Postgraduate Course: Knowledge Integration and Project Planning: Creative Industries (EFIE11119)
Course Outline
School | Edinburgh Futures Institute |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Availability | Not available to visiting students |
SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
Summary | This course will help you develop a strong, creative and methodologically robust interdisciplinary team project. It provides space for you to reflect on your learning, develop your digital writing and communication skills, and explore research methods appropriate to the final project. Via this course you will bring together the cross-disciplinary understandings gained from your taught courses, and explore ways in which these can be applied as you develop the project with your group. |
Course description |
This Knowledge Integration and Project Planning course provides a framework through which students can reflect on their learning as they develop a final project idea to pitch to peers either as a team dissertation project, or as a negotiated part of a client-defined project. Students will begin considering project ideas during the early weeks of semester 1, and will develop them over semesters 1 and 2, using a blog to create a record of the development of their thinking.
Students will receive a handbook which will clearly set out the expectations for this piece of work. It will include the requirement to engage in, and reflect on, how different disciplinary perspectives converge on the student's project area, how the methods training students have taken might influence the project plan, and accounts of changes in thinking regarding project design through discussion with peers. Students will be required to make regular blog posts across the entire period of their studies, with evidence of active engagement and meaningful, consistent reflection required in order to pass. The handbook will specify the detailed requirements for these posts (for example frequency and format).
During their period of study in EFI, students on the Creative Industries programme will have the ability to develop their understanding of enquiry methodologies in four main ways: 1) through the EFI shared core, focusing on data skills, interdisciplinary enquiry and creative methods; 2) through elements within the Creative Industries programme which engage with domain-specific methods and knowledges; 3) through non-EFI credit-bearing courses which students choose to take on an elective basis, for example courses within the School of Social and Political Science Research Training Centre; 4) not-for-credit training from the Institute for Academic Development, events hosted by the Centre for Data, Culture and Society, free open courses and others. Students will be strongly encouraged to take advantage of these, and to use the Knowledge Integration and Project Planning course to bring together the various insights and understandings they introduce.
The primary medium for the course will be a blogging environment able to support reflection across time, allowing regular posts to be made, and supporting multiple formats and modes of representation (text, image, video). This space will be designed to enable students to benefit from peer support and peer commentary on each other's work, with granular permissions allowing students to make posts public, private to their group, or entirely private where preferred. It will be lightly monitored by teaching assistants in order to help programme teams identify instances where students appear to be struggling. It will be supported by 2 group supervision meetings, each of which integrate with the support plan for the final project. If the student is struggling and desires a one-to-one exchange, this can be arranged with the programme director.
At the end of semester 1 students will submit a 1,000 word reflective summary of their work and what they see as the key issues they would wish to incorporate in the final team project - this will receive formative feedback from their project group supervisor early in semester 2.
Students' reflections will culminate in the articulation of a set of key issues emerging from their thinking over the period of their study, reflecting on the cross-disciplinary and methodological implications of their studies and applying their thinking to a coherent, robust and well-structured plan either for a team project, or for an key issue which they would like to address within the context of the team project. To communicate this issue effectively to others, each student will create a 1500 word reflective summary of their ideas and proposal, and a 500 word pitch either to lead a team project or to contribute a sub-element of a wider project. The pitches will be used to identify team members whose interests align and complement one another for the team-based dissertation. The 2000 word document will be submitted as the final assessed element of the course (in early May) and will form the basis of a focused meeting with group supervisors.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Course Delivery Information
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Academic year 2023/24, Not available to visiting students (SS1)
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Quota: None |
Course Start |
Block 5 (Sem 2) and beyond |
Course Start Date |
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Timetable |
Timetable |
Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Other Study Hours 2,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
194 )
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Additional Information (Learning and Teaching) |
Other Study: Scheduled Group-work Hours (hybrid online/on-campus) - 2
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Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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Additional Information (Assessment) |
The course will be assessed on a pass/fail basis. Students will be provided with guidance on this. To pass, students must demonstrate:
1) evidence of active engagement and meaningful, consistent posting in the blog (or comparable reflection space);
2) sufficient quality of the final project idea and plan (1500 words);
3) sufficient evidence of skills in presenting a vision and plan in a way that would persuade others to support it (a 500 word pitch either to lead a project or to outline a sub-project for the team-based dissertation). The pitches will be shared with teammates to help determine the scope and direction of the team-based project.
The deadline for (2 and 3) is early May. The project plan and idea (2) and the pitch constitute a single component of assessment, which the course team will assess in the round. |
Feedback |
Feedback will take two forms:
1) A culture of collegiality, peer feedback and support will be built to encourage students to share and comment on each other's posts; where students wish to make posts public - and it's appropriate to do so - there may be elements of support via commentary from external partners and a global public.
2) Students will receive formative feedback from their group supervisor, focused on their 1,000 word synthesis, at the beginning of semester 2 - this will feed-forward into the final project plan. |
No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Evidence the ability to take a consistently reflexive approach to their own intellectual development.
- Evaluate, synthesise and apply insights from across disciplines to a discrete project idea.
- Demonstrate knowledge of a range of methodological approaches to enquiry, and make a convincing case for how these shape project design.
- Apply critical, creative and informed approaches to the design and scoping of a project.
- Use an appropriate range of approaches to communicating and synthesising complex ideas from across diverse knowledge domains.
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Reading List
Readings will be largely drawn from the core and elective courses on which students are enrolled, and the domain-specific events and activities they are engaged in. However there will also be a list specific to this course, updated annually and co-created across programmes, to incorporate readings in relevant areas including academic and general writing skills, digital communication skills, research project management, communicating visually and critical reflection. |
Additional Information
Graduate Attributes and Skills |
1. Students will demonstrate integrative knowledge and understanding of cross-disciplinary perspectives on enquiry (SCQF 1)
2. Students will learn how to apply their knowledge, skills and understanding to the design of a project (SCQF 2)
3. Students will scope cross-disciplinary approaches to enquiry from a critical and integrative perspective (SCQF 3)
4. Students will develop high level skills in communication and representation of knowledge across different forms (SCQF 4)
5. Students will develop skills in reflective practice and demonstrate a high level of autonomy, taking responsibility for their own learning and supporting that of others (SCQF 5) |
Keywords | Creative Industries,Knowledge Integration,Project Planning |
Contacts
Course organiser | Prof Candace Jones
Tel: (0131 6)51 3858
Email: |
Course secretary | |
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