration for any other course requirements
H. Instructions for your individual assignment 22
I. Student support and representation 31
J. Resolving any problems with this course 32
K. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) about the Individual Tests, Team 33
Tests and the Final Exam
2
(A) INTRODUCTION
BUSINESS 101 and 102 are not like your other first year courses. They are not meant to
be. Success in these courses will depend on you being a self-directed and motivated
individual. Your level of learning and performance will depend greatly on your before-
class preparation, and on the quality of your personal reflections after class. This is also
not a course where you can miss classes and expect to do well. You are required to be in
your team-based learning workshops each week and actively participating in activities
with your team.
This is not a lecture-based course. You will be taking part in an active rather than a
passive classroom experience. Instead of sitting in a traditional lecture theatre and
listening to a speaker talking to you from the front of the room, most of your time in
class during this course 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”?
To succeed in any business career, you will need to develop strong skills in working and
interacting effectively with others. While there are individual assignments and
assessments in this course, most of the time that you actually spend in the classroom will
involve you working as part of a team. This type of learning is not always easy or
comfortable, especially in comparison to simply sitting in a lecture theatre, but there is
much research to support the effectiveness of team-based learning.
There are two important ways in which BUSINESS 101 and 102 are unique within your
first year package of courses:
1. One key difference is related to content. Just like with your other first year courses,
you will learn about many topics, concepts, and theories as you move through these
two courses. The difference, however, is that BUSINESS 101 and 102 will be taking a
very integrated approach to making sense of all of this content. The focus in 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.
2. The other key difference is related to process. Beyond delivering course content,
BUSINESS 101 and 102 will also have a strong focus on helping you to develop your
entrepreneurial thinking, management skills, and professional capabilities. The
Business School has purposely selected BUSINESS 101 and 102 to be the “home” for a
variety of student support and development activities. These are aimed at helping
students to transition effectively to University study, and at helping students to build a
platform of transferable skills that they will need to succeed throughout their degree
studies and in their future business careers.
Textbook Package
There is a textbook package for this course. You will need to purchase these books for
BUSINESS 101 but you will use them again in BUSINESS 102:
Bovee, C.L. and Thill, J.V. (2013). Business in Action (6 th ed.). Boston: Prentice
Hall.
McCulloch, R. and Reid, A. (2012). Your Business Degree. Frenchs Forest: Pearson
Australia.
If you are a repeating student, note that there is a new 6 th edition of the Bovee and Thill
(2013) textbook this year. However, it is fine for you to continue to use the 5 th edition
(2011) if that is the version that you originally purchased for BUSINESS 101 last year.
3
(B) SCHEDULE OF DUE DATES FOR BUSINESS 101 THIS SEMESTER
The first semester of 2013 has an unusual schedule due to the fact that there are a
number of different holidays. The BUSINESS 101 team-based learning workshops are
scheduled on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays this semester. Depending
on the day of the week for the workshop in which you are enrolled, you will technically
have a University schedule where it looks like there will be either 12 or 13 weeks of
classes. This cannot work for our delivery model and so we have standardised on a 12
week semester for BUSINESS 101, with two weeks of the University’s schedule (the
weeks of March 25 th and April 1st) being merged into our single Week 4.
Effectively, if your regular team-based learning workshop is on a Wednesday, then you
will have your Week 4 class on Wednesday 27 March. If your regular workshop is on a
Thursday, then you will be having your Week 4 class on Thursday 4 April. (This means
that we have cancelled classes on Thursday 28 March and on Wednesday 3 April.)
In-class assessments (to be completed in-class during your TBL Workshop)
Week Date Assessment or Deliverable Tick
2 March 12, 13, 14 or 15 Practice Individual Test that will not count towards your grade,
practice Team Test that will not count towards your grade, plus
application exercises that are not assessed. While today’s session
will not count towards your grade, this should still be seen as a
very real workshop because 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
processes in subsequent weeks and so this practice week is vital
to your success. Please ensure that you come to class prepared!
3 March 19, 20, 21 or 22 Team Peer Review Workshop
4
March 26 or 27 (If your
regular workshop is on a
Tuesday or Wednesday)
Individual Test 1, Team Test 1, plus assessed application exercise
April 4 or 5 (If your
regular workshop is on a
Thursday or Friday)
5 April 9, 10, 11 or 12 Individual Test 2, Team Test 2, plus assessed application exercise
6 April 16, 17, 18 or 19 Individual Test 3, Team Test 3, plus assessed application exercise
Mid-Semester Break
7 April 30 or May 1, 2, or 3 Individual Test 4, Team Test 4, plus assessed application exercise
8 May 7, 8, 9 or 10 Individual Test 5, Team Test 5, plus assessed application exercise
9 May 14, 15, 16, or 17 Individual Test 6, Team Test 6, plus assessed application exercise
10 May 21, 22, 23 or 24 Individual Test 7, Team Test 7, plus assessed application exercise
11 My 28, 29, 30, or 31 Individual Test 8, Team Test 8, plus assessed application exercise
12 June 4, 5, 6 or 7 Team Presentation Workshop
Due dates for all other course requirements
NOTE: Extensions cannot be granted. See the section later in this guide on “Missing a Course Requirement”
Week Date Assessment or Deliverable
Tick
4 Friday 5 April, 10:00 am Completion of all modules and tests in the University’s Academic
Integrity course. Note that 5 April is a final deadline. You should
aim to complete this Academic Integrity course by Friday 15
March, which is the end of Week 2. This is because the Academic
Integrity course will be useful to you as you prepare for your
assignment, and also because you will then have it out of the way
before you start facing other deadlines across all of your courses.
5 Friday 12 April, 10:00 am Individual Assignment
6 Friday 19 April, 10:00 am Individual Peer Reviews
6 Friday 19 April, 10:00 am Formative 360-degree team feedback
Mid-Semester Break
10 Friday 24 May, 10:00 am Final 360-degree team feedback
4
(C) COURSE COMMUNICATION
How we will communicate with you
There is week-by-week guide to the course: You will find this week-by-week guide
on the pink and blue BUSINESS 101 course home-page. You will see this pink and blue
home-page every time you log into BUSINESS 101 on Cecil. This is where you must go to
find the reading lists for your tests, links to your weekly webcasts, plus any other
important information or reminders that you may need for that particular week.
There will be a series of “This Week in BUSINESS 101” webcasts: In addition to
the content-related and process-related webcasts that you will need to view each week,
there will also be a short introductory webcast every week from the Teaching Director.
His webcast will provide useful information, instructions and/or reminders about what is
happening that week, and about the key tasks that you will need to complete that week.
There will be email communications: We will send out regular email messages. Some
of these messages will be general messages that all students in the course will receive.
There may also, however, be times when we will be sending you a personalised message.
• General email messages will be sent via Cecil announcements. In most weeks, this will
include one or more Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) announcements. Our aim is to
build up a clear and consistent package of answers to the types of questions we are
hearing from students as we move through the course. Please always check the FAQ
announcements before you contact your facilitators or course administrators with a
question about the course - your question might already have been answered. Rather
than needing to search through your email inbox, please note that you can log into
Cecil for BUSINESS 101 at any time, click on “Announcements”, and then in one place
you will see all of the FAQ announcements that have been sent out to date.
