Terms of Enrolment

Terms of Enrolment & Submitting Assignments

 Upon enrolling upon a course with any educational institution, a student is entering a legal agreement under common law in which they agree to abide by the conditions of enrolment in exchange for the service offered by the institution in the delivery of the course.

Time Limits For Completing The Online Dog Courses

 You have a period of two years from the date of enrolment within which to complete your online dog course. If you haven’t made contact with the college in six months or more, it is a good idea to send us an email just to let us know you are still around and interested in being enrolled.

Final Grading

 Upon successful completion of your chosen programme of study, your Diploma / Certificate will be awarded as a PASS, MERIT or DISTINCTION. The grading will be awarded based upon the student’s commitment to study, quality of work submitted and extra research undertaken throughout the duration of the online course.

Plagiarism

 Please note that the college has very strict policies on plagiarism and does not allow answers which have been copied word for word from the unit text, or which have been copied and pasted from internet sites – in whole or in part. All assignments are automatically cross referenced by an in-house computer programme to ensure that no plagiarism has occurred. Unless your paper is written entirely in your own words, you will have to resubmit it – without exception.

Papers flagged by the computer software will not be marked or graded. You will simply receive an email informing you that your need to resubmit the paper.

It is important that students answer ALL questions entirely in their own words to illustrate that they understand the subject matter. Taking text written by others on websites doesn’t allow the student to show that they grasp what is being taught in the unit. Every question is checked, and any paper found to contain plagiarised information will result in an UNGRADED (U) mark being registered to the student’s file. Please be aware that any student receiving a U grade on any paper will be unable to attain anything higher than a PASS grade at the end of the course.

Please be aware that the college operates a ‘three strikes’ rule on plagiarism, with any student receiving a U grade on three papers automatically being flagged for assessment by the governing committee of the college as to their suitability to remain on the course. If the committee deems that the student should not remain enrolled due to this behaviour, no refund will be issued.

Student Conduct

 We accept and appreciate that all students have the right to express their opinion, and that sometimes there may be disagreements between students and their tutors regarding gradings. This is normal, and our tutors are trained to resolve this in a professional manner.

We ask that if students have an issue, they raise this via email with their tutor in the first instance. If they feel that the issue has not been resolved after this, the matter will be referred to the college principal. Communication should remain polite and in a manner appropriate to a student / tutor relationship. Informing tutors, for example, that they are wrong and don’t know their subject, will not be tolerated. Differences of opinion are fine, but try to remember that our staff are professionals in their field.

However, our staff will not tolerate abuse from students. Any communication containing abuse of any sort will be taken very seriously. Students who abuse any member of staff will immediately be referred to the principal. If this behaviour continues, they will be removed from the course without refund.

Similarly, given the popularity of social media nowadays, we understand that it has become popular to make comments on these sites which have the potential to damage the reputation of businesses. The college will not tolerate these kinds of actions, and any student found to be doing this will have their enrolment immediately terminated. Reviews of our courses are obviously absolutely fine, but deliberate and unfounded attempts to defame our business due to a personal issue will be taken extremely seriously and may even lead to legal action.

We offer discounts to members of the armed forces and their families, veterinary professionals and existing students / graduates. Discount codes for each of these will be provided to eligible customers. Please note: Eligibility for any code used will be checked before enrolment packs are sent out. Should unauthorised code use take place, course materials will not be sent out and the enrolment fee will be refunded minus a £20 admin fee.

Submitting Assignments

 We ask students to read and digest the content of the unit, then answer the questions at the end of the unit. These should then be emailed back to your tutor for marking. These can be submitted as a word document, an email or a PDF. The level of detail required should be clear in the wording of the question. We are looking for clear, concise answers. Unless the question specifically asks for it, we are not looking for essays.

We suggest that you read through the unit information two or three times before answering so that you can fully absorb the detail. Remember that you may be tested in future units about what you have learned in previous chapters, so it is best to fully learn and digest what the unit is teaching before trying to progress.

In order to progress to the following unit, a PASS grade must be attained. Without exception, the next unit cannot be supplied until the current unit has been passed. We cannot send several units out at a time.

We endeavour to mark and return answer sheets within 4 working days. However, during busy periods this may take a short while longer.

When submitting assignments:

Please ensure that you state your full name within the ‘sender’ line or message body of your email so that we know who you are! If you use an email address in a name other than your own current name, please ensure you provide the name under which you are registered with us. Failing to state who the submission is from can lead to delays in your marking being returned, or papers going astray.

In the subject line, please state the course you are on, and the unit you are submitting. This will ensure that your marking is sent to the correct tutor and avoid delays. Please do not send emails with re: in the title – these will be sent directly to admin who will manually have to enter your submission into the marking queue. This can add a day or two onto your wait time.

If you are sending a resubmission, please state this in the email. Failing to do this can lead to your whole paper being remarked, which will naturally mean a longer wait for your revised grading sheet.

Upon receipt, an auto-responder will be sent to your email address confirming that your paper has reached us. Your paper will then be entered automatically into a queue. Please do not resubmit your paper unless you have made amendments. Any resubmissions will replace your earlier submission automatically and be placed to the back of the queue. If you haven’t received the auto-responder, or your paper has not been returned to you after four working days, please email your tutor. However, we ask that until four full working days has passed, you try to have patience!

Marking Criteria Explained

 Each question is marked based upon three criteria:

Evidence that the student has thoroughly read and understood the unit content.
Evidence of the student’s ability to clearly and concisely explain what has been learned in a way that a third party would be able to understand – including, where appropriate, the use of key words and terminology.
Evidence of the student’s own interpretation of the unit content and any additional research undertaken in the form of answers written entirely in their own words (unless quotations are specifically asked for in the wording of the question).

Each question will either be marked as PASSED or CRITERIA NOT SATISFIED (CNS).
CNS means the student has not included sufficient information or detail to satisfy the marking criteria above. Additional information will need to be submitted in order to receive the PASS grade. All questions must receive a PASS grade in order to progress to the next unit.