Further Guidelines
Evaluate and apply the working relationships required of a competent accounting professional.
Offer recommendations in a consultancy project that either challenge behavioural, managerial or ethical guidelines in a modern-day scenario.
The module specifications suggest that you should use a consultative approach to make decisions based on your own research into contexts, ultimately providing practical advice and solutions to real-life scenarios in a report. This report will be presented only to the University of Derby. Therefore you are required to act as a business consultant and prepare a report analysing a modern day scenario. This modern day scenario can be developed by working consultatively with a business, an organisation or a group to devise a case study. You will be asked to complete a pro-forma ‘Participants Consent Letter’ (provided below), before you commence working with the organisation, that outlines confidentiality and permission.
You should consider this ‘project’ as a case study that you are compiling with the permission of an organisation. You should show how you have used your knowledge from your studies to date (developed from any/all of your modules in your programme, as well as from this module) to present recommendations/solutions to the issues/projects/tasks that have been considered. You are not to offer any advice to the organisation under any circumstances. You may consider this project as an opportunity to work with a real organisation to help your personal development, and to aid your achievement in this module only. It may be that it allows you to establish a relationship with an organisation that may blossom after your studies are complete, it may be that it can give you valuable work experience that you can use as evidence of your abilities – e.g. on application forms or in interviews. The project is to be internally assessed only.
You should seek to demonstrate how you have acted at all stages in your consultancy – you may do this by evidencing in your report what was done and use personal reflections on your working relationship with the organisation. E.g. you may record how you have conducted meetings or how you engaged upon analysing information. Importantly, you must also attempt to reflect upon any ethical/moral practices or codes of practice that you have abided by in your work, i.e. to demonstrate how you have acted professionally at all stages.
You should outline in a separate section in the report (which will be submitted to the University of Derby only) what hypothetical recommendations you could give to the organisation.
The nature of this assessment means that you could be communicating with many individuals and with different teams as you would do in a real working situation. Success would therefore require putting into practice the personal skills that you have been developing upon your programme to date. Therefore you will need to communicate with your module leader, and with all the other stakeholders (e.g. managers or other students) with regard to your engagement and consultancy.
PTO
Alternatively;
For students who are unable to broker an introduction to a real organisation, you will be allowed to complete an assignment based upon a modern-day case study that you must develop, but you must seek to ensure that you satisfy both learning outcomes in an adequate manner. This is anticipated to be more easily completed by working on a real live project with an organisation. Nevertheless, if you choose this option you should research an organisation and offer solutions/recommendations to any perceived issues that are fully explained within your report, i.e. justify the requirement for the project and for those solutions/recommendations, by defining the issue/problem. You will need to provide a solution that has not been trialled before and that reflects the current situation of that organisation. You must further develop the concepts outlined throughout the course by evaluating the necessity of the competent accountant to maintain professional working relationships.
Word limit: max 5000 words, however, reports are expected to be more concise (+/- 10% leeway).
Feedback: Feedback will aim to be delivered within 3 weeks of the assessment deadline.
Marking Criteria:
Please note that your project will be marked using the following general guidelines:
Assessment Criteria – equal weighting
Student Name: ID:
| Criteria | Z | 1 – 34% | 35 – 39% | 40 – 49% | 50 – 59% | 60 – 69% | 70 – 100% |
| Evidence professional conduct incorporating ethical/moral comprehension. Reflection. | |||||||
| Use of academic content/rigour/analysis, and use of models/techniques/theory | |||||||
| Clear solutions or recommendations that are logically and critically formed from your case data | |||||||
| Demonstrate how skills learnt from studies have been applied | |||||||
| Presentation, clarity and coherence of the report |
Comments:
| % mark | Mark Descriptors | Class |
| 70-100% | Excellent Outstanding; high to very high standard; a high level of critical analysis and evaluation, incisive original thinking; commendable originality; exceptionally well researched; high quality presentation; exceptional clarity of ideas; excellent coherence and logic. Trivial or very minor errors. | First |
| 60-69% | Very good A very good standard; a very good level of critical analysis and evaluation; significant originality; well researched; a very good standard of presentation; pleasing clarity of ideas; thoughtful and effective presentation; very good sense of coherence and logic; minor errors only. | Second Div 1 |
| 50-59% | Good A good standard; a fairly good level of critical analysis and evaluation; some evidence of original thinking or originality; quite well researched; a good standard of presentation; ideas generally clear and coherent, some evidence of misunderstandings; some deficiencies in presentation. | Second Div 2 |
| 40-49% | Satisfactory A sound standard of work; a fair level of critical analysis and evaluation; little evidence of original thinking or originality; adequately researched; a sound standard of presentation; ideas fairly clear and coherent, some significant misunderstandings and errors; some weakness in style or presentation but satisfactory overall. | Third |
| 35-39% | Unsatisfactory Overall marginally unsatisfactory; some sound aspects but some of the following weaknesses are evident; inadequate critical analysis and evaluation; little evidence of originality; not well researched; standard of presentation unacceptable; ideas unclear and incoherent; some significant errors and misunderstandings. Marginal fail. | Marginal Fail |
| 1-34% | Very poor Well below the pass standard; a poor critical analysis and evaluation; no evidence of originality; poorly researched; standard of presentation totally unacceptable; ideas confused and incoherent, some serious misunderstandings and errors. A clear fail well short of the pass standard. At the bottom of the range the work demonstrates nothing of merit. | Fail |
| NS | Non-submission No work has been submitted. | |
| Z | Academic offence notation Applies to proven instances of academic offence. |