• There may also be reasons why we might need to communicate with you individually
by email at some point, e.g. issues with your assignments or marks or enrolment. In
that event, email will be our primary means of trying to get in contact with you.
You must check your official University of Auckland email address, e.g. the email address
that looks like abcd@aucklanduni.ac.nz (where the abcd is your NetID and is usually the
first initial of your first name followed by the first three letters of your surname). The
need to keep a close eye on your email is not just for this course, but also for all of your
University of Auckland 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 in an official email.
How you can communicate with us
Your primary points of contact: 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
5
For certain types of enquiries, there are also other people who you can contact:
• Course Administrator: 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 (formerly Karen Whittaker) by
email at k.whittaker@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.
• Business Communication Tutorials: If you have questions about these tutorials,
then you can contact John Thorpe (the Business Communication Tutorial manager) by
email 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 (e.g. EC mail) 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, this can lead
to problems if a student fails to maintain the forwarding link and so it is usually best
practice to simply use your official University email address for all University activities.
• 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 102 – Assignment
question”.
• 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”.
• 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?
• 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. Also, do not send identical
email messages to multiple people. That is extremely frustrating because it creates
duplication and extra work for everyone. Instead, identify one person to contact and
then allow them a reasonable amount of time to respond to your message before you
send another message. The right person in most cases will usually be either one of
your facilitators, or Karen Rich (the course administrator). Finally, 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.
6
(D) COURSE DESIGN, STRUCTURE AND PHILOSOPHY
Business 101 and 102 are separate courses but they are designed as an integrated
package. Here is a visualisation of the “story” of 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 understanding business. The first module takes the widest
perspective by reflecting on the role and context of business within society. The second
module takes a narrower perspective by focussing in on actual businesses, e.g. how are
different businesses organised and how do they work? Finally, the third module takes the
perspective of the individual in business by focusing on careers, ethics, and values.
Team-based Learning
The centre of this course for all students is a weekly team-based learning workshop.
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 an effective way of developing students’
understanding of concepts—even when they have little understanding to begin with.
7
This is not a course where you can miss classes and expect to do well. You are required
to be in your team-based learning workshops each week and actively participating in
activities with your team. This is not a lecture-based course and so the workshops are
not recorded. The PowerPoint slides for the workshops are designed to facilitate in-class
exercises, not to deliver subject content, and so these slides are not given out. Instead,
the webcasts serve as a substitute for traditional lectures with content-based slides.
Individual accountability for being prepared to undertake work in class is achieved
through a readiness assurance testing process. This assesses your basic understanding of
concepts so that you, your team members, and your facilitators, know how well you are
prepared. This readiness assurance testing process comprises an individual test, followed
by a team test, followed by a “mini-lecture” on any misunderstandings that students in
the class might have. The individual test is a short multiple-choice quiz. The team test is
the same quiz completed by your whole team. This testing process allows rapid feedback
to students. Once the class has established a base-level of understanding, team-based
application exercises are then used in class to deepen and refine students’ knowledge.
A Triangle of Learning
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 the readings, webcasts, and workshops
each forming one corner of a triangle, and with you in the middle of the triangle:
1. 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. professional skills development and helping you with your
assignments or with other course requirements. You can watch these webcasts in your
own time from any internet-connected computer. You will access these webcasts each
week from the pink and blue home page for the course within Cecil. Make sure you
watch these webcasts before you come to your team-based learning workshop each
week. We will expect you to be familiar with the content of these webcasts.
2. Readings: You will see your week-by-week reading list on the pink and blue course
home-page every time you log into Cecil for BUSINESS 101. Make sure that you read
and take study notes from the required content-related readings for each week before
you arrive at your team-based learning workshop. We will expect you to be familiar
with these required readings and you will be tested on this content when you arrive in
class. Please note that while there are required readings that you must read each
week, there are also reading on readings that are optional:
The “required” content-related readings and webcast(s) will be tested when you
arrive in your team-based learning workshop. In most weeks, there will also be
required process-related readings that are there to support your assignment and
other process-oriented goals of the course. The required process readings will not
be tested in your individual and team tests, but they could be examined on the final
exam. You must read all of the required readings each week.
The optional “reading on” readings are extension readings but not required
readings. As such, they will not be specifically tested or examined in the individual
or team tests, or in the final exam. These extra readings are there for the extension
of those students who would like to read on in order to learn more about topics in
this course. The optional “reading on” readings will enable you to make the course
as challenging as you desire. They put you in the “driver’s seat”.
3. Team Based Learning (TBL) Workshops: In your team-based learning workshops
each week, you will be working on activities that will see your team applying a few of
the key concepts from your required readings and webcasts. Your team-based
learning workshops will not be covering all of the concepts that you will come across in
your readings and the webcasts. They aren’t 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.
8
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 week’s
topic. 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 is 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.
9
Personal and Professional Development
Business 101 and 102 are not just about learning course subject materials. The Business
School has purposely designed these courses to go beyond delivering subject content in
business and to also focus on developing important process skills that are directly
relevant for all of a student’s courses, as well as for that student’s future business career.
This emphasis on process will involve you repeatedly:
- Demonstrating professional business communication skills (e.g. developing your
business and academic writing, and public speaking and presentation skills)
- Using critical thinking (e.g. developing arguments, critically evaluating the arguments
of others, and considering different points of views or different interpretations)
- Demonstrating good judgement (e.g. learning how 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).
- Dealing with diversity (e.g. understanding and relating to people who are different
from you – an extremely important skill to have for any future manager or for anyone
looking for success in diverse modern organisations or global business environments)
- 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)
In our focus on personal and professional development within BUSINESS 101 and 102,
we recognise that we have a large and extremely diverse group of students. The pre-
existing skills and needs of these students are not identical. We also know, however, that
virtually all students can benefit from an emphasis on developing the types of skills that
are listed above. For some students, the emphasis on process in this course will come
through the way that our team-based learning workshops, webcasts, and other course
requirements have been designed. For some students, however, there will be an
additional requirement to attend specifically designed business communication tutorials.
Business Communication Tutorials (BCTs)
Business communication tutorials will begin in Week Three of the course. Not all students
will need to attend these workshops. The need to attend these tutorials depends on
students’ individual levels of proficiency. The tutorials are also tailored to the different
needs of our students and so there are different types of tutorials, e.g. some that focus
more on English language skills and others that focus more on business communication
process skills. If you are asked to attend weekly business communication tutorials, then
these tutorials will be a compulsory component of your studies. Among those students
who were required to attend business communication tutorials in previous years, we
have clear evidence that those students who did attend the tutorials were more likely to
succeed than those chose not to attend.
You will be receiving further information about this by email during the first week of the
semester. When they first enrolled for this course in Student Services Online, all
students were tentatively signed up into a “ghost” business communication tutorial
stream (e.g. a tutorial stream with no specific day, time, or room number). Those
students who are required to attend Business Communication Tutorials will need to go
back into Student Services Online in order to change their initial “ghost” enrolment by
selecting a specific tutorial time from a set of appropriate options. Those students who
10
are not required to attend business communication tutorials will not need to do anything
further.
