MODULE HANDBOOK

ADVANCES IN ACCOUNTING

MODULE HANDBOOK

1 INTRODUCTION AND RATIONALE
This is an important component of the BA (Hons) Accounting Degree to be carried out in the second semester of the final year. The broad aim of the module is to offer students the opportunity to investigate a real and current issue within the field of accounting or finance. In particular, students must demonstrate that they can structure a programme of study, identify information needs, draw from the body of existing knowledge on a particular subject, compare theory with practice, construct reasoned arguments supported by evidence, and make logical conclusions, all within a context of independent study and strict deadlines. Students will select their study topics from a list of approved topics. The output of this module comprises a short interim report which will be marked, and a final report of 5000 words. Key dates are shown as Appendix 1 and discussed in the text.

2 MODULE STRUCTURE AND OUTCOMES
The module runs in semester 2 and is split into two periods. The first period is weeks 1 – 3, and the second period weeks 4 – 12. The staff support team and the cohort of students meet three times during the first period .

PERIOD 1 (WEEKS 1 – 3)

WEEK 1
The module leader introduces the module and reviews the module handbook. A list of topics or subjects will be presented to you electronically beforehand – All current issues are related to accounting or finance. This list is designated as Appendix 5 but is handed out separately from the handbook. Normally, there will be at least one topic from each of Financial Accounting, Management Accounting and Financial Management, but this may vary. Each topic is supported by a named member of staff. Initially, students are invited to select two topics from this list – one of which will subsequently be allocated. The deadline for student selection is on 26th July (Monday) before 23:59pm. Your selection should be registered by emailing Kaplan Higher Education, Terence Li at [email protected]. Your email should give: FIRST LINE – your name and ID number; SECOND LINE – first choice topic number, title, and tutor; THIRD LINE – second choice topic number, title, and tutor. Make sure this email cannot be misinterpreted by the Module Co-ordinator – it will not be possible to revisit your selection at a later date. The selection outcome will be on first come, first serve basis. Students will find that they have been placed in groups which have the same topic through update.

Student’s initial questions on all topics will be covered at the first meeting, and students will be expected to perform some preliminary research in their own time in order to ensure they make the best choice. After the selection deadline, the module leader will review student choices and decide which single topic will be allocated to each student in order to maximise the number of first choices. This list will be replaced through update before the first meeting.#p#分頁標題#e#

WEEK 2
Staff and students meet again in the second week at the time shown for their topic group. Students will be expected to sit in the groups to which they have been allocated. There will be short presentations to each group by the staff emphasising their expectations of the students. Then, students will be encouraged to quiz the relevant staff member about anything to do with this module including but not restricted to:

• the definition and boundaries of the topic
• the structure of the report
• relevant objectives
• relevant sources of information and methodology
• the way in which students should demonstrate the achievement of their objectives
• the marking scheme
• etc

It is expected that the effectiveness of this support session will be enhanced by constructive preliminary research by individual students. Students are free to share the fruits of their individual research with others or not i.e. there are no group components in the inputs or outputs of this module. The reason for the groupings of students into topics is to maximise the efficiency of staff support being offered. But all students should be aware that they will not have private access to tutors at any time in this module. And from week 4 , they will have no access to tutor support except for the feedback from their Interim Report (see below), and emailed questions to tutors which will have a public reply (see section - Tutor Support).

Therefore, the more effort you put into quizzing the tutors the first three weeks the better prepared you will be.
 

WEEK 3
This will be a repeat of the week 2 process, with timing as before.

PERIOD 2 (WEEKS 4 – 12)

Students work on their reports in the period week 4 – week 12. Students are free to work with others in order to share data, but it is imperative that all text submitted in your report is each student’s own. Staff will be diligent in comparing the work of different students working on the same topic. In addition, all reports will be submitted to the plagiarism detection software, TURNITIN.

Two separate submissions must be made. The first, called the INTERIM REPORT, should be submitted by email to the tutor concerned by 25 Aug 2010 (Wed). No hard copy should be submitted to the Student Centre. This should take the form of Chapter 1 of the final report and include an introduction, background to the topic, specific objectives as determined by each individual student, and the methodology being planned. There should also be an initial (short) list of references of the source material already accessed. Word length guidance is 1000 words excluding references. This report will be marked by your tutor, and this mark, along with comprehensive written feedback, will be provided to each student by email – by Early week 6. Students should ensure that their email address is included on the frontice piece of their Interim Report to ensure speedy delivery of feedback. Marks will be awarded out of 10 percentage points of the total for the module. Students can assume that they will be free to re-write their interim report when establishing Chapter 1 for the final report, i. e. they can improve Chapter 1 after receiving feedback.#p#分頁標題#e#

Secondly, the FINAL REPORT (including a revised Chapter 1, if necessary) should be submitted by Thursday 28 Oct 2010. This is week 14, deliberately set in advance of the Exam period. Submission comprises two components:

• Two hard copies submitted to the Student Centre (and a receipt obtained).

