Monday 19 February 2018

The Role of the Project Mentor: Oxford Brookes Project , BSc applied Accounting , OBU THESIS, OBU HELp

The Role of the Project Mentor

The Role of Project Mentor

Completing the RAP requires you to have a project mentor. The mentor must be someone who seems to you like an appropriate person to steer you through the RAP process and guide you through its different stages. People usually misinterpret the function of the mentor. Since the degree demands pondering over research questions by yourself and conducting your own research, it would be unfair to expect the mentor to be knowledgeable in your specific topic area and know explicit scholarly research methodologies that you mean to use.

According to the OBU Information Pack, the project mentor has two fundamental roles:
·         To guide you and give feedback at suitable times during your RAP activities, and hence support your RAP preparation
·         To assure the Oxford Brookes University as your project mentor that  you have committed no plagiarism in preparing your RAP

OBU particularly believes that the mentor must not ‘give you detailed advice on the structure and content of your Research Report or write any part of it’. Moreover, knowing what to do in order to meet the assessment criteria to pass is also your own job, and must not be expected from the mentor. The following are however the qualities that are worthwhile to be there in a mentor:
·         Is easy to talk to and really wants to help students complete their objectives
·         Listens with interest and motivates you to gain more by questioning your methods
·         Regards the secrecy of your research and is reliable
·         Seeks novel ideas and addresses problems during the research
·         Gives a good and healthy feedback on the research to help you improve
·         Has good communication skills and believes that there must be no communication gaps for a healthy participation
·         Motivates and encourages the student
·         Helps the student in acquiring their aims and objectives
·         Helps the student in raising the appropriate questions, ponder in an organized way, learn to use suitable assessment methods and analyse the findings to draw conclusions from them
·         Is neutral in cases of conflict and does not pass a critical judgment
·         Gives slight guidance but makes sure student has liberty in making decisions
·         Is well-informed and skillful
·         Understands the methodologies even if he/she is not an expert on the subject

How to choose a Mentor

Please note that you will have to work intimately with your mentor to seek his/her guidance and feedback, therefore use the list above in selecting your mentor diligently. You need to make sure you can have a sound relationship with your mentor with no future regrets as you would be expected to have at least 3 meetings with him/her at different stages of your RAP preparation and completion. Therefore seek advice from students who have already been through the RAP process by seeking recommendations and feedback from them on their own past mentors in order to select your own.
The current OBU guidelines state that persons in these categories might be suitable:
·         Your teacher at College or University
·         A senior colleague at your workplace, e.g. your line manager
·         A qualified Chartered Certified Accountant
If your chosen mentor does not fit the above criteria however, you can send a copy of his/her CV to the ACCA office for approval. The approval will most likely be given if the proposed mentor is a member of a recognized professional institute or organization and/or has a degree of equivalent qualification.
Since this might also not be possible in some cases, you can also find a mentor on OBU’s register of listed mentors (listing requires completing the OBU mentoring course). Please acknowledge that listing only means that the particular mentor has received suitable mentor training, but no mentor is in any way endorsed or recommended by OBU. Every mentor sets his own fee for using his/her mentorship and it is not under the control of OBU whether they are listed or not.
It is proposed however that from 2015 onwards, it will be compulsory to use a listed mentor. Listing will still not imply recommendation by OBU, but a mentor might be removed from the list if he/she is evidently not performing the mentoring role sufficiently.

The OBU RAP Information Pack contains further information directly intended for the mentor, so you will need to make sure your mentor goes through it once you have made a choice and chosen a mentor. 
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