The business communication tutorials are good example of how the Business School has
selected BUSINESS 101 and 102 to be the “home” for initiatives to support students in
their first year of study. The tutorials will help students to succeed in this course, e.g.
they will be very relevant because they will link closely to our course content and to the
assessments. The tutorials will also help students to succeed in other courses, e.g. they
will be focussing on building transferable business and academic communication skills
that students will need to succeed throughout their degree studies as well as in their
future business careers.
Please 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 be taken into account should you ever need to apply for
a third and final chance to take the course.
Can I attend business communication tutorials even though I was told I do not
need to? - Yes, if you are not required to attend weekly Business Communication
Tutorials, but you would like to do so, then you can approach John Thorpe (the Business
Communication Tutorial manager) at j.thorpe@auckland.ac.nz to ask him about joining
an appropriate tutorial stream.
Academic Integrity Course
All students enrolled in BUSINESS 101 this semester will find that they have also been
enrolled by the University of Auckland into a separate Academic Integrity course.
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 Integity 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 pass the tests in Cecil for each module
Each module contains exercises that will provide information or scenarios to help you
with the related module test in Cecil. 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
5 April at 10:00 am to complete the Academic Integrity modules and tests. This is a final
deadline. Ideally, you should complete this by Friday 15 March, which is the end of the
second week of this course. We are encouraging you to complete this Academic Integrity
course early because it will be useful to you as you prepare for your assignment, and
11
also because you will then have it completed and out of the way before you start facing
other deadlines across all of your courses.
Do I have to complete the Academic Integrity course? - Yes, the Academic
Integrity course is a University and a Business School requirement. Furthermore,
if you do not complete the Academic Integrity modules and tests, then you will not
receive any marks for the individual assignment in BUSINESS 101.
It is important for you to realise that the Academic Integrity course is separate from
BUSINESS 101 and that it is designed to support you not just in this course but also
across all of your University studies. This is, however, another example of BUSINESS 101
being selected by the Business School to be the “home” for initiatives to support students
in their first year of study. It is our responsibility as your facilitators and course
coordinators here in BUSINESS 101 to promote the Academic Integrity course, and to
ensure that all students do comply with this University requirement. That is why the
Business School has asked us to set in place a course policy where students will not
receive any marks for their individual assignment in BUSINESS 101 unless they have
completed the University’s Academic Integrity 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 and in Cecil. Since this is
run by the University, and not by your facilitators or course coordinators here in
BUSINESS 101, it is important that you use the Academic Integrity feedback form within
the Academic Integrity course in order to ask questions about that course.
12
(E) ASSESSMENT STRUCTURE
Final Examination 50%
Individual Tests (8) 18%
Individual Assignment 24%
Team Performance (Group Mark) 18%
-------
TOTAL: 100%
Individual Assessment (82% of your final grade)
Final Exam (50% of your final grade): The final exam will account for 50% of your
grade in this course. It will be marked out of 100 marks. The final exam will be
comprehensive in that it may cover anything and everything associated with the course.
It will be designed in such a way that those students who have attended and participated
in all team-based learning workshops will be best prepared to succeed in the exam.
Individual Tests (8% of your final grade): A series of eight individual tests will
account for 8% of your grade in this course. This means that each individual test will be
worth 1% of your final grade. The individual tests form the first stage of the readiness
assurance testing process in team-based learning. You will complete these tests using
clicker technology in your team-based learning workshops. Each test is a multiple-choice
quiz with 5 questions and so the tests will be marked out of 5 marks. You will get one
mark for each correct answer. To do well in these individual tests, it is necessary for you
to complete all of the required readings for that week and to view that week’s webcasts.
Individual Assignment (24% of your final grade): The individual assignment
package will account for 24% of your grade in this course. There is a two-stage process
involved in this individual assignment. In Part A, you will write your own assignment. In
Part B, you will peer review a set of completed assignments.
• Part A: The individual assignment will be marked out of 20 marks and it will account
for 20% of your grade in this course.
• Part B: The quality of the individual peer reviews that you provide will account for 4%
of your grade in this course. You will have four individual peer reviews to complete,
three where you will be anonymously peer-reviewing the assignments of other
students and one where you will be self-reviewing your own assignment. Each of these
four peer reviews will initially be marked out of 10 marks. This will be added up to
give you an initial mark out of 40 which will then be converted to a weighted course
mark out of 4 when it is reported to you on Cecil.
Note that, as has been explained earlier in this guide, you must complete the University’s
Academic Integrity course by Friday 5 April at 10:00 am or you will not receive any
marks for your assignment.
Team Performance (18% of your final grade)
The team-based learning delivery model is designed so that students can gain the
benefits of learning to work and engage in teams, without the types of issues that are
sometimes found in more traditional group assignments or projects where teams are
required to divide up work and meet outside of class time. While the assessment
structure for the team component of this course may appear complex at first glance, it is
important to remember that the team marks in this course are all gained through
activities that will occur in class time during your team based learning workshops. With
the single exception of your team perhaps deciding to meet up in order to practice for
13
your team presentation in Week 12, there is no other requirement for the teams in this
course to ever have to meet up outside of class time. As long as you are ready and
prepared for your individual test when you arrive at your team-based learning workshop,
you will also be ready and prepared for the team activities that will follow.
Team performance will account for 18% of your grade in this course. Your marks will
come from a series of deliverables that your team will complete in-class during the
semester.
Team Tests (8) 6%
Team Application Exercises (8) 6%
Team Peer Review Workshop 3%
Team Presentation Workshop 3%
-------
TOTAL: 18%
Each team’s performance score will be marked out of a total of 120 possible marks. 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
team’s progress from week to week in earning these marks:
Team Tests (40 marks): Having completed each individual test using the clickers, your
team will then immediately undertake the exact same multiple choice quiz, but now as a
team rather than as individuals. The team tests form the second stage of the readiness
assurance testing process in team-based learning. 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.
Each of the eight team tests will have 5 questions and be marked out of 5 marks. For the
team tests, you will not be using clickers. Instead, the team test is completed using a
special scratch-off form. 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, 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 ½ of a mark.
Team Application Exercises (40 marks): In each of the eight weeks where there is a
readiness assurance testing process (individual plus team tests), there will also be an
assessed in-class team application exercise that will be marked out of 5 marks.
Team Peer Review Workshop (20 marks): In week three, there will not be a
readiness assurance testing process (individual plus team tests). Instead, the output of a
team peer review workshop will be marked out of 20 marks. More detailed instructions
about this workshop will be announced closer to the time.
Team Presentation Workshop (20 marks): In week twelve (the final week of the
course), there will not be a readiness assurance testing process (individual plus team
tests). Instead, each team will be delivering a presentation that will be marked out of 20
marks. More detailed instructions about this workshop will be announced closer to the
time.
While the total team performance score out of 120 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. The next section of this guide will explain
how an individual’s lack of contribution to the team process could impact on the team
marks received by that student.
14
(F) 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 exceptions in
some teams where it will be possible for one or more team members to receive a team
performance score that is higher or lower than the score that was achieved by the team.
