Academic Advising for Graduate Students

Academic advising is an important key to success. We will help you understand Brock’s academic structure, the variety of options available to you and the necessary degree requirements.

Important!

Log in to the Graduate Portal to:

  • Find current walk-in advising times
  • Contact the Graduate Programs Office with your questions
  • Schedule appointments for advising with Graduate Academic Coordinator
  • Notify us of any changes in your mailing address or email address
  • Get information about your degree requirements

Important Information for International Students

As a result of Bill C-35, the University and its staff members are prohibited from providing students with any advice or guidance relating to matters governed by the CIC. Please visit the CIC website for information about visas and immigration.

In-Person and Telephone Questions

In order to ensure that someone is available to meet with you, please make an appointment in advance.

Administrative Office Hours
Monday to Friday
8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. (12:00pm-1:00pm closed for lunch)

Phil Alexander, Academic Coordinator
GSB 344

Questions/Inquiries: portal.bus.brocku.ca

Weekly Drop-In Hours (subject to change):

  • Tuesday 9:30am-11:30am, 1:30pm-3:30pm
  • Thursday 9:30am-11:30am, 1:30pm-3:30pm

Jason Barfoot, International Recruitment/Admissions Officer
GSB 347B
905-688-5550 x5936

Laurie Redford, Graduate Admissions and Scholarships Coordinator
GSB 346
905-688-5550 x6169

Teresa Feng, Manager, International Programs
GSB 343
905-688-5550 x4157

Academic policies

Academic misconduct

Academic misconduct may take many forms and is NOT limited to the following:

Exams and Tests

  • Use of unauthorized material
  • Copying from another student or making information available to other students knowing that this is submitted as the borrower’s work
  • Impersonation of another student in an exam or test
  • Submission of a take-home examination written by someone else

Essays and Assignments

  • Submission of an essay written in whole or in part by someone else as one’s own
  • Preparing an essay or assignment for submission by another student
  • Copying an essay or assignment, or allowing one’s essay or assignment to be copied by someone else
  • Using direct quotations or large sections or paraphrased material without acknowledgement
  • The buying or selling of term papers or assignments
  • The submission of the same piece of work in more than one course without the permission of the instructors
  • Submitting whole or part of a computer program with or without minor modifications as one’s own

Plagiarism

  • presenting work done (in whole or in part) by someone else as if it were one’s own
  • associate dishonest practices include faking or falsification of data, cheating or the uttering of false statements by a student in order to obtain unjustified concessions
  • Plagiarism should be distinguished from co-operation and collaboration. Often, students may be permitted or expected to work on assignments collectively, and to present the results either collectively or separately. This is not a problem so long as it is clearly understood whose work is being presented, for way of formal acknowledgement or by footnoting.

Cheating

  • Allowing someone else to turn in your work as their own.
  • Several people writing one essay and turning in multiple copies, all represented (implicitly or explicitly) as individual work.
  • Using any part of someone else’s work without the proper acknowledgment.
  • Stealing an examination or a solution from the instructor or the other student. This is an extremely flagrant offense.

False or Misleading Representation

  • Failure to disclose prior academic records required for admission decisions or other academic purposes
  • Obtaining medical or other certificates under false or misleading pretences
  • Altering documents or certificates, including but not restricted to, health claims, tests, and examinations
  • Submitting false credentials for any purpose
  • Forging or falsifying Brock University documents, including but not restricted to hard copy or electronic

 

Penalties for Academic Misconduct

Absolutely NO Plagiarism or Cheating is tolerated.

The penalty imposed may range from zero for the exam or the piece of work to expulsion from the University. Proven cases of academic misconduct will be documented in the student’s official record at Brock University. Subsequent cases will be dealt with more severely.

Past cases of Academic Misconduct include:

  • MBA students missing a mandatory class and having someone else sign their names on the attendance sheet.
  • An MBA student used unauthorized material during the final exam
  • An MBA student left an examination room during the first 30 minutes of the final exam
  • An MBA student plagiarized material on a homework assignment
  • MBA students plagiarized material on group homework assignments

Penalties for these academic misconducts ranged from a grade of zero on an assignment to a failing course grade. In addition, a letter of academic misconduct was placed in students’ academic file.

