Important - All About Assignments and Submission and Evaluation

This post clarifies 

1. What is the role of the assignments in your learning ?
2. How are assignments managed?
3. What happens if you do not submit at all ?
4. What happens when you submit assignments late ?
5. Is there any grace period ? 
6. The case of "identical assignments"
7. Recommended "Best Practice" for assignments

THE ROLE OF THE ASSIGNMENTS IN YOUR LEARNING  

1. Your course is accredited by an international body called AMBA as being "Equivalent to an MBA". By definition any management course, that calls itself thus, needs to have a plan of about 1500 hours of study.  Your course engages you on the campus only for about 300 hours in the class room over 60 days (all 7 contacts together). The remaining 1200 hours are allocated for reading, self-study, assignments and the project (dissertation). 
2. Hence the assignments are an integral and important part of the course - not only for fulfilling the time requirement but also for reinforcing what you learn on the campus. For the course as a whole, the final grades you will get are based 50% on the exams, 35% on the assignments and 15% of the project. 
3. The point to note is that you will generally not be able to clear the course unless you submit most of the  assignments in time - and of good academic quality.   The assignments are also important because they make you apply what you have learned in the class to your own company.
4. Since the certificates are given to individuals, ALL academic evaluations - examinations, assignments and projects - are to be attempted individually and not as a group. We therefore expect all submissions to be different. But sometimes we do find two assignments which are "Identical". These are defined as assignments which are either identical - or so similar to each other - that there seems to be a prima facie reason to investigate the matter further.  If this issue cannot be resolved amicably, we refer it to the academic committee which may, in turn, refer the matter to the company mentors and HR departments to seek their advice

 HOW ARE ASSIGNMENTS "MANAGED" ?

You are aware that your companies have a way of managing the achievement of any goals ( examples : sales, collections, production, activities etc) and it consists of setting targets, assigning responsibilities, encouraging performers, discouraging sloth, finding and correcting exceptions. We adopt the same system - Each assignment has a "target" (deadline) attached to it and these are clearly stated in the mail from your batch coordinator and it is also on the Moodle site. You are aware that any "target" oriented system MUST differentiate between people who meet the target and those who don't. Our system to do this is that we encourage people to attempt the assignments and submit them in time by

• giving assignment wording and dates well in time
• allowing you to ask the professor in the class to clarify unclear aspects when you are on campus

WHAT HAPPENS IF YOU DONT SUBMIT AT ALL?

A person not submitting any assignments are unlikely to clear the course.  "Not submitted" is defined as the situation on the first day of the "next contact" : there is neither any assignment for the previous contact available on the Moodle site and there is no mail in the inbox of the batch coordinator from the mentor / HR head explaining - to the satisfaction of the Institute - the unavoidable circumstances which resulted into no submissions . E mail from the participant himself is not suffiicient.

WHAT HAPPENS TO LATE SUBMISSIONS? 

"Late submissions" are defined as those assignments that were not found in on the moodle site at the midnight time of the specified deadline for the assignment. Late submissions are different from "no submission" hence "No submission" cannot be treated as late submission.  Late submissions, whether submitted on the moodle site after the deadline, or sent separately by e mail , are kept aside and not evaluated in the normal course. Please note that late submissions are evaluated only at the end of the course and that too only if you fall short of the minimum grades needed for passing.  Even in that case we evaluate only your late submissions only to the extent such a gap. However please do not under-estimate the value of learning that you derive by solving the application assignments.

IS THERE ANY GRACE PERIOD FOR SUBMISSION? 

There is only one deadline for submission of any given assignment and no grace period is given. However some of us have a habit of undertaking  a task only when the deadline has expired and it has become overdue ! Therefore we advise you to treat a date - of one week earlier than the deadline date - as your own "first deadline". This way,  you will be able to meet the real deadline even if you do not meet your own deadline.

 BEST PRACTICE FOR ASSIGNMENT SUBMISSION

You must read the assignments, understand them and get doubts clarified before you leave the campus after a contact. Read the assignment from the handbook - or ask your subject coco for it - or ask your batch coordinator - or ask the Professor . But, get your doubts clarified and questions answered before you go back home.