An individual’s final team performance score can be adjusted upwards or downwards
using (1) a Participation Multiplier, and (2) a 360-degree Team Feedback Multiplier.
These multipliers provide a mechanism for identifying “free riders”, e.g. team members
who do not contribute fully to the team processes. The formula for calculating the team
performance score that each individual will receive (up to a maximum of 120 marks) is:
Individual Team Performance Mark = (The team’s performance score
out of 120 marks) x (the individual’s Participation Multiplier of X%)
x (the individual’s 360-degree Team Feedback Multiplier of Y%)
The majority of students in the course will receive a participation multiplier of 100% and
a 360-degree feedback multiplier of 100%. This means that these multipliers will not
have any impact on the team performance marks that most individual students will
receive. Some students, however, will receive a participation multiplier that is less than
100%, and/or a 360-degree feedback multiplier that is less than (or possibly even more
than) 100%. For those students, these multipliers will impact on their individual team
performance marks. The participation and 360-degree feedback multipliers will be
entered into Cecil before students sit the Final Exam. This way, all students will know if
these multipliers are going to impact on the team marks that they will receive.
Explaining the Participation Multiplier
A participation multiplier will be calculated for each individual in each team. The majority
of students will receive a participation multiplier of 100%. If a student receives a
participation multiplier less than 100%, 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 their team.
- There are eight workshops where a team test (5 marks) plus an assessed application
exercise (5 marks) will take place. Each of those workshops therefore equates to 10
out of 120 marks, or 8.33% of the total team performance mark.
A student will be allowed to not successfully participate in (or in effect miss) up to one
of these eight workshops without this affecting their participation multiplier and the
team marks that they will receive. This is a compromise that allows for the reality that
“things can happen” (e.g. an unforeseen event that causes someone to miss or be late
for a class), while also acknowledging the fact that team members who repeatedly do
not participate in team activities are letting the rest of the team down. If an individual
does not successfully participate in two or more of the eight workshops, this lack of
participation will be reflected in that individual’s participation multiplier because it will
be reduced by 8% for each additional unsuccessfully completed workshop.
The tracking device for determining “successful participation” of one of these eight
workshops 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 10 minutes late,
e.g. they didn’t 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
15
has finished but while the team test is under way, that student must still be
considered to have not successfully participated in the workshop. 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.
- There are two special workshops (the team peer review workshop in Week 3 plus the
team presentation workshop in Week 12) that each count for 20 out of 120 marks, or
16.33% of the total team performance mark. If an individual does not successfully
complete either of these two workshops, this lack of participation will be reflected in
that individual’s participation multiplier as it will be reduced by 16% for each of the
unsuccessfully completed workshops. “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 workshop will be measured through your active participation in your
team’s 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 100%.
Starting Participation Multiplier =
100%
If a student has missed a total of 1 individual tests, then No deduction
If a student has missed a total of 2 individual tests, then Deduct 08%
If a student has missed a total of 3 individual tests, then Deduct 16%
If a student has missed a total of 4 individual tests, then Deduct 24%
If a student has missed a total of 5 individual tests, then Deduct 32%
If a student has missed a total of 6 individual tests, then Deduct 40%
If a student has missed a total of 7 individual tests, then Deduct 48%
If a student has missed a total of 8 individual tests, then Deduct 56%
Did not successfully participate in the team peer review workshop, then Deduct 16%
Did not successfully participate the team presentation workshop, then Deduct 16%
For example, a student who has missed four tests, and who has also not successfully
participated in the team presentation workshop, would receive a participation multiplier
at the end of the course of 100% - 24% - 16% = 60%. The student will effectively lose
forty percent of the total team performance marks that were achieved by the team.
Facilitator Discretion: Finally, there must always be room for facilitator discretion in
the determination of an individual’s participation multiplier. For example, the facilitators
might 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 looking at a cellphone, or perhaps the student always just seems to
be 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 not participating
in the team application exercises. Such students should clearly not receive a full
participation multiplier of 100%.
Explaining the 360-degree Feedback Multiplier
A 360-degree feedback multiplier will be calculated for each individual in each team. The
majority of students will receive a 360-degree multiplier of 100%. If a student receives a
360-degree feedback multiplier that is either higher or lower than 100%, this will be
because either (1) the student has not successfully participated in the 360-degree team
feedback process by providing feedback to their other team members, or (2) there is
something exceptionally high or low about the pattern of feedback that the student has
received from their other team members, e.g. the student is a significant outlier.
How will I evaluate the contributions of my team-mates? At two points during the
semester, you will evaluate the contribution of your other team members to your team’s
16
performance. 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. Teams will undertake an initial
formative 360-degree team feedback process 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. Near the end of the course, in Week 10, a second and
final 360-degree team feedback process will take place.
Under the “Knowledge Map” in Cecil for BUSINESS 101, you will see a link to “Course
Tools”. This is where you will go to complete the formative and final 360-degree Team
Feedback processes, e.g. where you will assess the contributions made by your other
team members, and where they will assess your contributions. Complete instructions and
further reminders will be sent out closer to the time via Cecil announcements and the
“This week in BUSINESS 101” webcasts.
This 360-degree team feedback process is not about 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
gets the most test answers correct. Rather, this is about you fairly and professionally
assessing 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, so you might include other factors in your
evaluation.
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.
The way this will work is that you will have an average of 20 points to give to each
member of your team, excluding yourself. You cannot give everyone exactly 20 points
and you should also not normally give any team member a score of less than 15 points
or a score of more than 25 points. If you are in a team of seven, for example, this means
that you will have 120 points to allocate to the six other members of your team. If you
really feel that all team members have contributed pretty equally to the team processes
in the course, then the closest distribution of points would be 21+20+20+20+20+19 =
120. If you feel there has been more of a spread of contributions, then the points you
give should reflect this, e.g. something like 24+23+22+18+17+16 = 120, or 22+
22+22+18+18+18 = 120. You must determine the appropriate spread of points that
reflects the relative contributions of your team members.
Will I see the scores and comments that others have given me? 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
17
every member of the team. 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.
This first 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.
Usually, making sense of this table will be straightforward because you can simply
compare the average/total scores received by different team members. Sometimes,
however, this table may not be so simple to interpret for every team. 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. 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.
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 on, the feedback that you have personally received from your peers.
Why should I participate in this team feedback process? The 360-degree team
feedback process is very important given 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 process 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 others or
working with others in teamwork scenarios. Here, you will need to have developed skills
in providing others with useful and appropriate feedback about their performance.
The 360-degree team feedback process in BUSINESS 101 and 102 can break down for
everyone on the team when some team members do not participate. For example, as
was explained earlier, the output of this 360-degree team feedback process can be
difficult to interpret when some team members have not participated. Furthermore, as
will be explained below, there will be circumstances where the output of this 360-degree
team feedback process has the potential to affect the marks that are received by one or
members of a team. Therefore, this process must be treated seriously and there must be
significant penalties if an individual does not successfully provide formative and/or final
360-degree team feedback to their team members.