Appeals

All graduate students have the right to appeal academic decisions. An appeal is a request that an academic decision (e.g., a grade or standing in a program) be changed, based on the evidence supplied by the student or that a regulation be waived on compassionate grounds or because of extenuating circumstances.

Brock’s academic appeals procedures are detailed in the Graduate Calendar. As a general guideline, however, students must first discuss the matter in dispute with the instructor (if applicable). If not satisfied, the student may then appeal to the Associate Dean of Graduate Programs and Research for the Goodman School of Business, followed by the Dean of Graduate Studies and, finally, the Student Appeals Board.

For further Information, contact one of the following:

Faculty of Graduate Studies 
Academic Integrity Office
Student Appeals Board

Course withdrawal

A student may withdraw in good standing from a course within the period established each term as published in the academic calendar. While it is a courtesy to inform the instructor of withdrawal from a course, this does not constitute official withdrawal from either a course or the University. Grades will be recorded on students’ transcripts for all courses in which they have registered and from which they have not withdrawn.

Students wishing to withdraw from a course must consult with Philip Alexander prior to the published deadlines.

Goodman School of Business English Language Policy

The language of instruction at the Goodman School of Business is English, and the exclusive use of English is encouraged and mandatory for all course-related activities at all times. Goodman actively recruits students who have the necessary English language knowledge and skills to successfully engage with their studies and, as graduates, successfully participate in their professional work environments and life-long language learning.

As a Faculty, consistent with AACSB requirements, we encourage all Goodman students to actively improve oral and written communication abilities. To see each student succeed, English language development strategies are integrated with coursework and University resources and services are available for support.

Academic Integrity Policy
Student Development Centre

Evaluation of student performance

The Goodman School of Business evaluates the performance of each graduate student at the end of every academic term. The following general guidelines are applicable:

Master of business administration, MBA (traditional and ISP)

For graduate courses in the MBA program and MBA ISP, grades A, B, and C are considered to be passing grades and eligible for graduate credit. However, a maximum of two (2) half-credits at the C level may be used for degree credit and the student must achieve an overall minimum B average to be eligible to graduate.

Students with three grades of C must repeat one course and achieve a grade of at least B in order to complete their degree requirements.

Students with more than three grades of C may be withdrawn from the MBA or MBA ISP, as applicable, at the discretion of the MBA Committee.
If at any time a student’s overall average drops below B the student will be placed on academic probation.  If the overall average does not improve in the subsequent academic term (achieve a 70% or higher), the student may be withdrawn from the MBA or MBA ISP, as applicable.

Students who are withdrawn from the MBA or MBA ISP as a result of academic performance and are re-admitted in a subsequent term or year must achieve a grade of least B in each course during the period of re-admission. If a re-admitted student fails to achieve a grade of at least B in one or more graduate courses, the student may be withdrawn from the MBA or MBA ISP, as applicable, without option of future re-admission.

Master of Accountancy (MACC)

Students are permitted to count one (1) grade of C for graduate credit toward degree requirements.  If a student achieves two grades below B in their first full-time term (or equivalent) of graduate study or a total of three grades below B over the full length of their program, the student may be withdrawn from the MACC, as applicable, at the discretion of the MACC Committee.  If at any time, a student’s overall average drops below B (70%), the student may be withdrawn from the MACC as applicable.

Students who are withdrawn from the MACC as a result of academic performance and are re-admitted in a subsequent term or year must achieve a grade of least B in each course during the period of re-admission. If a re-admitted student fails to achieve a grade of at least B in one or more graduate courses, the student may be withdrawn from the MACC as applicable, without option of future re-admission.

Master of Professional Accounting (MPAC)

For graduate courses in the MPAC, grades A, B, and C are considered to be passing grades and eligible for graduate credit. However, a maximum of two (2) half-credits at the C level may be used for degree credit and the student must achieve an overall minimum B average (70%) to be eligible to graduate.

Students with three grades of C must repeat one course and achieve a grade of at least B in order to complete their degree requirements.

