Assignment instructions
1. Please monitor CloudDeakin for any additional instructions/announcements.
Submission instructions
1. This assignment is to be submitted ONLINE ONLY (You are NOT required to
submit a hard copy).
2. Please follow all instructions contained in this document.
3. The complete d assignment must be submitted into the allocated area on
CloudDeakin under the Dropbox folder.
4. This is a group submission. Only one assignment per group is to be submitted.
5. You are not required to upload an Assignment Cover Sheet. You will
complete a Plagiarism declaration when you access the Dropbox.
6. Once submitted you cannot take your assignment back BUT you CAN
SUBMIT another version. The most recent version submitted will be marked.
7. Please refer to the rubric for guidance on the marking structure.
A note on plagiarism and collusion
Plagiarism and collusion are forms of cheating and is considered a serious
academic misconduct. Se ve re p e n a l t i e s a r e as sociated w i t h them.
Please refer to the MPA702 uni t g u i d e f or your r e s p o n s i b i l i t i e s w i t h
r e g a r d t o p la gia ri s m a n d o t h e r academic offences.
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Penalties applied in this assignment
1. Assignments submitted after the due date will attract a penalty of 2 marks
per day (out of the total of 30 marks) unless an extension has been granted in
writing by the unit chair.
2. The final examination is the only hurdle requirement for the unit.
Discussion area for this assignment
There is a discussion area on CloudDeakin entitled ‘Assignment Discussion’.
This area is for you to discuss the assignment. It is an area to help each other
– it is NOT an area for the suggested answers to be provided to each other. You
must also utilise the Group Discussion area for your group as evidence of group
member participation.
Receiving your mark and suggested solution
Your mark for the assignment will be available in Grades w i t h i n 15 working
day s from your assignment submission date.
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Requirements:
This assignment is a team task which involves self-learning, some ‘real world’ research
and team-work skills.
Step 1 -Team formation
All groups must consist of five (5) members.
Students are free to form their own groups with students either on campus or Cloudbased.
Groups are to submit their details to the Unit Chair by end of week 2. Those
students who wish the Unit Chair to allocate them into a group must advise the unit chair
in writing and they will be notified of their group number and fellow group members. For
those students who have not contacted the Unit Chair by end of week 2, they will be
automatically assigned to groups and notified accordingly.
A student is not able to withdraw from the team he or she has been allocated to in Cloud
Deakin unless the student decides to withdraw from the unit. In that case the withdrawing
student must inform the unit chair so the team impacted by the withdrawal can be
informed.
Each team will be assigned a company listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX)
for the group assignment. Each team will have its own ‘private’ discussion forum set up
in CloudDeakin to facilitate team discussions. It is compulsory to use CloudDeakin
‘private’ discussion forum which enables the Unit Chair to assess each team member’s
participation and contribution in case there are any disputes between students in a team.
The Unit Chair can also participate in the online discussion by providing necessary
guidance if off-track discussions/activities are observed. If a team chooses to use
communication applications such as Whatsapp and Skype etc. in order to facilitate online
meetings or conversations, the team must be prepared to provide screen shots of the
communication in the event of member disputes.
Step 2 – Self-Learning
Read chapter 10 of the prescribed textbook and:
1. Be able to calculate financial ratios;
2. Understand the meaning of each financial ratio; and
3. Understand and be able to use financial ratios to assess a company’s financial
performance, financial position and market performance.
Step 3 – Financial analysis
You are required to calculate and analyse all relevant ratios for a five year period. Each
group member must calculate one years of ratios (ensuring same formulas are used) and
evidence of this participation must be included in your group discussion area.
Analyse the changes in the following ratios of the company based on your five year
calculations :
1) profitability
2) operating efficiency
3) liquidity and solvency and
4) market performance
Other information relevant to your analysis:
To enable a comprehensive analysis of your company there will be additional relevant
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information including, but not limited to, performance of, and existence of competitors and
regulatory and/or environmental factors influencing your company/industry.
Step 4 Writing up group report and submitting the group assignment
Your report must adhere to the structure set out below:
Section 1 Title page:
? The title page should be the first page of your report. It must include the following
information:
? Title: ‘Analysis and interpretation of the performance of (name of company)’
Unit code and unit name: MPA702 – Financial Interpretation
? Name of the Unit Chair: Ms Rhonda Ryan
? A table with the syndicate team number, the full names and Deakin student ID of
team members and each member’s contribution to the overall assignment
(must be in percentage format)
? Due date: Tuesday 10th May, 11.59pm (AEST). If granted a time extension, then
insert the revised date approved by the Unit Chair (show approved date)
? The following statement: “We certify that the attached work is entirely our own,
except where material quoted or paraphrased is acknowledged in the text. We also
declare that it has not been submitted for assessment in any other unit or course.”
? Reports that do not contain this statement will not be assessed.