Penalties for not providing 360-degree feedback to your other team members:
The easiest way for you to find yourself with a 360-degree team multiplier less than
100% at the end of the course is by not participating in the 360-degree feedback
process. Your individual 360-degree feedback multiplier will be reduced by 20% if you do
not successfully provide the formative 360-degree feedback to your other team
members, and by 30% if you do not successfully provide the final 360-degree feedback
to your team members.
Starting 360-degree Multiplier =
100%
Did not successfully provide the formative 360-degree team feedback Deduct 20%
Did not successfully provide the final 360-degree team feedback Deduct 30%
For example, a student who has missed providing both sets of feedback, will find their
360-degree feedback multiplier being reduced by 20% + 30% = 50% and they will
therefore lose half of the total team performance marks that were achieved by the team.
18
Facilitator Discretion: Beyond simply looking at whether each person has provided
360-degree team feedback, there must also always be room for facilitator discretion in
the determination of an individual’s 360-degree feedback multiplier. The facilitators and
course coordinators will be carrying out analysis to look for overall patterns that have
occurred in the final (end-of-semester) 360-degree feedback process, both within and
across the several hundred teams in BUSINESS 101 and 102. We will also need to look
carefully at all of those teams where the 360-degree feedback process was not fully
completed, e.g. where there were gaps or inconsistencies because some team members
did not provide feedback. We will not be concerned with the fact that there will always be
some natural range in the quantitative feedback scores that are received by the different
members of most teams. Rather, we will be looking for cases where there are significant
outliers. Adjustments to an individual’s 360-degree feedback multiplier (either upwards
or downwards from 100%) could occur in the following types of situations:
• Facilitator discretion might be needed is when the 360-degree team feedback process
highlights one clear outlier on a team, e.g. there is a consistent pattern of other team
members giving one particular person low quantitative 360-degree scores while
everyone else on the team receives scores that are not so far apart. From past
experience, we know that this typically tends to signal someone who has missed a
large number of team-based learning workshops or 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. In
some cases, however, a facilitator might need to use judgement and discretion in
making adjustments to the 360-degree multiplier that will be received by that student.
• More unusual patterns could occur when (1) there are multiple outliers within a team,
e.g. there are one or two team members who receive exceptionally high 360-degree
feedback scores from the rest of the team, and there are one or two team members
who receive exceptionally low feedback scores from the rest of the team, or (2) there
is an unclear or confusing set of feedback across the team because one or more team
members have not provided any 360-degree team feedback. Once again, in these
types of cases, the facilitators will first look at the participation multipliers that have
been received by the different team members to see what has already been captured
there. Then, there will be some cases where a facilitator might need to use judgement
and discretion in making adjustments to the 360-degree multipliers that will be
received by the different students of a particular team, e.g. a decision to deduct a
percentage - e.g. 10 or 20% - from the 360-degree multiplier(s) that will be received
by one or more members of a team in order add that same percentage to the 360-
degree multiplier(s) that will be achieved by one or more other members of a team.
• Facilitator discretion might also come into play in making a determination of whether
or not someone has “successfully” provided 360-degree feedback in the first place.
This is not simply about that person having submitted their 360-degree team feedback
on time. Successful completion is also about doing this in a sincere and professional
manner. Even if a student has technically submitted their feedback by the due date
and time, facilitators may decide to apply the 20% (formative 360-degree feedback)
and/or 30% (final 360-degree feedback) penalties if an individual has provided
unprofessional feedback comments to their team members, or if a student has simply
not treated this process seriously, e.g. they have cut-and-pasted the exact same
feedback comments repeatedly for multiple team members.
• A final example of facilitator discretion could occur if any ethical issues arise. Providing
360-degree team feedback to your other team members is meant to be an individual
task. Team members should not be colluding or 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 0%.
19
(G) MISSING A COURSE REQUIREMENT
What to do if you are affected by illness or other adverse personal events
Missed Final Exam
You can apply for Aegrotat and Compassionate Consideration
If you think you might miss the final exam, 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 student’s 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
that:
• your coursework in the course was well above minimum pass standard
• your mark in the examination is lower than expected, taking coursework into account
(to be deleted if you did not sit the exam)
• you are clearly worthy of a pass in the course.
Missed Individual Tests
You can apply for Aegrotat and Compassionate Consideration
The University also 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 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
20
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 Application Exercises
You cannot apply for special consideration for a missed team test
or for that day’s associated assessed application exercise
The University’s 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 have had 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 day’s 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 this guide, there is also 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 marks. An example would be the case of a student
who has missed one individual test during the semester, without having an aegrotat or
compassionate consideration approved for that missed individual test. While that student
would not get any individual marks for the test that they missed and did not sit, this
would not affect the student’s team marks. A student would need to miss two or more
individual tests before it would begin to impact on the calculation of that student’s
participation multiplier.
Missed Individual Assignment, or Missed Individual Peer Reviews, 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 course requirements other than missed 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 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 Doctor’s 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 student’s
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.
21
• 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 University’s wireless
network. If the University’s 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 that 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 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 did not successfully submit on time,
then we will get your assignment into the marking process so that it can be marked,
although it may not be possible to get your assignment into the individual peer review
process where it will be reviewed by other students.
- If you missed the individual peer reviews, then the course will be “re-weighted” for
you to be out of 96 instead of 100 course marks. (The peer reviews would have been
worth 4%).
- 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.
22
(H) INSTRUCTIONS FOR YOUR INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT
As has been explained earlier in this guide, there is a two-stage process involved in this
individual assignment where you will (A) write your own assignment, and then (B) peer
review a set of assignments that have been produced by other students in the course,
and also self-review your own assignment. The assignment is structured so that 20% of
your grade in this course will come from your written assignment itself, while 4% of your
grade in this course will come from the quality of the individual peer review comments
that you provide on the assignments of other students, and on your own assignment.
You are reminded that, as has also been explained earlier in this guide, you must
complete the University’s Academic Integrity course by Friday 5 April at 10:00 am or you
will not receive any marks for your individual assignment.
INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT PART A
Your Written Individual Assignment
Before you begin any work on your assignment, you must make sure that you have read
all of the detailed instructions in this guide, and that you have also had a look at the
support resources that are available by clicking on links from the pink and blue home
page for BUSINESS 101 in Cecil. In particular, you must make sure you that have read
the “Research Pathfinder” section by following the link from the course home page in
Cecil. The information there is considered to be part of the formal instructions for this
assignment because it is designed to help you to locate and use appropriate sources.
You must also make sure that during the semester you are frequently checking your
student email account and that you are watching the weekly “This week in BUSINESS
101” webcasts. We will be using Cecil announcements, plus those weekly webcasts, to
clarify any student questions that might arise about the assignment and/or to provide
extra useful advice about your assignment.
Assignment Task
In 1970, Milton Friedman had an article published in the New York Times Magazine. It
was titled “The social responsibility of business is to increase its profits”. This was an
article in the popular press, e.g. it was published in a popular and widely-read magazine.
This was not an academic article that was published in an academic journal. Whether
they agreed or disagreed, however, many academics were extremely interested in the
points and perspectives that Milton Friedman expressed in that original magazine article.
Therefore, in the years that have followed, many subsequent academic articles have
been written by people who are experts in the area of business and social responsibility.
