Topic outline

  • General

    Hello! Welcome to Contemporary Marketing Issues – Reading Package course! In the academic year 2023-2024, Kseniia Lashkova and Arash Naghdi will be the instructors for the independent learning course. We are currently in the middle of a change-over with the course, as Simo Lehtovirta and Nayoung Yoon are handing the course over to the new teachers, but we will very soon have updated all the details on MyCourses to correspond with the new instructors' information. Thus, pay attention to the dates on the documents that you are viewing, as they might change a bit in the coming days. However, no drastic changes will be made in Period I.

     

     

    In this course, you are supposed to choose one reading package of your interest from the available options, and write an essay that outlines the primary themes from the readings. Choose a scope and an objective for your essay carefully.

     

     

    You need to self-enrol to the MyCourses page that is used for the academic year 2023-2024 for this course. No other MyCourses page will be used. We are currently in the process of setting up the self-enrolment function for the new course page for the academic year 2023-2024. You will receive a notification once the self-enrolment function is working. You should be able to view the contents of the reading packages even without completing the self-enrolment as of now.

     

     

    Once the self-enrolment function works, search for “Contemporary Marketing Issues Reading Package” using the MyCourses search function, and click the ‘Self-Enrolment’ button next to the Contemporary Marketing Issues Reading Package: I-V, 2023-2024 course. We will provide you with the course key as soon as we have one.

     

     

    After completing the self-enrolment, please check that you can access all the files and submission functions on the course page. If you have any issues with the self-enrolment, please contact one of the instructors for assistance.

     

     

    This is a self-study course, which means that you are free to schedule your studying based on your preference. A good time to start reading the articles is now, since the final deadline is on 20 October 2023 at 23:59 Finland time. There will be no concessions to this deadline.

     

     

    We highly recommend you do a weekly study plan to make sure that you have enough time to read, make notes, write and re-write. This course is planned to take 60 hours for reading the articles and 100 hours for writing the essay.

     

     

    Before you start, make yourself familiar with the MyCourses page: https://mycourses.aalto.fi/course/view.php?id=41698

     

     

    Here, you’ll find all the course materials, such as the syllabus, the reading packages, tips and don’ts of writing, and some exemplary essays.

     

     

    Take extra time to go through the syllabus and understand what is expected of you in the course. If you have questions, please send us an email. Remember to follow the grading rubric. By doing so, you can maximize the points that you can get for your essay.

     

     

    As stated in the instructions, you need to incorporate all of the readings in your chosen package in your essay. There is no coursework beyond the reading package and the associated essay, and thus all of the readings need to be completed, and you need to be able to demonstrate that you have understood what they are about.

     

     

    It is permissible, and even highly likely, that you will discuss some readings more extensively than others. This is also incorporated in the grading rubric; if you only report on all of the readings you score one point, but if you also review extensively and critically the pieces of literature that are relevant to your thematic breakdown, you can score the higher points.

     

     

    The introductory slides available on the MyCourses page cover the most important points to remember. You are required to familiarize yourself with the introductory slides. Remember to review the syllabus as well.

     

     

    There are two important deadlines for you to remember:

     

     

    18.09.2023: Select the topic of your essay on the MyCourses page (your chosen reading package). This is a mandatory step. Failing to do so will result in your paper not being graded.

     

     

    20.10.2023: Nonnegotiable Deadline! Final deadline to submit your essay in the MyCourses submission box.

     

     

    You’ll find the deadlines for periods I-V from the Syllabus as they are announced. Please notice that you need to register to the course on Sisu in the period in which you will submit your essay. If you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact us! =)

     

     

    For the students who started the course in one of the prior periods and are continuing in the course; some changes may have been made to some of the reading packages and other course materials. Please make sure that you follow the current requirements in your work.

     

     

    As an important piece of information, the students should note that significant changes will be made to the course this fall. Thus, if you have an almost-ready essay that you are planning on submitting to the course, do so now in Period I. If you have started the course in Period I, we advice you to submit your work in period I and not postpone the submission, unless you are comfortable with risking that the requirements will change significantly for period II.

     

     

    All the best,

     

    the outgoing instructors Simo & Nayoung