Students with more than three grades of C may be withdrawn from the MPAC as applicable, at the discretion of the MACC Committee. If at any time a student’s overall average drops below B the student will be placed on academic probation.  If the overall average does not improve in the subsequent academic term (achieve a 70% or higher), the student may be withdrawn from the MPAC as applicable.

Students who are withdrawn from the MPAC as a result of academic performance and are re-admitted in a subsequent term or year must achieve a grade of least B in each course during the period of re-admission. If a re-admitted student fails to achieve a grade of at least B in one or more graduate courses, the student may be withdrawn from the MPAC as applicable, without option of future re-admission.

Master of Science in Management

For graduate courses in the M.Sc., grades of A+, A, and B are eligible for graduate credit.  Obtaining a grade of C will necessitate a course repeat if it is required for the degree, or completion of another MSCM course if it is not required (subject to course availability).

Students must maintain a minimum cumulative average of at least a B- (70%) during each term of study. If a graduate student falls below the minimum cumulative average the student will be automatically placed on academic probation for the subsequent term by the Faculty of Graduate Studies. Additionally, the graduate program may recommend required program withdrawal. A probationary student must achieve the minimum cumulative average (normally during the probationary term) to be eligible to continue as a graduate student.

Graduate Diploma in Business Administration (GDBA)
Students are required to maintain an overall average of 70% to remain and progress in the GDBA program.  Grades of A, B, and C are considered to be passing grades and eligible for graduate credit. However, a maximum of one (1) half-credits at the C level may be used for credit towards the GDBA.  If a student achieves two grades below B they must repeat at least one course and achieve a grade of at least B in order to complete their degree requirements.  If a student obtains a total of three grades below B over the full length of their program, the student will be withdrawn from the GDBA.

Probationary Admission
Candidates who are admitted to the GDBA on probation for their first 2.50 credits (5 courses) and may be subject to involuntary withdrawal from the program at the discretion of the Associate Dean Research and Graduate Programs, in consultation with the MBA Committee, if a grade below  B is achieved in one or more courses.

Graduate Diploma in Accounting (GDAC)
Students are required to maintain an overall grade average of 70% to remain and progress in the GDAC program. Students with a grade of C must repeat that course and achieve a grade of at least B in order to complete their degree requirements.  Students with two grades of C will be withdrawn from the GDAC.

To be eligible to transfer to the MACC program students must have a minimum overall average of 75%, and no grades of C.

Certificate in Administrative Studies (CAS)
Students must maintain a 75% overall average with at least 70% in each course.

Professional Masters Preparation Certificate – Business (PMPC-B)
Students must maintain a minimum 70% overall average and must achieve at least a 60% in each course.  Students must also submit an official English language proficiency score acceptable for admission into their graduate program. Please note students will have two chances to get the required language score on Brock’s ITELP exam.  Students who fail to get the required score on the Brock ITELP exam will have until June 30th to submit one of the approved external language tests, TOEFL, IELTS, CanTest or CAEL.

Grading in Graduate Programs

Standing in the graduate programs will be reported according to the following schedule of grades.

A – 80-100
B – 70-79
C – 60-69
F – 59 or lower

IN (Incomplete) is a temporary grade granted to a student, in exceptional circumstances who has been unable to complete some part of the term work in a course. A grade must be submitted no later than 56 days from the last day of classes in each term. If the IN is not replaced by a letter grade within 56 days, the IN will be changed to the default grade.

IP (In progress) may be awarded if a student fails to complete all course requirements within the prescribed time limit. A student who receives an IP grade for a course, must re-register for that course in the term following that for which an IP grade is received. No half credit graduate course shall be denoted IP for more than one term.
SA (Satisfactory) Used for co-op work terms, internship options and non-credit courses.

UN (Unsatisfactory) Used for co-op work terms, internship options and non-credit courses.

