Assignment change less than a week before due date ????

greengirl31

Hi All …

I’m a first yr in a business course in UCD so I’m just checking to see if this is common practice. We were given all of our assignments for the semester back in September and the last one is due in on Monday. Tuesday morning we got a mail from the course coordinator to tell us that as students were finding it difficult to source the information for one part of the question so it was changed to what is now a much more straightforward question.

Now, I think this is a little unfair as I HAD sourced the info and completed that part of the question so the students that were starting the assignment later than I did will have an advantage over me. I mailed the coordinator and she told me that it was just practice for an exam question and no one will be at a disadvantage but I don’t think that’s the case. To me, it’s a bit like saying ‘That exam’s a little bit hard – have you got another one I can do’

Am I right to be p1ssed off or does this happen a lot ??

Sanguine Fan

greengirl31 wrote: »

Am I right to be p1ssed off or does this happen a lot ??

That sounds pretty appalling. On the face of it, it suggests weak academic standards on the part of your co-ordinator.

A key requirement for any student is the ability to source research material, however difficult that may be. The fact that you managed it means others could to.

If the assignement is not crucial, why not ask your co-ordinator if you can submit what you have already completed?

greengirl31

Well it's a distance learning course so I don't see my classmates alot but the ones I am in touch with hadn't started the assignment yet so they're delighted that they have an easier question!! The only reason I had started early was that I wanted to have it done before the weekend.
Now they will accept the assignment I've done which is grand but I still think the question I've answered is more difficult !!!

[Jackass]

I'd be very pissed off about that to be fair. But they must have presumed that they made a mistake by giving an overly complicated / difficult assignment for the level at which it was being tested, so had no choice but to correct it.

Or they may have felt that they had given an assignment with insufficient academic resources for it to be acceptable to the standard expected, and again, would have to correct it.

It's a sh*t one, and no it is not common practice, but you just have to accept it and move on, there's nothing you can do about it. In a situation like that, there are winners and losers, you just happen to be on the wrong side of the spectrum this time I'm afraid.

Sanguine Fan

greengirl31 wrote: »

Well it's a distance learning course

That might make a difference if some students on your course don't have easy access to resources such as specialist libraries, etc.

In that situation I would echo Jackass's advice and chalk it up to experience. Sounds like you are pretty resourceful and will do well anyway.:)

greengirl31

Thanks for the replies folks.

I probably wouldn't care if I hadn't nearly finished the assignment when it was changed but because I had I'm annoyed.

I see what you're saying about the distance learning thing we're all distant for all the assignments and there's plenty on line that we have access to AND - we were in UCD for lectures last weekend and the library was open. You see we had an assignment due on the 19 Nov and this one is due 2 weeks after that so I think it was time management that was the issue for some other students which i can appreciate but still ....
This isn't the first time she's u turned on something so i'm just a little frustrated with her as much as the assignment
But you're right - I'll put it down to experiance but I'll bang off another mail before i do !!