FEBRUARY NEWSLETTER

Hello Andrew, and welcome to the February newsletter!

This is our monthly newsletter that gives you some news and updates about what is going on with DistanceLearningCentre.com, our staff and our students.

We have just a short newsletter for you this month, as we are focussing on checking for plagarism, student feedback forum and TCDs and ILPs.

Drop-in Student Forum Meeting

Wednesday 8th February 2023 @7PM

Over the last year we have been working closely with groups of students, using their feedback to help improve our student experience and support. This has already been a great success, with the implementation of new resources, revision of SAQs, webinars and more!

We want to make sure that we keep meeting the needs of you, our students, and the best way we can do this is through your feedback! So we would like to invite our students to take part in a meeting where we can discuss feedback you may have relating to webinars, the new library and social media in particular although we would always welcome new ideas too.

If you would like to attend just use the button below (this meeting can also be accessed from the webinars tab on your learner account). You can also get in touch with any suggestions for discussion points or feedback before the meeting by emailing editor@distancelearningcentre.com.

Join Meeting

Checking Plagarism

Checking your work for plagiarism through Turnitin UK can feel like quite a daunting prospect so we are doing a feature on it this month to hopefully give you some reassurance – and a warning about using ‘free’ plagiarism checking services.

It can be tempting to ‘pre check’ your work with one of the many ‘free’ plagiarism checking tools that are available online before uploading to Turnitin.

However there are two good reasons NOT to do this:

1. These free checking services often have small print in their terms and conditions which mean that the work you upload for checking can then be used by their partner companies. They then share your work on sites such as ‘Course Hero’ for other students to use and view and this also means that Turnitin will detect matches with your own work which has been put onto such sites without your knowledge.

2. For DistanceLearningCentre.com students, Turnitin UK is set up so that you are able to view the report and amend it if necessary and check it again. In effect because of the way we have set things up for you, there is no need to precheck your work before you use Turnitin as you can edit your assessment and recheck before uploading it for marking.

If you need further advice and guidance about plagiarism and Using Turnitin you can follow these links or access the pages from the toolkit in your learner account and you can also speak to your tutor.

We would like you to be able to use Turnitin as a tool during your studies to understand plagiarism and how to avoid it in your work before you go to University where your assessments will usually be submitted through Turnitin without you being able to view the report.

Your questions answered

This month's questions are:

Why do we set TCDs and moderations?

Our answer:

Your TCD (Target Completion Date) is the date that you plan to complete your studies. You will then moderate in the next moderation after your TCD (moderations, which are where the diploma is awarded to you, happen in June and November). We set your moderation and TCD as these are key dates in your progression and entry to university and give you goals to work towards. Your TCD is also linked to your payments (if you are paying for your course in instalments). For instance, if you extend your TCD then your payments are spread over more months and so would reduce (unless you are on the monthly extension fee).

Why do we ask you to use your ILP?

Our answer:
Your ILP helps you to plan your time so that you meet your moderation goals and are able to stick to rules we have such as the submission of one assessment a week maximum. This ensures that your work is spread evenly across your time on the course, you are not rushing for moderation (which can lead to poorer quality work) and you are therefore able to complete everything you need to in time to moderate and go to university.

June Moderation Countdown

This is a countdown to June moderation reminder.

New Library

We have been developing a brand new library over the past few months and it is now available in toolkit on your account.

The new library has over 4000 items which includes articles, journals, videos, careers advice, e-books and much more.

Just like a physical library, you can browse the contents or you search by key words. Each item has a synopsis and a link to the content, which opens in a new window on your device. We hope you find this useful for your studies!

Let us know if you have any requests or suggstions for what to add next by contacting editor@distancelearningcentre.com. We will be continuing to add items to make it even bigger and better!

Finished your course? Leave us a Review!

We need your reviews! A large number of our learners choose us because of our positive reviews, so why not give us a review to help others choose the right course for them!

Your reviews and feedback also help us continously improve our student experience, and provide the best service we can.

At various points during your studies you will be sent an invite to review us on Trustpilot, we would appreciate it if you could take a few minutes to leave a review when you are invited.

You can also give us a review or send us some feedback in a variety of other ways:
- Reviews on our Facebook Page.
- Give our page a like and share.
- Testimonial for our Hall of Fame.

You can also email Studentservices@distancelearningcentre.com with any issues you have had (or are having), who will be happy to help resolve these.