Leave of absence

A leave of absence from a graduate program will be granted only in exceptional circumstances which will include parental and maternity leave, medical leave, work leave which requires the student to leave the geographic area or on compassionate grounds. Cases will be considered on an individual basis and must have the approval of the Director of Graduate Programs for the Goodman School of Business before they are submitted to the Office of Graduate Studies

A graduate student granted a leave of absence will not be registered and will not be required to pay fees for the duration of the leave. Students on leave will not be eligible to receive financial support from the University. In the case of funding by an external agency, the regulations of the granting agency will apply. The length of time for completion of the degree will be extended by the duration of the leave. While on leave students may not be entitled to use University facilities and resources or receive supervision.

The LOA form can be found in the below list of ‘Faculty of Graduate Studies Forms’.

Fees and financial assistance

Tuition Fees

Please consult the Finance Office website for details on tuition fees for these programs.

Tuition fees are due on the first day of classes for any particular term.  After online registration, your financial account will show the tuition charges. To view the charges on your account, please login to my.brocku.ca and select the Student Self Service option from the black toolbar across the top of the screen. Your finance account can be viewed by selecting “FinanceHistory”.  Please see the Finance Office’s website on How to Make a Payment.

The Financial Services Office expects students to check their accounts regularly and make payments as necessary. Statements will not be mailed, so please do not rely on the receipt of a statement as a trigger to make a payment.

Ancillary Fees

Mandatory ancillary fees will be charged to all Brock graduate students at the beginning of each term. Please see the Finance Office website for current information on the various ancillary fees.

Tuition Refunds – Amounts and Withdrawal Dates

Please visit the Finance website for information on course withdrawals and refunds.  If you have further questions, please contact us through the Goodman Student Portal.

Business English Program Fee

All MPAC and MBA (ISP) students are required to participate in a Business English program in August of their first year.

The fee for this program is $1200 CDN. Fees will be charged to your Brock student financial account in early August. You should check your financial account history using the “FinanceHistory” access within the Student Self Service section of my.brocku.ca. Once the fee has been assessed on the account, payment is due at the Brock Central Office on the 3rd floor of the Schmon Tower.

Comprehensive Health and Drug Plan

All full-time students are automatically charged a fee for a supplemental health and drug plan. This plan is NOT THE SAME as UHIP. International students are required to have BOTH UHIP and the GSA supplemental health plan.

This plan is administered by the Graduate Students’ Association (GSA) as a result of a student referendum held in March 2004. For more detailed information, please visit the GSA website.

The GSA supplemental health and drug plan is mandatory for all full-time graduate students.

Students who already have comparable health coverage from another source are able to opt-out of the supplemental health plan. To do this, please visit the GSA Office website and follow the instructions.  click here

Students may also choose to opt-into the plan for their families or if they are part-time. Please click here and follow the instructions for opting-in.

UHIP (Universal Health Insurance Plan) – International students only

The UHIP plan is mandatory for all Brock students who are not eligible for OHIP (Ontario Health Insurance Plan). Effectively, this means that UHIP is required for all international students and all Canadian permanent residents who have been in the country for less than three months.

Brock’s UHIP office will coordinate UHIP enrolment procedures on a student’s arrival at Brock University.  Please see the UHIP website for additional information about the program: Click Here

All program based scholarship offers are noted in your admission letter.

Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP) is generally available only to Canadian citizens and permanent residents.
Most on-campus job opportunities are posted on CareerZone. Students should also check the CUPE postings on HR site marker/grader, teaching assistant and part-time instructor positions.

Banking Information

There is one financial institution on campus — Scotiabank – and one financial institution across the street from campus – PenFinancial Credit Union.

To open a bank account, go to the financial institution with your passport, your student card and your money. You also need to have an address in Canada.
For the other bank information please visit the following web sites:

Goodman Graduate Students Computer Labs

The Goodman School of Business and Brock University provide you with access to email, computer labs and computer applications while you are enrolled in our graduate programs.
All MBA, MBA (ISP), MPAcc and MAcc students have access to the Goodman School of Business Computer Labs and Student Lounge located in Taro Hall. Please do not abuse these privileges or they will be revoked.

If you need more help please contact:

Goodman School of Business IT Services (GSBTECH)
GSBTech@brocku.ca
905 688 5550 x 4378

Central ITS Helpdesk
Brock Campus Store

ITHelp@brocku.ca

905 688 5550 x 4357

Activate your my.brocku.ca account
Note: The password you set for your my.brocku.ca account will also be used for your Brock email account and access to all computer labs on campus (including the Goodman School of Business dedicated computer lab and graduate student lounge).

