Real Estate Course Unprofessional/Ripoff

LNoMoneyNoCry on 17/05/2016 - 13:48
Last edited 17/05/2016 - 14:45

HI,

Long time visitor and first time poster. I've finally manage to registered to ask for opinions here.

I'm currently studying a Rea Estate Cert through a Higher Education Service Provider out of personal interest. (Don't want to name the institution as i might ask the ACCC to look into it)

I've submitted my assignment but was marked "Not Competent" which is a fail. I get to resubmit it a second time for free. I've consulted my study buddy who is also studying this course. She passed on the first submission.
I've changed my answers and its 99% the same as hers.

But they marked me as "Not competent" again! they didn't give me much feedback, pretty much copied and paste the same feedback as last time.

I called the company but they told me to email them as the markers aren't based in the Office!.

I received the email reply today and it wasn't much help! they told me the answers are still wrong and that I need to resubmit the 3rd time which will incur a $50 fee.

I questioned them why i failed and my friend passed with the same answers. They either passed the wrong student or they failed the wrong student. Cant be both! —I've yet to hear back from them.

Can i take this to the ACCC? Any advise? Just feels like that aren't here to help the students, they are here to make money!

What should i do?

Edit: They accepted my appeal and is looking into it.
They argue that just because my friend passed and I didn't, isn't a ground to pass. My answers were more detailed than hers and I've included everything she had in her answers.

Education & Work

Comments

  • supnigs super skids on 17/05/2016 - 14:03
    +10

    you cant copy someones work and expect to pass. if its like uni they have tools to detect plagiarism.

    • Davo1111 on 17/05/2016 - 14:06
      -4

      "tools to detect plagiarism."

      now i know how most "tools" work, i wouldnt get too worried.

      • mskeggs on 17/05/2016 - 14:30
        +5

        Turnitin can be brutal in detecting copying. I know somebody who got in trouble for plagiarising themselves (they reused a couple of sentences from a related assignment) detected via turnitin.

        • Lysander on 17/05/2016 - 21:09
          +1

          In the true sense of the word one cannot plagiarise oneself.

        • mskeggs on 17/05/2016 - 21:12

          @Lysander:
          True, the penalty was for not creating fresh work, but I think they could have referenced their earlier paper.
          It was all the most stupid bullsh#t.
          In any case, it was turnitin that picked up the duplicated sentences.

        • Lysander on 17/05/2016 - 21:18
          +1

          @mskeggs:

          Turnitin and the like are very dangerous and unreliable - several studies that were done show that. The only true and reliable plagiarism detection is manual and tedious given that reformulation of a sentence also counts as plagiarism in Europe and the US which software cannot really pick up. Also it cannot distinguish between general and universal knowledge (which cannot be plagiarised) and original and unique, new ideas (which can be plagiarised).

          Plus, if you ran lecturer materials through the same software (just assuming it is reliable for argument's sake) you would be surprised what you will find - many lecturers plagiarise.

          At one of the unis I studied the lecturer for strategic management copied his whole class from someone who published their materials on the internet and pretended it was his. The uni did not do anything until it was threatened with publicity.

          When I suggested holding lecturers to the same standard and run both student and lecturer materials through the software the uni wanted to introduce the uproar was great and "mysteriously" the idea was shelved.

    • tomsco on 17/05/2016 - 14:25

      I'm guessing it possibly wasn't word-for-word copy, but addressing the same concepts in the answers.

      Maybe if the OP has an example question/answer of their's someone can comment on the validity of then answer.

    • NoMoneyNoCry on 17/05/2016 - 14:29

      I didn't copied her work. We both studied the course at the same time and both discussed the questions and answers together!

      This assignment isn't an essay, we simply need to answer the short questions. Which we both did, and I was failed and she passed.

      I wouldn't simply copied her answers as we wanted to study the course to increase our knowledge of Real Estate. It will defeat the purpose if I simply copied someone -I wouldn't learn that way.

  • Davo1111 on 17/05/2016 - 14:27
    +3

    You're in a bit of a sticky situation. I'd be very very careful about admitting plagarism to say a marker was crappy.

    Also, $50 to mark an essay doesn't sound like a money making venture to me. I think you should take it seriously, redo it properly, learn from the previous 2 failed tests, and make the best goodam essay ever.

    • NoMoneyNoCry on 17/05/2016 - 14:36

      $50 isn't much money. But if they didn't look at my resubmission properly or even give me a good feed back then I think deserve to know more. Simply telling me to pay $50 and resubmit doesn't help.

      The frustrating thing is I consulted with my friend, We don't know how I can improve on my answers! It's even more detailed than hers!

