I've heard that because the assignment this term was especially difficult and so time consuming that the Big 4s apparently made a complain to the Insitute for affecting their staff with added stress and lost in productivity. One can imagine the costs of lost production if a small firm can lose about $18,000 to $75,000 for the 60 or so hours that the candidates spent on the assignment. It is not hard to believe if the partners actually complained.
But the biggest issue was the flawed assignment worksheet we were given. The excel geeks easily broke through the 'locked' protection and found the answers buried in the myriad of visual basic codes. So its not hard to imagine if there were 100% passes because the answers were in there all the while while the stupid people like me spent hours trying to balance the numbers.
A candidate revealed this 'loophole' on the discussion board but the post was almost immediately deleted by the administrator and subsequently contacted the candidate which apparently in the words of the whistle blower was threaten by the Insitute. But it was too late, the words spread far and wide throughout the country and beyond that eventually prompted the Institute to form a commitee to look into this issue.
I was clueless when I received an email from the General Manager last week informing us about the setup of the commitee and this:
'I want also to encourage you to continue your enrolment in the CA Program....
Sheena Frenkel
General Manager '
So today I decided to check out what was the fuss all about and it was like opening a pandora box. For nearly a month I was oblivious to this issue so serious that some candidates have threaten to take this to national television. The problem was very serious as it affects the credibility of the Insitute and academic fairplay for candidates for having made the 'threats', 'blaming software issues', attempted to cover up the issue by closing down threads and referring it as a rumour and should be treated as such BUT the worst of all, after unlocking the worksheets, the first 3 major parts of the assignment were only worth 1.63 marks!!!
1.63 marks for workings that took hours, if not days.
This was enough to call for a revolution and indeed it did.
Despite the furore, there were some light comments such as this:
...And I can just see the CPA using this as an example for an ethics question...
A major Australian Accounting Institution (not the CPA) had a security oversight on an assignment which resulted in unknown numbers of candidates recieving a time and information advantage. As a result, they initially deleted discussions on the issue, called it a minor issue, blamed an unnamed third party and then mass allocated a small percentage of marks to all candidates in order to appear to have taken action. The most ethical path they could, and should, have taken is:
a)...
b)...
etc
I felt shortchanged after coming to terms with the whole issue but I've learnt my lesson not to be so ignorant in the future which could rob my rights and fairplay right under my nose.
The following are some post extracts by candidates responding to the issue:
The ICAA should respect that candidates put blood, sweat and tears into their study and are bound to be upset and stressed when something like this occurs. We are only seeking fair assessment and clarification, which is not too much to ask for considering what they expect from us in terms of workload, time spent and finally fees!
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I am soo angry about this, ecspecially when I think about the time wasted on reconciling my goodwill to the draft financials, when all along it was never meant to reconcile. And to know that section is now only worth half a mark. Thanks CA!
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Words cannot describe how I feel knowing now that there were candidates who had a substantial advantage in the EP over others. I am absolutely outraged that this was even possible.
I am also amazed that only a total of 1.63 marks (about 6%) have been allocated across the relevant spreadsheets, considering there were a number of separate issues that needed to be looked at & decided whether they were to be included or not.
We all know that if we were confident that the acquisition spreadsheets were entirely correct, we would not have been questioning ourselves about the accuracy of those entries later on when things were not balancing correctly.
I am also disappointed in the professionalism that the ICAA has displayed with regards to this issue. When it was first brought to their attention, it should have been acted on - even if that meant advising all candidates of how to see the 'hidden' sections so everyone was equal, or providing additional time to complete the EP if they couldn't respond in a timely matter due to the programmers.
This is my 3rd unit & the amount of hours this EP required, far exceeded that of the EP's in my previous units. At the end of the day, it does not seem that there is much that we are able to do about this - just move on & keep studying in the hope that enough is completed to pass - I am just disheartened that after all of the hours & stress put in to complete this assignment it was not fair across the board.
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Teamed up with the knowledge of VB and Excel workings, it is obvious that a technologically savvy person would have had access to all sorts of advantages within minutes.
To claim to rectify this by awarding the 1.63 marks is ridiculous. Having access to this data would have saved me personally at least 10 hours, not to mention that the correct answers would have flown through to consolidation journals and the rest. It’s the extra 10 hours I could have used to get that bloody cash flow right.
I'd like to say that I have been very unimpressed with ICAA’s handling of the issue. When this was first brought to our attention, the student’s post was deleted and the ones following it were too. When it became clear that enough people saw it to make a cover up impossible, a ridiculous comment was issued that this was a “rumour”. Obviously, the Institute never even bothered to check if it was true or not, the same way, I suspect, they never bothered to test-drive the “16 hour” EP.
Now the ICAA is trying to claim the posts were being deleted as a security measure. What a joke. The assignment had already been submitted, there were no security issues there. It’s not like we could tell other students who were still working on their assignments. The “security issue” theory does not explain why the original poster was being threatened via email and telephone to shut up or have their access to MyCA disabled, and accused of breaching the Academic Code. No censorship? Oh please. George Orwell would turn over in his grave if he saw this.
I find it amusing that the same badly secured assignment was previously used for MAA – undoubtedly people have been using the loopholes in Excel to cheat for a while, and yet the ICAA sees it as a proof that the issue is “minor”. There is a lesson in this – if you are going to use a computerised assignment, do put in some effort to ensure it is not easily “broken” with free software by anyone with a some knowledge of computers. I am no expert in VB, but even I could get the hidden data out!
Finally, I have to agree with the others about the lack of guidance received re the EP. Why weren’t we provided with a breakdown of marks for each spreadsheet? Why weren’t ambiguous directions, such as that regarding the contentious NO ENTRY issue, clarified and put up as announcements? How hard was it to put up an announcement to state that one NO ENTRY was required per journal, and only if you didn’t think that journal was necessary? I was initially going to put NO ENTRY in every spare line of each journal, but upon further discussion with other students, went for the other (correct?) approach. I have read many posts of Roslyn’s stating that “no further clarification is necessary”. Obviously, it was necessary, because so many people were confused, and stating that only one NO ENTRY per unrequired journal is needed is hardly giving away the solution.
This is my first module, and so far it hasn’t been the best introduction to the CA program. To say that I am underwhelmed would be an understatement of the year. I thought my university was an administration failure, but the running of this module takes the cake. I hope we see some significant improvement from now until the end of the module, and that ICAA takes responsibility for the EP, which was nothing but exercise in failure.
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by threatening [JULIE]* to remove her blackboard access and charge her with the offence of acdemic code policy breach is absolutely a joke, shame on you!
CA
number one in numbers
bottom one in ethics
*Name has been changed to protect the identity of the candidate
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