Three students in conversation

In order for us to set up your access to enter and use our Goodman School of Business Graduate Lab and Lounge, you must enter two important pieces of information into the Goodman Portal:

  1. Campus ID. Please select “CPU Accounts Agreement.” After carefully reading the Graduate Programs Academic Computing Behaviour Guide, enter your Campus ID code at the bottom of the page to indicate your acceptance, then click submit. Once you have accepted the guidelines for computing behaviour and attended a mandatory training session (offered at the beginning of each term), our IT group will set up your computing profile on our business servers.
  2. Student card MAG swipe number. On your student card, you will find a long series of letters and numbers below the bar code. It will look something like this: A29157001234567A. Please select “Swipe Access”. Once you have carefully read the Swipe Card Access agreement, please enter your complete MAG swipe number in the space provided then click submit. Your swipe card will only be activated once you have completed the above procedure and attended a mandatory training session (offered at the beginning of each term).

Entered swipe cards will be activated every Monday and Friday in August and September.

As a Goodman graduate student, you have access to a dedicated service that will allow you to get your computer based work done without having to fight for a position in a common access computer lab. The dedicated computer facilities also provide software that is not available in any other labs on campus. You can access these facilities from any Internet connected computer.

The workstations you will be using are thin terminals. After the power is turned on, click Desktop.

Enter your computer account and password as obtained through the my.brocku.ca activation process. The Log on to field should always show CAMPUS.

After you log in, you will see a virtual desktop that will serve as the workspace while using a thin terminal. All of your applications will be available through this desktop.

You may not save files to your desktop. Instead save to My Documents, which you should use for all your document storage.

This is a private location that is only accessible to you; no other students can access the information contained within. This is where all of your data should be stored. No information should be saved on the M:\ or N:\ drives. Any data that is saved in improper locations will be erased on a regular basis by automated processes without warning. If you were working on a workstation with a floppy drive you would also have access to it as A:\. You can access your My Documents folder by double clicking on My Computer or through the save/save as commands in the various applications.

The majority of the applications that you have access to in the laboratory are also available remotely through the Internet. You can access these resources through Citrix.bus.brocku.ca. Taro Hall is wireless network enabled. Most other spots throughout the University are wireless as well. The University supports 802.11 b/g wireless connections.

The majority of the applications that you have access to in the lab are also available remotely through the Internet.  The software is designed to work best with Windows computers but also works with Macs.

Before you log on for the first time you will need to install the Citrix Web Client on your workstation.

Follow the instructions to install the Citrix client. Restart your browser and go to: HTTPS://Citrix.bus.brocku.ca/

Enter your user credentials in the appropriate fields and in the Domain field enter CAMPUS. Click the Log In button at the bottom of the screen. You can now pick applications to run on your local workstation.

A hint when working in this mode is to always leave at least one application running as long as you wish to continue working. Leaving one application running will greatly speed up the launching of other applications.

While you are working in this mode you will have access to your local drives as well as My Documents. This allows you to work on a file in the Lab and save it to My Documents and then go home and continue working on the file without ever having to save it to removable media.

If you have a slow Internet connection then you will find that you are better off working on graphic intensive projects in the Lab so that you can proceed at a normal working pace.

It is increasingly important that you save your work frequently when working over the Internet, as unexpected outages will cause your session to be lost along with any unsaved work.

As a Goodman student, you will have access to the printers located in the laboratories. You will have access to these printers from the labs as well as through the web. Please be conscientious of your print jobs. Do not send a job to the printer and walk away without verifying that your job has not jammed the print queue. If your print job has become stuck in the queue, follow these steps to clear it:

  1. Double click the printer icon in the lower right corner of screen.
  2. Right click on the job you want to clear and select cancel.
  3. Try to print again.

Paper for printing
Printer paper will be refilled daily. If the printers are out of paper, email GSBTech@brocku.ca and the printers will be refilled.