      Also - Please don't throw the word plagiarism in. I did not and would not!

      • the-mal on 17/05/2016 - 15:21
        +2

        Also - Please don't throw the word plagiarism in. I did not and would not!

        It's because you wrote that to resubmit you changed your answers to 99% the same as your friends. That's why people assumed you plagiarised. Copying someone else's work.

        Did you get a mark back? Or was it pass/fail? Do you know which answers were right and which weren't? What was the feedback? Too many unknowns here to be objective!

        • NoMoneyNoCry on 17/05/2016 - 19:08

          No, it's a pass/fail. I think. Very subjective.

        • StewBalls on 17/05/2016 - 21:06

          Did you get a mark back? Or was it pass/fail? Do you know which answers were right and which weren't? What was the feedback? Too many unknowns here to be objective!

          This is what it all comes down to.

          As others have noted, private RTOs might not be up to the regimented formative assessment standards of a TAFE or Uni, but they cannot reasonably refuse to provide you proper feedback on your assignment. Find out where exactly they reckon you fell down & argue the points from there.

          Just an aside, one of our students once got a fail from a her Uni on an assignment I had actually proofread for her; so I knew it was fine; when I highlighted the areas on the marking rubric where she had met or exceeded the pass criteria in reference to the content, she resubmitted the assignment (unchanged) and the mark was upgraded to a Credit…yeah, you read that right, not just a Pass. The lecturer later admitted that she had been slack & based her initial mark on the previous stuff that student had handed in, and not accounted for hard work & improvement. Take home message: not everyone does their due diligence in Academia, so be prepared to defend yourself at all times, nobody is infallible.

  • Settero on 17/05/2016 - 15:20

    its to hard to judge without actually looking at
    1 ) your first assignment
    2 ) the feedback for your first assignment
    3 ) your second assignment
    4 ) the feedback from your second assignment

  • bobbified on 17/05/2016 - 15:22
    +2

    They're testing whether you can handle the type of sh*t you might be dishing out in the industry to other people after you finish this course.

    • NoMoneyNoCry on 17/05/2016 - 19:06
      -1

      I'm not in the Real Estate industry nor do I want to. I wanted to learn more about it. Turns out to be a nightmare!

  • altomic on 17/05/2016 - 15:52
    +3

    Real Estate Course Unprofessional/Ripoff

    welcome to the Real Estate industry.

  • JimB on 17/05/2016 - 15:58
    +2

    I knew Real Estate industry were full of Unprofessional/Ripoff people, but I didn't realise the subjects Unprofessional & Ripoff were part of the syllabus! lol

    Good luck.

  • p1 ama on 17/05/2016 - 17:38
    +2

    Let me answer this in a couple of parts. I teach statistics at a major university, so I have some insight into tertiary education.

    Real Estate Course Unprofessional/Ripoff

    First of all, how is this course unprofessional or a ripoff? You're basically saying that it's a ripoff because they failed you. I don't think that's very fair.

    I questioned them why i failed and my friend passed with the same answers. They either passed the wrong student or they failed the wrong student. Cant be both! —I've yet to hear back from them.

    That's actually quite unprofessional of you to use that line or argument or reasoning. What mark your friend gets is personal and is her business. If they passed her wrongly, then that's their problem with her. It has nothing to do with you and you shouldn't be getting involved like that.

    Whether you got the right answer or not depends on whether your answer was right (isn't that obvious…), so if you believe that you got the right answer but was marked wrongly, your best line of attack is to use course materials and research to show that what you've written is right. They'll take you much more seriously if that's what you do.

    They argue that just because my friend passed and I didn't, isn't a ground to pass. My answers were more detailed than hers and I've included everything she had in her answers.

    They are absolutely right. Whether your friend passed or not is irrelevant to whether you passed or not. To be honest, and don't take this personally, but you're the type of person who everyone I know in my department hates dealing with. All you seem to care about is passing, not about getting the right answer and learning. If you believe you have the right answer, then go out there and prove it. Sitting at home and saying "oh, but my friend got it right" is seriously primary school level reasoning and I'm not surprised they're treating you that way.

    That might have come by as a little harsh, but you haven't given one reason as to why you deserve to pass. You haven't spoken about how right your answers are, what your sources were, how meticulous you are…etc. All you've said is, "she passed, so why didn't I?" - that's the wrong reasoning.

    • NoMoneyNoCry on 17/05/2016 - 18:58
      +3

      I'm educated in a post grad level myself. Trust me, I went through the exams/assignments in my time. You mentioned that you are a lecturer in a major Uni. How you mark and how you grade people doesn't make it the gold standard.

