ASSESSMENT GUIDE
COMM1190
Data, Insights and Decisions
Term 2, 2024
Course Learning Outcomes (CLOs)
1. Explain how an organisation uses analytical and statistical tools to gain valuable insights. [PLO1]
2. Apply statistics and data analysis skills to real data sets from a variety of organisations and domains to generate insights in order to make informed decisions. [PLO2]
3. Visualise and analyse data to support arguments that increase stakeholder comprehension of information and business insights. [PLO3]
4. Work effectively in teams to communicate cohesive data insights and recommendations to a range of stakeholders. [PLO4]
5. Critically evaluate the suitability of data and data sources to identify and analyse business problems. [PLO2]
6. Evaluate ethical implications of organisational use of big data and analytics on stakeholders and society. [PLO5]
Assessment Details
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Due Date Weighting Format Length/Duration Submission
Turnitin
Turnitin is an originality checking and plagiarism prevention tool that enables checking of submitted written work for improper citation or misappropriated content. Each Turnitin assignment is checked against other students' work, the Internet and key resources selected by your Course Coordinator.
If you are instructed to submit your assessment via Turnitin, you will find the link to the Turnitin submission in your Moodle course site. You can submit your assessment well before the deadline and use the Similarity Report to improve your academic writing skills before submitting your final version.
You can find out more information in the Turnitin information site for students.
Late Submissions
The parameters for late submissions are outlined in the UNSW Assessment Implementation Procedure. For this course, if you submit your assessments after the due date, you will incur penalties for late submission unless you have Special Consideration (see below). Late submission is 5% per day (including weekends), calculated from the marks allocated to that assessment (not your grade). No submission will be accepted later than 8 am on Monday, 24 June.
Extensions
You are expected to manage your time to meet assessment due dates. If you do require an extension to your assessment, please make a request as early as possible before the due date via the special consideration portal on myUNSW (My Student profile > Special Consideration). You can find more information on Special Consideration and the application process below. Lecturers and tutors do not have the ability to grant extensions.
Important note:
COMM1190 uses this integrated sequence of assessment tasks to simulate an authentic project within an organisation. Because of the sequential nature of the tasks, it is very difficult to allow extensions without impacting the academic integrity of the assessment. As such this course does not use the short extension process that you may have seen in other courses. Moreover, in the event you are granted special consideration due to exceptional circumstances precluding you from completing the assessment task on time you are likely to have your final exam reweighted rather than being granted an extension.
Special Consideration
Special consideration is the process for assessing the impact of short-term events beyond your control (exceptional circumstances), on your performance in a specific assessment task.
What are circumstances beyond my control?
These are exceptional circumstances or situations that may:
• Prevent you from completing a course requirement,
• Keep you from attending an assessment,
• Stop you from submitting an assessment,
• Significantly affect your assessment performance.
Available here is a list of circumstances that may be beyond your control. This is only a list of examples, and your exact circumstances may not be listed.
You can find more detail and the application form. on the Special Consideration site, or in the UNSW Special Consideration Application and Assessment Information for Students.
Assessment overview
There are two assessment tasks and one exam in COMM1190. Separate documents for each of the assessment tasks will be made available according to the timeline below.
The two assessments relate to the same case and basic business problem. You will be acting as an analyst reporting to the Head of Management Services of a grocery store chain operating throughout Australia. She is interested in knowing more about the customers enrolled in their rewards program and how their characteristics and spending patterns inform. management about customer loyalty and retention—their customer churn problem.
Assessment 1: Individual Assignment
Context of assessment task
You are a junior Business Analyst working at Freshland, a large grocery store chain in Australia. The Head of Management Services has reached out to you with a task. She needs some background analysis on customers in the store’s rewards program that will form. part of a more extensive consideration of how Freshland grocery stores can reduce customer churn and improve customer loyalty.
She has already tasked an intern to produce a preliminary report on this task, however she is not happy with the report they produced. Your task is to review the intern’s initial report and produce a revised version, using an updated data set that contains the original pilot data as well as some extra observations.
Approach to the assessment task
a) Read the Head’s instructions carefully, including the metrics she wants insights into and her guidelines to improve the original report.
b) Download the full dataset. Note that this dataset contains both the original (pilot) data used by the intern, as well as extra observations. All students in the course will have the same pilot data, but the extra observations are individualised. You will access your dataset on Moodle.
c) Review the intern’s initial report to plan how you will revise it using your own analyses and visualisations with R. Remember that the structure of your report will be approximately the same as the initial report, i.e. similar length and sections.
d) As there were problems with the initial report as highlighted by the Head of Management Services in her email, you should not be restricted to the analyses presented in the initial report.
e) Ensure that you carefully select and include only data and visualisations that support your main findings and conclusions. You should also outline key assumptions or limitations in your analysis.
f) When submitting your report, you must provide a separate file containing the R code used to conduct your analysis and generate your visualisations. No marks will be awarded for this code file, but your submission will be deemed incomplete and given a mark of zero if this file is not included.
g) Submit your revised report and code file as separate documents via Turnitin on the Moodle course site. You can choose the structure of the code file. There is no word limit for the code file.
h) Late submission will incur a penalty of 5% per day or part thereof (including weekends) from the due date and time. Assessment 1 will not be accepted after 8:00 am Monday of week 5 (24 June). For further information please refer to Policies and Support.
i) Special consideration will be granted only in the case of serious illness, misadventure, or bereavement, which must be supported with documentary evidence. In these circumstances, students must apply for Special Consideration. Because of the sequential nature of the assessment tasks, it is very difficult to allow extensions without impacting the academic integrity of the assessment. As such this course does not use the short extension process that you may have seen in other courses. Moreover, in the event you are granted special consideration due to exceptional circumstances precluding you from completing the assessment task on time you are likely to have your final exam reweighted rather than being granted an extension.
Feedback
General feedback on this assignment will be in the form. of an exemplar presentation to the Senior Executive Group. You will be given this exemplar to support you in Assessment 2. You will then receive your grades and personalized feedback on Moodle at a later date. Please see Page 9 of this document for the rubric.
Assessment 2: Team Assessment
Assessment Overview
You will undertake a project as a team applying the key concepts discussed in the course to a real-world scenario. In this assessment, you will explore data using descriptive and predictive analytics to derive actionable insights that can be used to assist with business decision making. The assessment task is designed to develop teamwork skills within an analytics team and technical skills for analysing data to arrive at decisions and recommendations based on the team’s data-generated insights.
Instructions
In Week 5 you will receive detailed instructions regarding Assessment 2, the associated rubric and the formation of groups.
Approach to assessment task
a) You are encouraged to start working with your group from Week 5 onwards, as soon as you have the assessment instructions.
b) You should complete Stage 1 (individual component) of Assessment 2 first to support your group work for Stage 2.
Assessment 3: Final Exam
Assessment Overview
The final exam will test your technical competence and problem-solving skills, as well as your understanding of the concepts discussed in all weeks of the course. A range of questions and examples drawn from past exams will be provided later.
You will be able to access the COMM1190 exam via the course Moodle site closer to the time of the examination, along with detailed instructions.