• An electronic version, containing the main body only of the report, submitted through the TURNITIN gateway on the Advances BREO site.

The word length guidance is 5000 words. All submissions will be double blind marked. In line with University policy, borderline students will be invited to attend a recorded VIVA with the staff team.

TUTOR SUPPORT
There will not be direct contact support sessions in period weeks 4 - 12. However, students may email the relevant tutor with questions at any time up to and including 22 Oct 2010 (week 13). Tutors will reply as appropriate on BREO (not by individual email) so that all students can see the responses to all questions deemed legitimate by the staff.

3 PLAGIARISM AND CHUNKING
It has to be emphasised that plagiarism, the passing off of other peoples’ work as your own, will be severely penalised. Plagiarism includes the work of other students as well as other researchers (published or unpublished).

In addition, students should recognise that “chunking” must be minimised in order to avoid penalties. Chunking is where other peoples’ material is imported into your work in its entirety – even though referencing may have been properly executed. There is no room for such inclusion in a 5000-word report. Students will be pleased that they will be permitted to use the TURNITIN software in order to test different versions of their draft report for plagiarism and chunking – an overall percentage is displayed for each submission by the system. Students may submit their work in “draft” as many times as they wish before the deadline of 28 Oct 2010. At this time, all reports as lodged on TURNITIN will be deemed to become final. Any final reports with more than 10% non-original material (this includes both plagiarism and chunking) will not be marked and disciplinary charges may be initiated.

Remember, any material submitted to TURNITIN as described above should not include Acknowledgements, Title Page, Contents, Reference lists, Bibliographies, Attachments or Appendices.

You have been warned, but the solution lies in your own hands. Make sure you minimise chunking right from the start by paraphrasing any long passages of other peoples’ words which you feel should be included as essential to the development of your logic. Then test your work, either in whole or in part, using the draft facility on TURNITIN. If the reading is over 10%, then re-write!

It is assumed students are familiar with the process of TURNITIN access through a module gateway.#p#分頁標題#e#

4 STRUCTURE
A suggested (but not mandatory) structure could look like this:

Title Page
Acknowledgements
Contents
Chapter 1 - Introduction
Chapter 2 - Theory (from the literature)
Chapter 3 - Practice (from the literature)
Chapter 4 - The application of theory to practice (your own “value
added)
Chapter 5 - Conclusions, recommendations, or implications for
the future.
References
Appendices

A five-chapter structure gives you 1000 words per chapter as a guideline, but chapters need not be of the same length. Your chapters should be entitled as is appropriate for your particular study. Other structures may be suitable and any sensible structure is permitted. References should be made using the Harvard system (see Appendix 2). Font size should be 12-point Ariel with one and a half line spacing. Other tips to help the style and integrity of your report are also shown in Appendix 3. A sample title page is shown as Appendix 3.

5 SYNTAX
Because your submission takes the form of a business report (rather than an essay) we are imposing a strict requirement for paragraphs – this means the way in which you arrange your words and paragraphs throughout the report. The requirement is that all your paragraphs take a particular simple form as follows:

The first sentence says what the paragraph is about.

The second sentence expands on the first and explains it.

The third sentence discusses the implications of the statements which have been made in the paragraph so far.

The fourth (and possibly the fifth) sentence expands on the third either to introduce the next paragraph or to link to the overall report objectives.

An example of good practice would look like this:

“Peter Patrick (2006) claims that paragraphs are more persuasive if they are simple. This means that only one concept should be included in each paragraph. If two or more concepts are included the message to the reader from that paragraph can be confused or even obliterated. In the next paragraph but one there is an example of this confusion”.

Another example of good practice:

“Plagiarism should be excluded from your work. Thus, a direct quotation should be properly referenced and longer sources of information should be strictly paraphrased in your own words. If your work is shown to include plagiarism or chunking you will be penalised. In some cases, you could be given a zero mark and not permitted to re-present, thereby failing your degree”.

An example of bad practice:

“Students should use their own words in a simple paragraph structure. The source of any information supporting your arguments should be paraphrased by picking out the principle concepts and adding further sentences to make the point clear. Accordingly, each paragraph should add value to your overall arguments but you will not be accused of plagiarism. There is a similar argument to restrict chunking”.#p#分頁標題#e#

If you write paragraphs like the first two, you will be less tempted to try chunking.