      And what's with all the Attacks!!

      I'm concern about the level of professionalism in that business school. If they pass someone with the same answers and fail someone others. What kind of standard are they holding?

      Plus, going forward my friend will believe she has the right answers and information. What If she pursues a career in Real Estate believing in the wrong thing? who is accountable for that? It's not a matter of passing or failing the subject, it's the professionalism and standard of that school!

      The business school have since apologise that the marker did indeed copy and paste the previous comment into my 2nd submission! Made it all confusing! How would I know the marker did indeed looked at my 2nd submission clearly?

      Plus.. We studied this together. She is actually concern now! She is wondering if she had the right answers!

      • StewBalls on 17/05/2016 - 20:15
        +4

        Just ignore this guy OP, he's the biggest self-aggrandizing know-it-all windbag on OzBargain. He often chimes in during school holidays to self-righteously berate some poor sod about how awful they are & loves to use the chance to big-note about what a stellar academic he reckons he is at the same time. That's his sole contribution to this site.

        Frankly, he's full of it…

      • p1 ama on 18/05/2016 - 03:11
        +1

        I'm concern about the level of professionalism in that business school. If they pass someone with the same answers and fail someone others. What kind of standard are they holding?

        Sorry if it felt like I attacked you. I don't mean it that way, but at least hear me out here. Maybe I'm jaded, but let me explain.

        Firstly, whether an answer is right or wrong doesn't depend on what your friend wrote. It depends on (surprise, surprise) whether your answer is actually right or wrong. If you get an answer wrong and you believe that it is right, the best way to win people to your side isn't to pull your friend into it, it's to actually argue the point based on the material that you are learning.

        Let me explain why I'm jaded.

        I have many students come to me after assessments (even when I wasn't the one marking them) and complain about basically the exact same thing that you did. They harp on about how their friend wrote the same thing and got 4/5 and they got 2/5 or whatever the case is. It's really common, but coming to me with that sort of line of reasoning makes it really hard for me to help them.

        1) I don't have their friend's paper in front of me and I have no idea what their friend wrote to get 4/5. All I have in front of me is this particular student's paper, his answer and the right answer (whether that be a solution paper or my own solution). The only way I can help him is if he convinces me that his answer is close enough to my answer that it warrants a 4/5, rather than a 2/5.

        2) There are a multitude of different reasons why his friend might have gotten a different answer. Often students write a lot, but answers only need to be succinct and to get to the point. When students compare their answers, they tend to look for what they have in common (of course, because they want to justify they are right), but they ignore the fact that often the better answer shows a clearer understanding. If an answer is CDEF and you wrote ABCDE and someone else wrote BCDEF, you'd say "hey, my answer is almost exactly the same, why did I got 3/4 and they get 4/4". You're under the assumption that your work is the same as your friend's when it's actually not, it's similar (and that difference could be why you got the lesser mark).

        3) It shows an unwillingness to stand behind your answer and argue it on its merits. This is actually really important. I'm not sure how it is where you're studying, but for me, the most important thing is understanding. Often a student writes a convoluted or difficult to understand answer and I give it, say, 3/5 because I can't quite get what they're saying. I've had students approach me after and attempt to explain and reason their answers. Sometimes, I've given then a 1 or 2 mark bump because they know what they are talking about, showed that they have understood the concept and that their answer could be justified. By showing they understood, they showed me they deserved the mark. Coming and pointing at someone else's paper doesn't show any understanding of the material.

        4) It's just not professional. Ultimately what you should be talking about is your mark and our work, not your friends', it has nothing to do with it and you're dragging a 3rd party into the situation they're not involved in.

        Ultimately, the argument you're proposing is just a weaker argument than if you approached it differently. Say you wanted to be allowed to eat at your workplace which currently doesn't allow eating at desks, except one guy somehow is allowed. What's a stronger argument?

        • That guy's eating and he's allowed, why not me?

        • Eating regular meals is healthy and allowing me to eat at my desk ensures that I take regular breaks from work, am more productive and ultimate live a healthier lifestyle

        The first argument sounds like something a child would say when their sibling is allowed to do something and they're not. The second is just a much better argument. Don't you reckon? Now if anything I said sounds like an attack, my apologies.

    • decadent1 on 17/05/2016 - 20:44
      +1

      Teaching at university doesn't count here. It's not higher ed, it's a TAFE or Private RTO.
      He's doing a Certificate based course so the marking and assessments guidelines can be very prescriptive.
      Hence the Competent/Not Yet Competent grading which is a foreign concept to most university lecturers, so a lot of your comments are totally irrelevant in this case.