These academic articles have cited Friedman’s original 1970 magazine article and they
have discussed or analysed the views that Friedman expressed.
Your Essay Question: Are Milton Friedman’s 1970 opinions about corporate social
responsibility appropriate for businesses operating today in New Zealand?
You are to write an essay to explain and justify your opinion on the answer to this
question. Your essay must discuss Friedman’s views as expressed in his 1970 article,
and your essay must also compare those views with what has been written in TWO
academic articles that have discussed or analysed Friedman’s views. In addition, you
must incorporate ideas or information from at least ONE article (either an academic
article, or an article from the popular business press) that discusses corporate social
responsibility either within a general New Zealand context, or within the specific
context of a particular New Zealand business. Your essay must conclude with your
own reasoned opinion on the answer to the essay question.
23
This assignment requires you to cite a minimum of FOUR articles to support your
essay. These will include Milton Friedman’s original article, two academic articles that
have discussed Friedman’s views, and at least one academic or popular business press
article that provides some New Zealand business context for your essay. Each of your
articles must be correctly cited within the body of your essay, and each source must
also be correctly entered into a Reference List at the end of your essay. You must use
correct APA referencing format.
A “Research Pathfinder” guide can be found on the pink and blue home page for
BUSINESS 101 in Cecil. The “Research Pathfinder” guide provides further instructions
on how to use the Business Source Premier library database. It will also help you to
better understand the difference between an academic article and an article from the
popular business press, e.g. a magazine or newspaper article. You must make sure
that you read the “Research Pathfinder” guide because it is considered to be part of
the formal instructions for this assignment.
There is a requirement for you to include an addendum at the very end of your
assignment with the title Research Annotations. If you do not include this addendum,
then your assignment will not be considered to be complete and so you will not
receive a mark. The Research Annotations are an important part of your assignment
and the quality of your Research Annotations will affect the mark that you will receive.
Please see the instructions that follow below.
In order for you to receive a mark, your assignment must be successfully submitted to
Turnitin.com before the due date and time.
Using the University Library Databases: The University’s online library databases
offer you an efficient means for locating high quality business and academic sources for
your University assignments. Using these databases is certainly more effective than
undertaking random and unsophisticated 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 University’s 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.
While there are many library databases that students can choose to use during their
University studies, we would like to expose BUSINESS 101 students to one of the most
useful databases for undergraduate business students – Business Source Premier. This is
why there is the requirement that you MUST locate and retrieve your articles using this
database (and NOT using Google searches or other research methods). The Business
Source Premier database contains a wide range of academic and business publications,
including some New Zealand sources. It also has a feature where you can limit your
search specifically to Scholarly (Academic Peer-Reviewed) Publications, which is a useful
way for you to begin building your understanding of what is an academic source of
information as opposed to a more general business publication such as a magazine or
newspaper.
Sources for your Essay: One of your sources will be Milton Friedman’s original article
from 1970 in The New York Times Magazine. This is the only article allowed as a source
for your assignment that is not required to have been located and retrieved from the
Business Source Premier database. You will find a link to Milton Friedman’s article under
“Week 1” on the pink and blue course home page for BUSINESS 101 on Cecil.
In addition, the assignment question requires you to cite information or ideas from two
academic articles. These two articles must be retrieved from the Business Source Premier
library database.
24
In addition, the assignment question requires you to cite information or ideas from at
least one further article that relates to New Zealand. This must also be retrieved from the
Business Source Premier library database, although this article can be either an academic
article or an article from the popular business press.
If you choose to cite any additional articles in your essay, beyond the minimum of the
four required sources that have just been mentioned, then any additional articles should
also be located and retrieved using the Business Source Premier database. This is in
keeping with one of the key learning outcomes for this assignment where we want to
familiarise you with one of the most useful library databases for business students. This
means that you must not search for information or articles using Google or Google
Scholar. Also, you must not cite the textbooks for this course (or any other textbooks)
and you must not cite Wikipedia.
Research Annotations: After the last page of your essay (the reference list), you must
begin a new page in your assignment document with the heading “Research
Annotations”. Here you will write your two research annotations. If you do not include
this addendum, your assignment will not be considered complete and so it will not
receive a mark.
For each of the two selected academic articles that you have retrieved from Business
Source Premier, and that discuss or comment on Friedman’s ideas, 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 with the
following key 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 particular source has
made your essay stronger (three to four sentences)
The word limit for your research annotations is separate and in addition to the word limit
for the essay itself (which is explained below). 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 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.
Note that pages 105 and 106 of your McCulloch & Reid textbook discuss the idea of an
annotated bibliography. In this assignment, you are not being asked to prepare a full
annotated bibliography but you will nonetheless find the example of an annotation on
page 106 of the McCulloch & Reid textbook to be quite useful when you are thinking
about how you will structure the two annotations that are required for this assignment.
While they key components that you have been asked to include in this assignment are
different from the key components that are being used for the annotation example on
page 106 of your textbook, that example will still give you a good idea of what an
annotation should broadly look like.
The person who marks your assignment is likely to follow the key words and search
strategies that you have provided in your annotations. If they are unable to find the
source, then they will know that you are not telling them actually how you originally
located that source. Therefore, 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. (Please
see Keeping a Research Log below).
25
Keeping a Research Log: Reading and researching are key components of this
assignment. From past experience, we often see students preparing these types of first-
year University assignments almost the wrong way around, e.g. they decide what they
think they want to write for their assignment, and then they look for a quick convenience
sample of the first few sources they can find that support their thinking. Most University
assignments, like this one, actually expect you to start by reading and reflecting widely
around the topic area. This is so that you can gain a good feeling for the different ideas
or information or opinions that you might want to incorporate into your assignment. It is
only after all of this initial research and reading, and after your initial thinking about the
topic, that you should then narrow down and select the most appropriate and credible
and useful sources that you will actually use and cite within your assignment.
Keeping a brief research log is a useful technique for undertaking systematic research.
This will also ensure that you will have the information you need when you begin writing
your Research Annotations. Keeping a research log simply involves you keeping track of
your reading and research. For each potential source that you find, you should begin by
writing out the reference in correct APA referencing format, or you can simply use the
cite tool in Business Source Premiere to provide you with the correctly formatted APA
reference. Then, you should write (1) a sentence or so on how you located the source,
e.g. your search strategy or the key words you used, and (2) a couple of sentences on
what the article/source is about and on why your think it could be potentially useful for
your assignment.
Word Limit for your essay: A maximum of 1400 words. This word limit includes all of
the text in your essay, e.g. all of your paragraphs of text between the title of your essay
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 has been explained earlier, there
is a separate word limit for your addendum.
You must not exceed the maximum 1400 total word limit for the text of your essay. You
must take a word count of this essay text and include this word count at the end of your
essay, e.g. below your final paragraph and before the reference list.
There is no minimum word limit for this assignment. However, you must be careful to
ensure that you have adequately answered the assignment question or else you are
unlikely to achieve a very good mark.
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.
We require students to use this assignment template because it provides a level of
consistency that facilitates both the individual peer review process (by students), and the
final marking of these assignments (by staff). 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.