6 MARKING
An indication of “A” Grade work and “E/F” Grade work is tabulated as Appendix 4. Standards for B, C and D Grade work can be interpolated. The weightings of marks for the 5 processes identified in this appendix (Introduction and Objectives, Presentation of Evidence, Comparative Analysis, Outcomes and Overall Presentation and Structure) are also specified. These weightings will be used in establishing your mark for the Final Report. This is aggregated with the separate Interim Report mark in the proportion 10% Interim Report to 90% Final.

ADVANCES IN ACCOUNTING AC040 - 3

KEY DATES

DAY
DATE
TIME
PLACE
EVENT

Mon 26 July* Before HK Time 23:59 Email to Terence Start of week 1. Students register two (2) topics as their first choice and second choice (see email special format)
Wed 28 July Email from Terence Students find out which of their two topics have been allocated.
Wed 28 July Email from Terence Topic to be confirmed and announced to students
Week 2 - 3 2-13 Aug First student support session. Students sit in Topic groups with their tutors.
Initial meeting of staff and students when the module will be introduced and explained. A list of topics will be issued and briefly presented by each tutor.
Week 4 – 5 16-24 Aug Second student support session.
Wed 25 Aug Email to Tutor Students submit INTERIM REPORT (include email address for return of feedback).
Week 6 30 Aug- 3 Sept Email from Tutor By this date students should have received their emailed feedback and mark for the INTERIM report
Week 7 - 13  weeks

Week 13 22 Oct Email You may email questions any time up to this
Week 14 28 Oct Students submit their FINAL REPORT (two hard copies plus TURNITIN). There will be no submission of discs.

*email to Terence at [email protected]
  

ADVANCES IN ACCOUNTING KAP005 - 3

STYLE GUIDE

• As your investigation is into current issues in accounting, it is unlikely that many of your references will be from before the year 2000.

• It is not intended that your report will include primary data investigations.

• A title page pro-forma is shown as Appendix 3. This should be preceded by the standard Assignment Topsheet, suitably completed, and followed by a page showing the contents of the report chapter by chapter.

• Each chapter may be split into sections with separate headings, but paragraph numbering is not required.

• Any tables or diagrams should be numbered sequentially in each chapter and carefully dated and referenced (do not rely on the numbering in the original source).

#p#分頁標題#e#

• You should use the Harvard System of referencing, as follows:

In the text: Cormack (1994, pp32-33) states that “when writing for a professional readership, authors invariably make reference to already published works”.

In the list of references: Cormack, Alistair, 1994. Good Essay Writing: A guide. Cambridge: Open University Press.

The permitted variations on the above for journals, websites, and multiple authors etc can be found by googleing “Harvard Referencing System” and entering an appropriate site.

ADVANCES IN ACCOUNTING

Your topic title (in your own words)

by

Student Name & Number

A project submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirement for the degree of
BA (Hons) Accounting

Date of submission

 

ADVANCES IN ACCOUNTING KAP005 - 3

MARKING INDICATORS

“A” GRADE “E/F” GRADE
Introduction and objectives

(10% weighting) Clear statement of historical or current background to the issues with justification for distinct, measurable objectives and associated, realistic methodology. Objectives unclear or confused and without justified connection to the topic. Inadequate or infeasible methodology.
Presentation of evidence

(30% weighting) Comprehensive and measured presentation of information from a wide range of sources and demonstrably relevant to objectives and outcomes. References properly incorporated into the text and listed after the text in alphabetical order (Harvard). Presentation of information limited in scope and relevance to the objectives being pursued. Weak or disconnected sequence of contents. Use of assertion rather than evidence.
Comparative analysis

(25% weighting) Critical evaluation of how theory has been applied to practice and why. Identification of the significance of the practical realities which have been investigated and analysed – in respect to the report objectives. Failure to establish a body of relevant theory for the study and the absence of an examination of how this is being applied in practice. Failure to connect with objectives. Descriptive rather than analytical.
Outcomes

(20% weighting)
Robust, logical conclusions and/or expectations of implications for the future. Identification of shortcomings in the methodology leading to explained limitations in the general applicability of outcomes. Objectives achieved, demonstrably. Conclusions which bear little relation to the investigation attempted in the body of the report and/or do not relate to the original objectives.
Overall presentation and structure

(15% weighting)
Demonstrates strong logical coherence between chapters. Use of clear articulation and general adherence to the recommended simple paragraph structure. A series of unrelated chapters with arguments, implications, and outcomes difficult to identify, understand or link together.
Note: These are not chapter headings.