Section 2 Introduction (maximum 250 words):
Contains a concise discussion of:
? The background of the company;
? The purpose of the group assignment.
Section 3 Trend and cross-sectional financial analysis (maximum 2,000 words):
You must use the financial ratios to analyse a company’s five years’ (2011-2015)
profitability, operating efficiency, liquidity, solvency and market performance. You need to
analyse whether the changes of a company’s financial position and performance are
caused by any external factors such as regulatory changes, increased market competition,
changes of consumer preferences, foreign exchange fluctuation or some other relevant
events, especially when there are significant changes in performance (hint: you may find
this information from director’s report or media reports). Also remember to take all ratios,
where appropriate, to two decimal places (ie ROE 10.75% not 10%)
If you are able to find industry averages, compare a company’s financial ratios with the
industry average. However, this is not always available data.
This is to be presented a business report so therefore use appropriate sub-headings
throughout your report.
Section 4 Conclusion (maximum 500 words):
Provide a summary of the issues raised with concluding remarks.
Section 5 References:
Any material used in this assignment must be acknowledged and appropriately
referenced. Plagiarism by any student is a serious matter and, if it occurs, it will be dealt
with on a case-by-case basis with penalties imposed. Please refer to the Unit Guide for
more information on ‘referencing’. The reference list (using Harvard Referencing
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System which you can find from CloudDeakin Internal Assessment folder) is not
included in the total word count and this gives flexibility as to the extent of the research
that is necessary to form opinions.
Please make sure that you adhere to the total word limit (2,750 words). A 10% tolerance
will be applied. A penalty of 20% will be applied to assessments of excessive length.
Each page of the report should be numbered, and every page must have a header that
identifies full name and I.D. of every contributing student, and the unit code MPA702.
You can use figures (or tables) to exhibit the trend change of a company’s financial ratios.
If figures are used, they need to be fully discussed and analysed. Figures should be
numbered sequentially, given appropriate captions and placed in the main body of your
report at suitable points. Please attach your ratio calculations to your submission as the
Appendix.
Step 5 Write up a Self-reflection and submit it to the Dropbox created for it
Self-reflection is to be completed individually by each member of the team (max.250 words
for each member).
Each MEMBER of a team must write a self-reflection, addressing the following:
? What you have contributed to the group assignment;
? What you have learned from your peers by working as a group;
? Advantages and disadvantages associated with working as part of a group;
? How you would work differently when you need to work in a team in future.
Step 6 Submission
The written report must be submitted electronically by the due date as a Microsoft Word
document by uploading it to the Dropbox in CloudDeakin. Each group must nominate one
member to upload the report. When uploading your report, give the document a name
using the following syntax: <Group number_MPA702.doc (or ‘.docx’), for example,
‘Group 1_MPA702.doc’. Submitting a hard copy of this report is not required.
Please review the section on ‘Plagiarism’ in the Unit Guide. You need to check that your
report does not contain plagiarism. This is done automatically when submitting your report
to the ‘Dropbox’, using Turnitin, which checks your report for plagiarism and generates an
originality report that you can use to be confident that your report does not contain
plagiarism. Turnitin will tell us (but tell you first) the extent to which your work has copied
material from others without appropriate recognition through referencing. If this is
excessive you will lose marks or you may not receive any marks, or you may have some
form of disciplinary action taken if the issue is severe. Take appropriate action to amend
your report to avoid this from happening. Note that uploading your report to Turnitin via the
prescribed link in CloudDeakin for this unit constitutes submission to this unit AND also
constitutes a declaration regarding the contents of the report being all your own work,
except where appropriate references to the work of others has been acknowledged. You
can upload your report to Dropbox as many times as you like up to the due date. In order
to avoid a late submission penalty, you must upload your report to Dropbox by the due
date. Reports that are submitted after the due date can still be uploaded to the Dropbox.
However, a penalty will be imposed where reports are submitted past the due date.
Group/s that require a time extension in relation to this report should discuss this with the
Unit Chair, supported by documentation (e.g. medical certificate). Students are also
reminded that extensions will only be given for exceptional and unusual circumstances
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outside the students’ control and should be arranged with the Unit Chair prior to
submission date.
Team work spirit – Important
Each group member is expected to contribute equally and the assessment panel reserves
the right to have a peer performance review as part of grading of this task, should any
group request it, based on group interpretation of individual performance. Each group
must submit an integrated report rather than an assignment with disjointed pieces written
by different group members. The group as a whole must ensure all the fonts, tables, space
between paragraphs and reference list are presented in a consistent manner and the
discussion in the report is presented in a logical flow.
The marking rubrics for the group written report and self-reflection will be uploaded to
CloudDeakin. Please read them and understand how your assignment will be marked.
Should you need further clarification on internal assessments, feel free to post your
queries online.