To begin writing your assignment, you should first copy the assignment template to your
own computer by using “Save As” to save it with the file name of your University NetID,
e.g. the name of your assignment file must be the four letters plus three numbers of
26
your NetID so that your file name will have a 7 digit format that looks like abcd123.docx
but with different letters and numbers.
As will be explained below, you will be submitting your assignment electronically to
Turnitin. 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. Apple’s 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) in
order to be able to upload and submit your assignment successfully to Turnitin.
Double-blind peer reviewing: You must not include your name, ID number, or NetID
anywhere within the written text of your assignment. What this means is that when
someone opens your file to read your assignment, they should not be able to identify you
in any way while reading any of the text within your assignment, e.g. your name or
student ID or NetID should not appear anywhere within your written assignment
document. (This includes not identifying yourself at the start of the assignment or in any
of the page headers or footers.) Why do we insist on this? Well, this is because of the
individual peer-review-of-assignment process in this course where we want those peer
reviews to be “double-blind”, e.g. it is good practice that you do not know whose work
you are peer reviewing, and in return that you do not know who is peer reviewing your
own work.
As has been explained above under “Assignment Template”, and as will be repeated
again below under “Assignment Submission”, you are required to use your NetID as the
file name for your assignment. This is important so that staff will be able to identify your
assignment. When other students are asked to individually peer review your assignment,
however, Turnitin will keep the file name confidential. Your identity will remain
anonymous to other students as long as you have not included anything that identifies
you within the text of your assignment document.
If you do choose to identify yourself within your written assignment by including your
name, ID number, or NetID, etc. then you will have lost privacy because other students
will be able to identify who has written the assignment that they are reading.
Furthermore, this also means that you have not followed the assignment instructions. In
that case, the instructions to markers are that they should determine an initial
appropriate mark out of 20 for your assignment and then lower this by 3 marks.
Assignment submission: You will not be submitting this assignment as a hard copy.
Instead, you must submit your individual assignment to the Turnitin.com website. Your
facilitators will use Turnitin to check your assignment for its academic honesty and
integrity, e.g. to look for any evidence of plagiarism. Your facilitators will also be marking
your assignments within Turnitin and so you will need to go back to the website to read
the feedback that you will receive on your assignment. In addition, you will be returning
back to Turnitin in order to complete your individual peer reviews of other students’
assignments (plus your own assignment) on this same website.
It is your responsibility to go to www.turnitin.com to create your own user profile. If you
have not set up a user profile, then you will not be able to submit your assignment. It is
therefore in your best interests to make sure that you do create your user profile well
before the due date for this assignment. You should use your official university email
address (e.g. EC mail) when you set up user your profile within Turnitin – please do not
use other email addresses such as Hotmail or Gmail or other personal email accounts.
If you are new to using Turnitin, the University has a prepared a useful guide that you
can find by going to http://www.auckland.ac.nz/uoa/tl-turnitin-faq
27
After you have created your user profile, the Class ID and the Password that you will
then use in Turnitin to submit your BUSINESS 101 assignment are:
Class ID: 6136099 Password: bande101
You can resubmit your assignment to Turnitin as many times as you like, up until the due
date and time. You are also able to view your own assignment within Turnitin, where you
can use the “Originality” button to check for any academic honesty and similarity issues.
To take advantage of the opportunity to resubmit your assignment, you must make your
first submission of your assignment at least 48 hours early. This is because Turnitin takes
24 hours to update its originality checks when assignments are resubmitted. By allowing
yourself 48 hours, you will have enough time to make changes after Turnitin updates and
re-checks your assignment for originality. Further information on this function can be
found by going to www.turnitin.com and following the link to “training”, and then the link
to “student training”, where you can then click on “Viewing Originality Reports”. It is only
the last version of the assignment that you submit to Turnitin that will be checked by
staff for academic integrity, marked by staff, and peer reviewed by other students.
Late Assignments will not be 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 are granted for this assignment. This is because there are tight schedules
involved. We need to turn the assignments around quickly through Turnitin’s electronic
processes that will distribute the assignments out so that the staff marking and individual
peer review processes can begin. Because of this, late assignments are unmanageable
and extensions will not be granted. The only exception to this is if you have had an
application for special consideration approved. For further information, please see the
section earlier in this guide on “Missing a course requirement”.
Referencing: You must use APA referencing format in this assignment. 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 referencing style in your first year of studies because
you will be using this same referencing style as you continue throughout your degree at
the Business School.
In your writing as a business student, you are expected to put down your own thoughts
and ideas but at the same time also use ideas, facts, and opinions from others to support
and strengthen what you say. Your writing task in this assignment specifically requires
you to locate quality sources on your topic, and to use these in your writing to discuss
and validate your own ideas and opinions. You will also see that academic integrity is one
core component of the grading rubric for this assignment. This means that:
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 grading rubric. For example, the instructions to markers are that a
student cannot achieve an A grade for their assignment without the use of correct APA
referencing. Note, for example, that your reference list should be in alphabetic order.
Also, according to correct APA referencing format, your reference list must only
contain the sources that you have actually read and that you have cited within the
body text of your essay.
28
There are many course resources to help you with your referencing:
From the pink and blue home page BUSINESS 101 within 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 55-57 cover quoting and paraphrasing, and pages 62-67 cover
referencing.
There are also the BUSINESS 101 and 102 Online Library Support modules that you
can access from the pink and blue home page for the course 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.
Academic Integrity: The University of Auckland regards cheating as a serious
academic offence. Plagiarism is a 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 University’s Discipline Committee, where further penalties can be
imposed. The primary way of avoiding plagiarism is to reference your work properly.
Cheating includes copying from another student, and it also knowingly allowing your
work to be copied by someone else. It also includes making up data or information, and
using material from commercial essay/assignment services. As has been explained earlier
in this guide, you are required by the University to complete a separate online Academic
Integrity course. That course will help you to better understand how you can maintain
your personal academic integrity throughout your University studies.
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 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.
Approaching your facilitators for help and advice: 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.
Don’t 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 double-
29
marking process in the course. That is simply not workable when there are some 2,100
students enrolled across BUSINESS 101 and 102 who all have an assignment due on the
same day at the same time. 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
Wednesday or Thursday, when the assignment is due the next morning on a Friday, 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!
Grading rubric: We have created a formal grading rubric within Turnitin for this
assignment. We will be working with this grading rubric in the formative team peer
review workshop in Week 3 so that all students should have an understanding of how this
assignment is going to be graded. Essentially, there are five components that will be
considered when facilitators are grading this assignment:
1. Content - how well does it answer the assignment question?
2. Organisation – how well is it organised and structured?
3. Writing style – how readable is the assignment, e.g. are there errors in spelling and/or
grammar, is there good use of sentence structures, etc.?
4. Academic integrity – are the sources correctly referenced in APA referencing style in a
reference list, and have these sources been correctly cited within the body of the
assignment?
5. Research annotations – do the required research annotations in the addendum to the
assignment incorporate all of the key components and are they convincing in justifying
why the sources were selected?
Each of these five components will be graded as either “excellent”, “capable”, “passable”
or “not-passable”. Based on this, the marker will then determine an appropriate mark out
of 20 for the overall assignment.
