Assessment details for ALL students

Assessment item 1 — Journal article critique

You will need to access the specific requirements, advice, and resources published on our unit Moodle site (click on the appropriate link in the 'Assessment' box), however a general description is published here.

This assignment is a critique of a published scientific paper, nominated by the lecturer, from a reputable journal that publishes papers on ecological topics. Your access to the journal article will be via a link published on our unit Moodle site.

There is no set word limit, however you are encouraged to be as concise as possible (as is good scientific practice). A suggested maximum word limit is 2 000 words, but write as much as it takes to be comprehensive.

Despite the peer review or refereeing process, plenty of papers containing major flaws (in the experimental design and/or analysis and/or interpretation of the results) appear in reputable journals.

You are asked to referee the nominated paper critically (be very picky) with particular respect to the following features: (a) experimental design, (b) analyses of data (basic level), (c) interpretation of the data, i.e., conclusions drawn, and (d) your added constructive suggestions, with a brief rationale for each, for improvement of these aspects of the paper to support your criticisms.

In brief, you will critique the article for good experimental design and practice.

Writing and presentation styles, and spelling/grammatical or similar errors, found in the journal article will not be critiqued.

To pass this unit, a student must aggregate at least 50% of the total marks available in the unit, and score at least the minimum achievement levels set for each of the assessment item. The following criteria will be assessed equally.

Assessment evaluation criteria

A minimum achievement level is set for this assessment activity (i.e., you must equal or exceed this set minimum achievement level for you to be considered for a passing grade for this unit overall, irrespective of your achievement in other assessment components in this unit).

Note attendance of all students is required for our residential school/combined block practicum during which planning and data collection for this ‘Assessment item 2 – Field project reports’ will be undertaken, and ‘Assessment item 3 – Project seminar’ will be undertaken and completed.

Assessment details for ALL students

Assessment item 2 - Field project reports

During our compulsory residential school (combined block practicum), students will undertake field and laboratory-based data collection that (a) will be required to be reported on in written form for assignment submission (as Assessment item 2), and (b) will provide the project findings to be presented orally to the class (Assessment item 3).

The field projects, based on relevant trips to field sites, will be undertaken during residential school (CBP):

• a fire ecology (population ecology) project (15%) researching the impacts of fire management in conjunction with Queensland Parks & Wildlife Service (QPWS) in nearby Mount Archer National Park, and
• a community ecology project (10%) researching and describing the rocky intertidal community on the nearby Capricorn Coast.

The 'fire ecology' report will take the format of a scientific paper (but not including an Abstract).

The 'rocky intertidal community' report will simply be a series of analyses and graphing treatments, each with a brief sentence or two interpreting the analytical results.

Please note successful completion of both reports will require basic to intermediate skills in the use of Microsoft Word (for tabulating data, inserting photographs/maps etc., constructing and formatting your reports) and Microsoft Excel (for spreadsheeting and charting/graphing data). If your skills are not strong in these areas, you are advised to undertake practice, or utilise in-built help sources, and/or Internet videos and other instructions to improve your skills sooner rather than later.

Importantly, while data collection is conducted in teams, each report is to be an individual's written report of the ecological field project work. That is, whatever your role in the team or the comparative degree of your contribution to the team (design, data gathering, analysis) the writing up and presentation of data is to be your own original work culminating in your report. (The exception, of course, are the data used as these should be shared within your team, and any common references cited.) Plagiarism and weakly paraphrasing the work of another, even that of a team member, will not be acceptable, tolerated, or treated lightly.

Students will be expected to source learning materials/research and read around topics in the unit, as need and interest dictate, using resources such as science journal and magazine publications, other texts, reputable web sites and so on, as part of CQUniversity’s focus on lifelong learning and self-directed independent learning.

To pass this unit, a student must aggregate at least 50% of the total marks available in the unit, and score at least the minimum achievement levels set for each assessment item.

Students are expected to source learning materials, research and read around topics in the unit, as personal need and interest dictates, using resources such as science journal and magazine publications, other texts, reputable web sites and so on, as part of CQUniversity's focus on lifelong learning and self-directed independent learning.

The evaluation of this assessment will be as follows: evaluation of your 'fire ecology' project report will be according to the assignment evaluation criteria published for here below, while evaluation of your rocky intertidal community' project component will be criterion-referenced according to the number and accuracy of prescribed (at residential school) treatments applied to your data.

(Adapted from Angelo, 1998)

Note attendance of all students is required for our residential school/combined block practicum during which planning and data collection for ‘Assessment item 2 – Field project reports’ will be undertaken, and this ‘Assessment item 3 – Project seminar’ will be undertaken and completed.

Assessment details for ALL students

Assessment item 3 - 'fire ecology' project seminar

You will need to access the specific requirements, advice, and resources published on our unit Moodle site (click on the appropriate link in the 'Assessment' box), however a general description is published here.

In the closing stages of our residential school/combined block practicum, students in their teams will present their findings from their 'fire ecology' fieldwork projects. Students will present as a team, sharing the presentation duties equally among team members, in the form of a relaxed research seminar, to the class in a lecture theatre. Seminar format should approximate the primary sections of a scientific paper (i.e., Materials & Methods, Results, Discussion (including deficiencies, sources of error, improvements, further research), and Conclusion), and include suitable acknowledgement of sources and team members. In any case, this assessment is meant to occur in as relaxed, informal, and stress-free an environment as possible, and still be professional and informative.

Time is built in to our residential school/combined block practicum for preparation for this activity, and bringing your own laptop is helpful in this (rather than needing to access university computer labs).

Success in this activity is not based on the elaborateness or 'prettiness' of presentations but rather their content, and effectiveness in communication.

Students will be expected to source learning materials/research and read around topics in the unit, as need and interest dictate, using resources such as science journal and magazine publications, other texts, reputable web sites and so on, as part of CQUniversity’s focus on lifelong learning and self-directed independent learning.

To pass this unit, a student must aggregate at least 50% of the total marks available in the unit, and score at least the minimum achievement levels set for each assessment item.

Students will be expected to source learning materials/research and read around topics in the unit, as need and interest dictate, using resources such as science journal and magazine publications, other texts, reputable web sites and so on, as part of CQUniversity’s focus on lifelong learning and self-directed independent learning.

Each team member will be evaluated out of a total 30 marks. While students in a team are expected to present as a team (dividing up the presentation among team members), individual performances will be evaluated according to the following criteria: presentation quality (mark out of 10), and handling of questions (mark out of 10). The team as a whole will be judged for overall seminar content (mark out of 10), and this mark will be applied to all team members. Thus each team member will initially receive a mark out of 30 which will be divided by 3 to produce a mark out of 10 (to scale achievement to the 10% weighting for this activity).

A minimum achievement level is set for this assessment activity (i.e., you must equal or exceed this set minimum achievement level for you to be considered for a passing grade for this unit overall, irrespective of your achievement in other assessment components in this unit).

The mark sheet used to evaluate the presentations is summarised below, and published on the unit Moodle site.

Seminar assessment form

Project title:

Marker’s comments:

Note

*‘Presentation’ to include consideration of conciseness, clarity, delivery, effectiveness of use of any aids (e.g. PowerPoint, OHPs, drawings on board, etc.), and completion in the time allotted.

**’Handling of questions’ to include consideration of confidence shown, good recall of work done, not unsettled by unexpected questions, not defensive but a respectful and scientific approach, not being afraid to say ‘I don’t know’, appropriate reference to reported ‘areas for further work’ and/or ‘areas for improvement’/’sources of possible error’, and general participation/enthusiasm/ teamwork in answering questions.