Entrepreneurship Module Assessment | University of XYZ

Marking Criteria  1. Creative application of accurately referenced academic principles, theories and ideas and from the module syllabus. (30%)  

Students must demonstrate engagement and study of the content of the taught syllabus and its core texts (Ries, Osterwalder and Pigneur, and readings e.g. Blank, etc. and other learning materials at a detailed level. The concepts used in this module are not self-explanatory and referenced definitions are expected at university level

Use of primary and secondary data to support your decisions (30%)

You must engage with customers, suppliers and other partners using the VPC and MVP. Your decisions must be supported by primary and/or secondary data e.g. marketing research. Many students lose marks here by not providing evidence to support their plan.  The university provides access to several up to date professional secondary market research databases e.g. Mintel, Market Line, etc.   

Critical entrepreneurial/business evaluation (30%)

Logical structure, clear use of English (visual, spoken, written), font, referencing, and use of word limit.  (10%)   

Communication skills in English are a key learning outcome.  Reference your secondary data sources carefully not just ‘cut and pasted’ browser web links. Academic references will be checked and those not clearly from or connected to the taught syllabus, or are of low quality e.g. (tutor2u) will lose marks.

See the assessment rubric at the end of this briefing for specific details of how to achieve a mark in your target grade banding.

Part A Compulsory Group PowerPoint slide Presentation to Panel of Experts via Zoom

This compulsory assessment is essential preparation and foundation using the feedback for the Part B assessment.

Groups will be made up of five (5) persons either a voluntary association or selected by the tutor.  The tutor will under no circumstances get involved in group C level management.

The first step is to have your tutor approve by email your business idea.  This must be done before the seminar of Week 4.   

Format: PowerPoint slides must be converted to a PDF file (to reduce file size) submitted to Turnitin.   

Word Limit: Ten (10) slides. It is a visual presentation use diagrams, tables, etc not words.

PowerPoint slides full of text will received a low mark and will have to be re-submitted, annotated detailed notes must be provided at the bottom of each slide.

Clear presentation of content on the slides helps the understanding of your ideas.  

Part A Compulsory Group PowerPoint slide Presentation to Panel of Experts via Zoom

Students must regard the reader for Parts A and B as potential investors/financiers. e.g. for Part A angel investors and banks screening new lean start-ups before allowing a detailed Part B to be prepared  Structure:   

For Part A students must  

1.Full name and student id plus a photo of the students (all must be present i.e. on-line). Name of Product/ Service with a (one) diagram to describe it. 1 slide. Date of approval by tutor by email.  

2.Explain why this is a profitable, competition beating, value creating ‘lean’, investable entrepreneurial opportunity. Complete this sentence: If your lean start-up never existed, the world would be worse off because… 1 slide

3.Details of your creative cognitive work that applied elements of the taught syllabus to develop and validate the new opportunity. 1 slide.

Present and explain Value Creation using a Value Proposition Canvas (with extensions and detailing as per the taught syllabus) 2 slides e.g. a) Customer Profile b) Value Map. Note: Begin with Customer Jobs (the part of their life where you create value)

Mock-up/role play/demo of the Minimum Viable Product (MVP). – Not applicable

Present and explain the Business Model (means to ends transformation process) and an outline Business Model Canvas (Value Capture) (with extensions and detailing as per the taught syllabus) 2 slides.

Business Research and Data Gathering Plan i.e. The Part B hypotheses to be researched (see Ries Chapter 4 alchemy to science) 1 slide.

Principal Harvard style references listing a) scholarly works and b) secondary data sources. 1 slide. Note simple cut and pasted web references URLs (uniform resource locator) are unacceptable at level 6 1 slide.

The individual report must reference the tutor’s prior approval, presentation of Part A and the feedback received.  Any reports not meeting these criteria will not be read, not given feedback, and will receive a mark of zero.  

Task:  

As this is individual work students take one C level perspective from:  CMO, COO, CTO, CHRO, CFO (Note: there is no CEO role). .  

Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) – value proposition, advertising, customer engagement, sales, etc.

Chief Operating Officer (COO) – doing the business, making product, delivering service, shipping, orders, suppliers, partners, etc.

Chief Technology/Information Officer (CTO/CIO) – Core technical solution (if there is one) also key IT systems and data processing, etc.    

Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO) – deciding the organisational structure, the balance between employed and contract staff, specifying, hiring and developing people to be employed in the business, etc.

Individual Report and Task

Chief Finance Officer (CFO) - costing, pricing, cash management, need for finance, raising finance, etc.

There is no CEO role (strategic decision making is shared).  Groups will hold Board meetings on Zoom or similar and collectively agree strategic decisions.  

Each perspective must be different from other members of the group. Students can collaborate but not collude beyond Part A. If there are elements of a student’s submitted plan that are plagiarised those parts will receive zero marks regardless of the original author and will likely result in an investigation of suspected misconduct.  

For students who are offered a resit you are required to improve and resubmit your original work as well as adding a further reflective commentary discussing what you have learned from the process.  

You must resubmit your work using the specific resit Turnitin link on Moodle.

1.Review your previously submitted work and read carefully the feedback given by the marker.

2.Use this feedback to help you revisit and rewrite your work, improving it in the areas identified as weak in the original marking process

3.Include with your resubmission an additional reflective piece (up to 300/500 words#) on what you understand was weak, how you set about addressing this and what you have learned from this that may help you with further assignments. You should address the following specifically:

1. i) Identify tutor feedback points on your original work and identify where/how the resit work has changed (give page number) in response to feedback ii) Identify the lessons you have learnt from doing the resit

iii) Reflect on how your feedback and this process will help you improve future assignments

If you did not submit work at the first opportunity you cannot reflect on your feedback. However, you are still required to submit a reflective piece in which you identify your reasons for non-submission, the implications of non-submission for your future success and how you propose to address this in the future. If you have issues with confidentiality of your reasons for non-submission then you could reflect on how you have met the learning outcomes for the module, how you can use what you have done on the module to support your future career and what skills/employability attributes you feel the module has helped you to develop.

If you were deferred at the first assessment opportunity you do not need to include the reflective piece as this is a first submission at a later date, not a resit.

The original marking criteria will still apply (see marking grid provided above*) except that the 10% weighting for presentation will be awarded instead to your reflective piece