Concerns about the mark that you have received on your assignment: Before you
contact your facilitators with any questions about the mark or feedback that you have
received on your individual assignment, please reflect on the following questions:
Did you engage with the many assignment support resources that were provided, e.g.
(1) the various FAQ announcements about the assignment that were sent out by email
and that remain posted on Cecil; (2) the report writing and referencing chapters in
your McCulloch and Reid “Your Business Degree textbook;; (3) the online Library
Support Modules link from the pink and blue home page in Cecil, (4) the “Research
Pathfinder” link from the pink and blue home page in Cecil; and (5) the “Business
School Guide to APA referencing” link from the pink and blue home page in Cecil?
Did you regularly watch the “This Week in BUSINESS 101” webcasts plus the other
student support webcasts that were related to this assignment?
Did you attend the team peer review workshop that took place in Week 3, and did you
take up any other opportunities to gain formative feedback by approaching your
facilitators or asking questions prior to the due date?
If you were asked to attend Business Communication Tutorials this semester, have
you been regularly attending these tutorials?
Did you allow yourself sufficient time at the final draft stage or were your rushing to
complete and submit something that could really still have used further drafting and
polishing?
Did you fulfil all of the assignment requirements by carefully following the instructions
and by including all of the necessary components? (This includes taking care to write
convincing research annotations that are detailed enough and that include all of the
required components.)
30
Did your report always remain clearly focused on the assignment question or did you
sometimes go off track with your discussion?
Did you stay within the word count?
Did you reference correctly according to APA style?
Did you carefully spell and grammar-check your assignment?
INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT PART B
The Individual Peer-Review-of-Assignments Process
After the assignment due date has passed, you are to individually review and provide
feedback comments on the assignments of three other students. You are also to self-peer
review your own assignment. Successful completion of this individual peer review process
will count for 4% of your grade in this course.
This is an extremely valuable learning process. It is rare at University for students to get
to see and read the work of other students. Evaluating the work of others can really help
you to understand and appreciate the strengths and weaknesses of your own work:
Providing feedback to others on their assignments enables you to develop important
skills in writing useful, relevant, and professional feedback.
This will then help you to read and reflect more impartially and objectively on your
own assignment, and help you to improve in the future.
Finally, receiving peer feedback from others on your own assignment enables you to
develop important skills in receiving and engaging with feedback, especially when
there are alternative views. For example, it may be that some readers liked your
assignment and others did not and so you will need to reflect on why this might be so.
You will complete these individual peer reviews within Turnitin. More detailed instructions
and reminders will be sent out closer to the time by Cecil announcement and via the
“This week in BUSINESS 101” webcasts. As has been explained earlier in the
“Assessment Structure” section of this student guide, you will be marked on the quality
of the individual peer reviews that you provide.
31
(I) STUDENT SUPPORT AND REPRESENTATION
Student Feedback: Student feedback was actively sought last semester through course
and lecturer evaluations, through focus groups, and through the student representation
system. In response, key changes to the course from last semester to this semester are:
a revised assessment structure that includes the introduction of a participation
multiplier and a 360-degree feedback multiplier to improve the way that an
individual’s contribution to the teamwork process is monitored and assessed.
shifting the team peer review exercise in this course forward so that it can be a useful
formative exercise (something that takes place before, rather than after, the individual
assignment is due)
improvements to the assignment submission process, assignment marking process,
and individual peer review process, all through migrating to the use of Turnitin.com in
2013 to manage these important processes.
ongoing improvements to the weekly webcasts that support the course.
the addition of a “reading on” set of readings for those students who would like to
stretch themselves in the course or learn more about course subjects.
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 Tuākana Programme: The Business School’s He Tuākana 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
tuākana is based on the principles of the tuākana-teina relationship;; our tuākana
(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 Tuākana programme is a developmental and support programme, not a remedial
programme. Students who have participated in He Tuākana have achieved better
academic results than those who have chosen not to participate. He Tuākana 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-ordinator’s 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.
32
(J) RESOLVING PROBLEMS WITH THIS COURSE
As a general principle, the University encourages the prompt and informal resolution of
all student concerns and complaints as they arise, in a collegial and non-adversarial
manner.
Informal Procedures
If you have a problem with a course please approach the lecturer or facilitator, in the first
instance. If you feel uncomfortable in directly approaching your lecturer or facilitator,
then please contact your Class Representative, who may talk with your lecturer, course
coordinator, or pursue the matter at a Staff Student Consultative Committee (SSCC)
meeting. You may approach the University Mediator’s 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 student’s grievance.
If neither of these approaches are 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.
33
(K) FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT THE INDIVIDUAL TESTS,
TEAM TESTS, AND THE FINAL EXAM
Individual Tests
What happens if I don’t 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 won’t 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 the University. For
further information, please see the section earlier 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 stream’s 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.whittaker@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 individual’s 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
34
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 can’t 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 team’s own logic and not directly on any subsequent class
discussion that might take place in that day’s workshop, e.g. don’t 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 for
your appeal, e.g. you will need to write a concise and focussed justification rather than a
long and rambling argument.
Final Exam
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 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, your coursework marks (worth 50% of your final grade in the course) will
be entered and 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.
The marks for any successful aegrotat and compassionate consideration applications
will also be released before the end of Week 12, e.g. for missed tests during the
semester where you will be receiving the average mark of the other tests that you did
complete.
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 have any impact on the team marks that you will receive.
This will only leave your team performance mark which will be posted on Cecil as soon as
possible and before the end of the study break. You team will be tracking your team
performance mark in class throughout the semester and so by your last workshop you
will already know your team’s total performance mark for everything that has taken
place up until Week 12. This will then only leave the mark for your team presentation
which takes place in your final workshop in Week 12. The team performance marks will
then be released on Cecil as soon as those presentation marks have been entered.
The exceptions, where a tiny number of students might not know all of their marks prior
to the time when they sit the final exam, will be (1) where academic honesty issues are
still being resolved (and so individual assignment marks might not have been released),
or (2) where you have not completed the University’s required Academic Integrity course
and so your assignment marks have not been released, or (3) where the Course
Administrator is still investigating such things as a possible missing individual test mark.
If you see any problems or issues with your coursework marks at the end of the course,
it is important that you let us know.
When will I learn my final grade? Your final grade will be released by the
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.
35
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. Or, if you have not completed
the University’s required online Academic Integrity Course, and you have not responded
to repeated email requests to do so, then we will also 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.
How does my final letter grade in the course relate to my marks? The standard
grading scheme for the Business School is shown below:
Grade %
A+ 90-100
A 85-89.99
A- 80-84.99
B+ 75-79.99
B 70-74.99
B- 65-69.99
C+ 60-64.99
C 55-59.99
C- 50-54.99
D+ 45-49.99
D 40-44.99
Who can I talk to about my final exam if I fail the course? University policy does
not allow your facilitators or course co-ordinators 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.
These procedures are outlined in the University Calendar. Do not contact your lecturers
directly because they cannot give out any information on final exams. Applications are
made through the Information Centre in the Clock Tower Building.
