Assessment Type

Written Assessment

Task Description

Write a 1000 - 1200 word Academic Essay. The essay will outline the topics, Terra Nullius, Mabo and Native Title Your discussion can include, but is not be limited to answering the following guiding questions:

·         What does terra nullius mean?

·         Who was Eddie Mabo and where did he come from?

·           What does 'Native Title' mean?

·         Why is it important for Indigenous People to have Native Title?

This assessment task will provide students with an opportunity to practise writing an academic essay. This involves some research and information management, as well as structuring, writing and referencing a piece of academic writing. Some resources for this essay are provided on Moodle. However, students are also expected to go beyond these and find additional sources to inform their essays.

All the resources used (articles, books, website pages) must be accurately referenced within the essay. Referencing normally includes an 'in-text' entry (where the source is mentioned or drawn upon) and then a full reference in the Reference List section at the end of the essay. This is very important because academic writing requires that whenever students use someone else's work they have to acknowledge it - referencing is an integral part of an academic essay. In addition, remember to:

·         Follow the Harvard style of referencing.

·         Read through the assessment criteria for this assessment to see how you will be marked.

·         Include a title page, use complete sentences, number your pages, use 10-12 font and 1.5 or double line spacing

High Distinction: Mark is in the range of 85 -100. Achieves all learning outcomes relevant to this assessment task. Follows and addresses the topic and all assessment instructions; work is interesting; correct grammar and spelling; correct sentence and paragraph structure; within the required word count and very well written.

Distinction: Mark is in the range of 75 - 84. With few exceptions, achieves most learning outcomes relevant to this assessment task. Generally follows and addresses the topic and all assessment instructions; work is generally interesting; correct grammar and spelling with very few mistakes; generally correct sentence and paragraph structure; within the required word count and well written.

Credit: Mark is in the range of 65 - 74. Achieves most learning outcomes relevant to this assessment task. Addresses the topic and most assessment instructions; work is mostly interesting; correct grammar and spelling with a number of mistakes; correct sentence and paragraph structure with a few exceptions; within the required word count and generally well written.

Pass: Mark is in the range of 50 - 64. Achieves some of the learning outcomes relevant to this assessment task.

Sufficiently addresses the topic and some assessment instructions; work is at times interesting; mostly correct grammar and spelling; mostly correct sentence and paragraph structure; within the required word count and follows writing conventions to a sufficient extent with a number of mistakes.

Fail: Mark is below 50. Achieves no learning outcomes relevant to this assessment task. Work submitted does not address the assessment task or demonstrate adequate writing skills. There is little or no evidence of the basic requirements necessary to achieve a pass grade.

Write a 1000-1200 word Academic Report. This assignment provides students with the opportunity to write an academic report.

For this assessment task, you are asked to research and produce a short report which summarises the available literature produced within the last ten years on one of the following topics:

• Health care and medical services available to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and communities.

• Addressing educational disadvantages for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children.
• Issues faced by Indigenous people within the Australian legal system.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Choose only one topic from the three listed above to write the report on!

All the resources used in the report must be accurately referenced, using the Harvard style. At the end of the report a reference list must be included, on a separate page with the title 'Reference List’.

Remember to present this in a report format as described in the unit material. The report needs to include: a title page; executive summary; table of contents; the introduction, body and conclusions of your report, your reference list and any appendices. If you include diagrams, charts (figures) or tables remember to give them a caption and refer to them in your report. You should use headings, and maybe even subheadings (this makes your report easier to follow).

The structure of the report is an important aspect of what will be assessed. The following will be taken into account:

1. Executive summary - provides a clear summary of the main findings reported (it does not simply repeat the Introduction!).

2.Introduction - introduces the report's aim and topic, what it will focus on and what will be left out.

3. Content - the body of the report:

· describes findings,

· cohesive and flows logically,

· contains accurate and relevant information, and

· uses resources relevant to the report's topic

4. Conclusion - provides a brief outline of what the report has achieved, and its limitations (it does not simply repeat theExecutive Summary or Introduction).

5. Word count - is within the set word limit (excluding title page, table of contents, appendices if any and Reference List).

6. Referencing - correct use of the Harvard style for in-text citations and the formatting and inclusion of a reference list at end of report.

7. Format

· correct line spacing

· correct size font

· correct use of headings

· inclusion of title page, table of contents, executive summary, introduction and conclusions

· neatly presented, flows well

· good sentence structure, grammar and spelling

The task associated with this assessment item is to complete the online quizzes during the term on the unit's Moodle website. These quizzes will be available in Weeks 3, 6, 9 and 12, and each quiz will test the student's knowledge of unit material for the previous three weeks.

Each quiz will consist of ten (10) questions that are randomly selected from a question bank. Each quiz will be worth 5% of the total grade for the unit and the complete assessment of four quizzes will be worth 20% of the total grade.

Although feedback will be given to students after each quiz, the final grade will not be shown until the end of term. Points to note:

• If students have technical problems with the quiz, they should contact the unit coordinator or TASAC as soon as possible.

• Students are encouraged to attempt every quiz to obtain the maximum number of marks.
•  Students are encouraged to refer to the unit materials in order to obtain as many correct answers as possible. There will be no time limit on quizzes.

• Students will be allowed two attempts at each quiz.

• The attempt with the highest grade will be accepted for assessment.

Students are marked according to number of correct responses for each quiz