      All competency based assessments must be fair, flexible, valid and reliable. All RTOs must also have a valid appeals process. Which he is now using.
      You should be able to request a copy of your assessment tasks with a breakdown of the marking.

      See if you can get your friend to get a copy of her graded assessments, they can be used in the appeal as they can demonstrate your assessment was unfair when compared to hers.

      • NoMoneyNoCry on 17/05/2016 - 22:25

        Yeah, thanks!

        That is exactly want I want to see happen. Break down of how the marks are allocated. With mine and hers side by side. And why her is marked Competent and my deemed Not Competent

        They are asking me to give reasons why my answers are correct and should be passed for the appeal. Then can I flip it around and ask them why my friends Answers is deemed competent to them!

        Cause it's basically the same. My friend is ready to support me. and ready for them to remark/regrade her if that is nesscary!

    • Drifta on 18/05/2016 - 00:54
      +2

      @Paulsterio let me respond in 1 part.

      I hope you're not teaching anyone with that attitude! Being a statistics 'teacher' you should know that you cannot claim 1 persons work to be valid and anothers to be invalid when it is essentially the same thing.

      The mark that his friend or any other student doing that course is indeed his business if 1 student is getting 100% and another 50% for handing in the same thing. That's not a fair process, which this needs to be. It does need to be kept private but if the students are willing to share and compare they are more than welcome to do so, especially if its being used to assess fairness and impartiality.

    • goodcopbadcop on 18/05/2016 - 20:57
      +1

      You have been very quick to chastise the OP who is interested to learn about Real Estate and paid good money to study a Certificate IV in Real Estate, but unfortunately has ended up with a very dodgy trainer who obviously is not doing their job correctly and their professional standards are very low. You state that you teach statistics in a university - so be mindful that this experience can only ever be the "insight" that you have of tertiary education. It is quite narrow minded really, if all you teach, and ever have, is statistics at a university. By your comments that reek of university culture (believing that you are the fountain of all knowledge), you obviously don't have any knowledge or experience - and so no idea of the teaching and assessing requirements in an RTO in the VET sector.

      On that basis, your criticism of concerned adult students checking with others is totally unwarranted. Competency based training and assessment is designed and marked according to specific training outcomes, and there should not be any discrepancies in grades if two people have given roughly the same information. The marker is required to read in and around the response and is accountable to state why an answer is incorrect. You have no experience of this, or teaching and assessing in the real estate course, so please don't be inclined to write as though your experience in statistics and a university is all that is necessary for you to make derogatory comments of a student who is currently experiencing assessment issues.

      To be honest, and don't take this personally, but you're the type of "old school"/time-to-be-moved-on-and-out uni 'academic' who is typically arrogant to every adult student they come across, and hates dealing with students full stop. Actually if you asked any student "Why are you studying and paying good money to do so?", the majority would probably say ultimately "To Pass and get that piece of paper". Sure they want to learn - but an end result defined as results and grades is always deemed more important by universities, by employers and by the student who paid for it. Gee I can learn anything I want from any number of resources on the internet. I can get that learning for free but it won't get me that piece of paper that the Real Estate Institute require me to have.

      You seem to have a problem with a student who questions why they have been marked wrong when they didn't expect to be. You would prefer that they passively do nothing, accept it on the chin, submit again and have the same mark copied and pasted onto the corrected version and still be wrong? Oh hang on a sec….that's what did happen! I hope that you and your "old school" academic cronies in your Stats Department have dozens of students knocking down your doors, wanting to know why they are wrong if you have marked them wrong. Please be prepared to be accountable for YOUR actions so that you can clearly explain why they are wrong. Not, hey you student, you've been marked wrong - now prove why I should mark you right.

      You know, assessments shouldn't be designed to catch people out but to indicate how much information has been learnt, can be applied and retained. For the teacher/trainer they are the best way to gauge that their teaching style and methodologies are really engaging students - or not. Adult students learn differently and it is the role of the teacher/trainer to accommodate for these differences. This might have come by as a little harsh, but why do you continually comment and obviously judge the OP's "reasoning" as though he has none?

      • StewBalls on 18/05/2016 - 21:33
        -1

        It's worth noting that paulsterio can't be too 'old school', it was only a few months ago during a previous tirade against another poor unsuspecting OP that he spoke of still being a student "studying to be an academic"…ergo, he's full of shit, and nothing more than a pathetic bully with too much time on his hands.

  • Geewhizz on 18/05/2016 - 07:44

    I questioned them why i failed and my friend passed with the same answers.

    You admitted to them that you cheated, and said you expect a positive outcome because the person you copied from passed with those answers?

