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Showing posts from December, 2012

Student plagiarism interviews - 2 stories

Case 1 Student plagiarism interview: how not to get high Professor: Student, your similiarity index is very high. Student: I was not aware I was high; now I know. Professor: You need to re-do your assignment. What would you do to avoid being so high? Student: I will not drink beer when I do the assignment next time. Case 2: Professor: Student, why did you plagiaris? Student: I adopt the same practice as other students to use "google translate" to translate the same articles in Chinese into English.. so my content is the same as that of my fellow classmates.. Professor: What would you do next time? Student: I should not use "google translate" but to employ an expert to do the translation for me - although it costs some money.. Professor: omg.....

A dissertation proposal on general mgt capability on technology: an example

An example of a dissertation proposal at the Master Degree level, written by me: Project (Dissertation) Title An evaluation of the general management capability of   XYZ Company to cope with the impact of technology: a case study Synopsis (250 – 300 words) The project is a case study to evaluate the general management capability of a company to cope with the impacts of technology. In this case, the research method used is the case study research method; it is mainly a qualitative research. It explicitly applies Ansoff (1984)’s approach, together   with the   updated   literature on core competence. The main aims of the projects are: a.      To evaluate the general management capability of a company to cope with technological impacts b.     To make recommendation to the client company on how to strengthen its general management capability to cope with technological impacts c.    ...

Evaluate a project using the Scenario Approach - a proposal example

An example of a dissertation proposal at the Master Degree level written by me: Project (Dissertation) Title An evaluation of ABC Project in XYZ Company based on the Scenario Approach: a case study [Note: ABC project is an organizational change initiative, e.g. an IT-enabled change and an introduction of a new logistics system, etc] Synopsis (250 – 300 words) The project is a case study to evaluate an organizational change initiative at the project feasibility study phase, e.g. an IT-enabled change or an introduction of a new logistics system, etc, to be introduced in a specific organization. In this case, the research method used is the case study research method; it is mainly a qualitative research. It explicitly applies the Scenario Approach to conduct the evaluation of the change initiative. The main aims of the projects are: a.      To evaluate the desirability as well as the impacts of introducing the change initiative in a spec...

Study 2 subjects in 1 semester: how and why

A part-time student asked me how to cope with the workload of studying for 2 subjects in 1 semester, and that the student was also concerned how her English language skill can be improved. I think these are related questions, as most subjects require a certain level of English language skill. I would like to point out 2 things: Make good use of your long-term memory, which has a much larger storage capacity of knowledge. To do so, you need to study your subjects early on and do so regularly. Try to develop a reading mode based on "leisure" reading; develop a genuine interest in your study. Try to read textbooks and academic articles, not condensed study notes for this purpose. On the topic of learning  English, I suggest students to read English newspapars and magazines; watching some English TV programmes and video clips in Youtube would also be useful. Recently, I also do some reading of English language booklets (re: http://josephkkhoworkdiary.blogspot.hk/2012/12/ha...

Which centre to choose for studying ACCA courses

This is the question asked by one of my Accounting student: which education centre to choose for studying ACCA courses so as to prepare for ACCA examination: First of all, the major centres use similar techniques: review condensed notes in workshops and then, review more condensed notes in intensive revision workshops; Centres I can name are: Kaplan, FTMS and HKUSPACE. My understanding is that the teaching style of FTMS and Kaplan are similiar and I  am not familiar with HKUSPACE's ACCA workshop setup.  I will not say which centre is the best choice to study, as I do not really know. I advise students to do some study before attending these workshops, as I do not believe that it is effective and right to solely rely on these exam-preparation workshops to develop accounting competence. This kind of workshops, while useful, have major limitations as a teaching mode. If students want to develop solid knowledge for exam preparation, they could not solely re...

The way (not) to study past exam papers

It has always been a popular practice to study past examination papers as a major way to prepare for examination. Not long ago, I sent out three past examination papers to students. They said they were important for their examination revision. Subsequently, when I marked the examination papers from the students,  I found that many students just wrote down the figures and steps from past examination paper answers for examination questions with different figures. That is, no matter what has been asked in the examination papers, as long as the questions are very similar to the old questions in previous examination papers, they just wrote down the previous examination answers for the old exam. papers. There could be many reasons why students did that, such as too much workload from another subject, or that the quality of teaching from the teacher (i.e. me) is poor. Nevertheless, this way to study past examination papers as examination preparation is highly problematic, and we ...

An education plan on Business Admin/ Company Sec.

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The centre boss discussed me about his centre's product lines in Business Admin., Human Resource Management, Company Secretaryship study and MBA. I offered some of  my ideas on these education product lines and related professional development paths of students. They are depicted in the following diagrams Diagram 1: Honour degrees in Business Admin, Specialized Master Degrees and general MBA Diagram 2: education programmes and professional programmes for a career in Company Secretaryship [in private companies and listed companies] References The HK Institute of Chartered Secretaries: http://www.hkics.org.hk/ http://josephkkhoworkdiary.blogspot.hk/2012/11/business-management-education-trends.html

Handy tools for learning English

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My handy tools for learning English: One can read these booklets in crowded places, e.g MTR and in sleepy condition, e.g. examination invigilation.

Research methods workshop teaching plan

The following is the teaching plan on Research Methods for the Business Studies/ Marketing students/ Business Management  2013 Workshop 1 (by Joseph Ho) Introduction to the dissertation (lecture 1 powerpoint) [briefly introduce academic publishers: http://josephho33.blogspot.hk/2011/12/major-websites-of-academic-publishers.html  ] How to write a dissertation proposal: (video): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5ESD58XUGk About dissertation objectives and research questions: http://josephkkhoworkdiary.blogspot.hk/2013/02/research-topic-area-research-objectives.html Workshop 2 (by Joseph Ho) Dissertation structure (lecture 2 powerpoint); also refer to: http://josephkkhoworkdiary.blogspot.hk/2013/01/on-dissertation-struture-research.html ; Report structure vs proposal structure: http://josephho33.blogspot.hk/2011/09/proposal-abstract-and-dissertation.html How to write a research question: (video): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXkiCE_MBLM How to write an abstract:...