Assignment 2 – Articles critique: group report and group presentation
Weighting: 40% (Group Report 20%; Group Presentation 20%)
Due: to be scheduled during Weeks 12 and 13 (or as arranged by your local tutor).
Your Group Report must be lodged PRIOR TO delivering your Group Presentation.
NOTE: All times are NSW (Sydney) time
You are required to do four things for this Assignment:
1. Form (or be allocated to) a Group of 3
2. Research and agree on 3 articles where a relevance to ACC00106 can be demonstrated
3. Prepare a (Group) report as detailed below (20% of total ACC00106 assessment)
4. Make a class presentation (the Group) of your issue (20% of total ACC00106 assessment)
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1. Form a Group of 3
You are offered an opportunity to form your own group of 3. To action this offer, you are invited to form your nominated group prior to Census date (that is, PRIOR TO Week 5). Once you form your Group, advise your tutor of a Group Name and the members of your Group.
It is quite OK and if you have not formed a Group by Week 5 … the consequence is you will be allocated to a Group by the end of Week 5.
If you are enrolled in on-campus classes this will be sorted out with your local tutor (if you have not self-selected prior to Week 5). If you are enrolled as an online student this will be sorted out by the unit assessor (if you have not self-selected prior to Week 5).
Groups will be confirmed during Week 5 (this is AFTER the date for Withdrawal Without Fail and Census Date and thus a reduced likelihood of Group disruption from student withdrawals).
Once confirmed you are committed to your Group and expected to co-operate and contribute (as per instructions for the Task – see #2 - 4 below).
A group area will be set up for you to use in MySCU once the Group has been established. You will have access to Group email, a Group wiki each accessible via a Group section that would be visible in MySCU after group confirmation and you are welcome to use the Student Only Lounge or the Learning Space room anytime for Group meetings via Collaborate. Consider this your Group work space. While you are, of course, free to use other communication forms for your Group interactions, just be aware that if any disputes arise over who has done what and when it may be difficult for you to provide supporting evidence … the tools mentioned earlier provide and automatic log.
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2. Research and agree on 3 articles where a relevance to ACC00106 can be demonstrated
Your 3 articles need to be chosen to allow the critique set out in #3 below to be achieved. This is intended to extend the depth of your analysis and application of theories in comparison to your individual efforts for Assessment 1.
While you may find articles relevant to several Topics in the unit, it is strongly suggested you choose a single topic as the focus for your choice and critique. This is primarily a constraint imposed by the Report length and the time for your presentation.
Consistent with Assignment 1, research and agree on three (3) articles published after 1 January 2017. Your articles can be sourced from business publications or media (e.g. business journals, newspapers, periodicals, Internet contributions, TV reports, etc.) and/or academic journals. However, please observe the following:
• Your three articles should not come from the same source (e.g. a single publication);
• Your three articles should not come from the same type of source (e.g. NOT all from an academic journal or a newspaper etc.)
• Only 1 article from one of your Group members may be rolled over from Assignment 1 as a starting point (but you are encouraged to use 3 fresh (new) articles).
This is intended to extend the depth of your analysis and application of theories in comparison to your individual choices for Assessment 1.
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3. Prepare a (Group) report as detailed below (20% of total ACC00106 assessment)
Limit your Group written report to a maximum of four (4) typed pages (excluding cover sheet (if used), executive summary (if used), contents list (if used), reference list (required, please use Harvard style)). Consider the equivalent of 500 words per page. Material submitted beyond four pages will not be assessed. Group written reports must be submitted electronically in your Group Area PRIOR TO your Group Presentation. Exercise COMMON SENSE with your report format and focus on the substance NOT font size, font type and margins etc.
This is intended to extend the depth of your analysis and application of theories in comparison to your individual choices for Assessment 1.
What are we looking for as a Group for our report?
Identify and apply any of the theories covered in ACC00106 that you believe would assist a reader to understand the issues being discussed in the articles your Group has selected.
1. Identify the theoretical issue(s) covered in a topic(s) of ACC00106 that relates with the most salience (relevance) to the overall contents of your selected articles. DO NOT DEFINE INDIVIDUAL THEORIES!
2. Provide examples of agreements, disagreements or coverage disparities between the contents of the articles and the contents of the chosen ACC00106 topic coverage in the ACC00106 Study Guide, Readings and textbook. To do this, you need to compare the articles' content with the content of the various resources used in ACC00106 and in that comparison, you should identify agreements (similarities), disagreements (differences) and disparities (where one source mentions something and the other does not). DO NOT SUMMARISE THE ARTICLES! Use examples to illustrate theory.
3. Critique the articles. To do this you should at least:
• assess the significance of agreements, disagreements or disparities identified in the previous section. (Note: this is intended to assist you in deciding which articles to use in your assignment: you should choose those articles with the most significance in their agreement or disagreement with ACC00106 and NOT just between the articles. Degree of significance is a judgmental matter in this instance but you could ask the ‘so what?’ question and if your answer is ‘I don’t know’ then it is likely that the degree of significance is minor and so you should choose a different article. Similarly, if there are very large disparities between ACC00106 and the articles' content – using theories not covered in the unit - you may need to assess whether the articles have salience (relevance) with respect to ACC00106).
• assess whether you are in a position to form an opinion on the accuracy of the content of the articles (for example, are sources of information revealed in the articles? Or is the author in a position to be trusted in respect to this topic?)
• question if the articles’ coverage of the issues has been balanced and comprehensive enough to present useful information (more than a single perspective identified and presented) - DO NOT SUMMARISE THE ARTICLES!
• evaluate the worth of the articles to a decision maker who must consider similar issues in their respective roles (e.g. an investor seeking to evaluate investment opportunities; a manager wanting to make a resource allocation decision; a citizen wishing to exercise her civic rights; etc).
Note also there is an additional one-page summary guide available in this folder courtesy of Dr. Sally Ashton-Hay from the Academic Skills Department.
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4. Make a class presentation (the Group) of your issue (20% of total ACC00106 assessment)
Prepare and present a 15 minute (absolute maximum) Group presentation of the main issues in your report live to your class (if enrolled on campus) or online via Collaborate (if enrolled for online study).
Group presentations should be structured and presented as though they are briefings for busy executives who are interested in the topic at the centre of the group's work.
That is, provide your audience with an engaging and evidence-based presentation. (NOTE: you must lodge your Group Report prior to delivering your Group presentation). Do not simply read your report … devise a strategy to deliver the message about the significance of the findings in your report in an engaging way, making sure your presentation does not take longer than 15 minutes. Presentations will be cut-off after 15 minutes - anything not presented by then cannot be considered in marking.
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Marking criteria for Assessment Task 2
Templates are provided in assessment details section.
They reflect the requirements and guidelines set out in detail above.