    • tomsco on 18/05/2016 - 08:44
      +1

      To be fair, from the (albeit, limited) information, their feedback was not of plagiarism, in fact it sounds that the feedback was very lacking. Regardless, from OP's further posts, it appears that the assessor was being slack and did not even assess his second submission.

  • Pumpkin_rrr on 18/05/2016 - 10:21

    Just curious if OP can tell us how this course is conducted? It looks to me it's correspondence course, not classroom. Am I correct? I find the correspondence courses are very Yes/No and in some way harder to pass. Personally I am old school, I prefer classroom. You can discuss with the tutors and mates together. There are so many other things you learn outside of the curriculum. And plus the goss.

    • piggyfund on 18/05/2016 - 10:55

      I've completed cert. and degrees both online and on campus and prefer off campus as it means I can work at the same time and I don't have to travel and listen to (sometimes) boring lectures. For some courses you can't study online but for the ones that you can it was a real life saver, meant I can still pay the bills while getting a qualification. It is harder to assess and I guess cheating is 'easier'

  • piggyfund on 18/05/2016 - 10:49

    I have worked as a 'marker' in the past and there is a checklist of competencies that you need to satisfy and it may be something small like answering yes or no to a question or providing a case study/example. The marker should give you some sort of feedback or you need to go look at that unit and check yourself if you have fully satisfied all points. Generally speaking all RTOs like to pass their students as it reflects well on their statistics. I highly doubt this RTO is failing you on purpose to get you to redo a course, drop out rates for this is very high so not part of their business model. These RTOs are highly regulated and audited so it's hard to get away with anything even if they wanted to. If they are not an RTO then you are on your own and could be a shonky school.

  • goodcopbadcop on 18/05/2016 - 19:22

    This is indeed about the professionalism of this educational institution.

    You have said that the institution is in the Higher Education sector (offering undergraduate degree and postgraduate courses) and in order to be able to offer a Certificate IV in Real Estate they have registered a private (non Govt) Registered Training Organisation (RTO) which is within the Vocational Education and Training (VET) sector. The VET and Higher Ed sector are governed by different pieces of legislation but both mandate standards of education for that sector. RTO's are bound by the Australian Skills Quality Authority (ASQA) which is the national regulator for the VET sector. The ASQA seeks to make sure that the VET sector's quality is maintained through the effective regulation (audits) of training providers (RTO's) and accredited courses to the 2015 Standards.

    The lines between each sector are becoming more blurred as universities see the financial gain in registering an RTO under their branding, to act as a feeder to their undergraduate courses. And likewise larger RTO's are seeking to register degree programs. University lecturers do not often make good VET trainers because they don't 'get' the VET system and VET trainers do not often make good university lecturers by the nature and differences in training/educating and assessing students. VET is about competency based training and assessment to achieve certain training outcomes - so you are assessed as competent (Pass) or not yet competent. Assessments aren't graded like in Higher Education (DCPF), which assesses differently - requiring higher level analytical thinking & reasoning.

    RTO's are required to have an internal complaints and appeals resolution process in place, and this will describe clearly the steps involved. You can request a copy of this document so that you fully understand what is required and follow it exactly when making an internal complaint or appeal. You can also check if the RTO is following it from their side.

    I would recommend that you request to make an appointment time to speak with the marker of your assignment to discuss in person which answers that you have provided are incorrect and why they don't meet the minimum requirements to be competent. A VET trainer is accountable for the assessment that they give and mark, and without giving you the exact answers, if it is obvious that you are incorrect they will offer pointers so that you can research and resubmit them correctly.
    The fact that "The business school has since apologised that the marker did indeed copy and paste the previous comment into my 2nd submission!" This is shocking and so disrespectful! This is an indication that the RTO management have employed at least one very slack trainer who couldn't care less about their students educational well being or their job and it is obvious that they did not pay you the courtesy of actually reading your resubmitted assignment in order to mark your work. You have actually caught this person out and it is totally unacceptable. I would not be agreeing to write any more about why you believe your answers are correct and should be passed for appeal. All VET trainers are required to hold a Cert IV Assessment and Training. If they have completed that they would have covered everything about assessment - unless of course they are working illegally and do not have this qualification.

    This RTO works under the protection and name of the business school within the university. Treating adult students with contempt and not providing reasonable feedback deserves a formal complaint to the Director of the RTO who is accountable to the University and the AQSA.

  • [Deactivated] on 20/05/2016 - 00:30

    You said the markers are in a different office, they are probably in some 3rd world country and half of them don't even know English. And you got stuck with a shirty one.

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