Overview:

This assessment requires you to work independently in planning your research project, however, your work will be overseen by a supervisor who is an academic member of staff. You will work with the supervisor for the entire duration of the research project over the two terms. The onus is upon you to make contact with the supervisor and to arrange and adhere to a programme of regular meetings thereafter. The supervisor is not obliged to chase you in order to check on your work progress. The supervisor will advise on the structure and suitability of the work, guide you through the entire process and warn you if the work is not thought to be of a satisfactory standard. You should maintain contact with your supervisor throughout the preparation of your work. A common pitfall is to go long periods of time without making any contact with the supervisor. You must attend the six compulsory meetings with your supervisor as scheduled in the unit profile.

The task

Your task is to conduct a focused study on previous scholarly work that was carried out on the area within the project management discipline. The task requires you to demonstrate that you can conduct a piece of rigorous literature review in your chosen field and involves critical appraisal and review of key arguments. The task then requires you to update your research questions or hypothesis and finalise your research methodology. During this journey, you are required to apply project management competencies throughout this phase. This assessment consists of two main deliverables or parts as per the following table:

Assessment item Weight:

Part A: Research Plan Report (80%) due by Week 10

Part B: Oral Defence (20%) due by Week 12

ASSESSMENT DETAILS:

Part A: Research Plan Report: (week 10)

This report must take the format of ana academic report including Cover Sheet, Table of Content, Executive summary, Introduction, Key sections, References and Appendices. To guide the development of the key sections, further details will be provided in the Moodle site. The report must not exceed 10,000 words excluding references and appendices.

Part B: Oral Defence (week 12)

This is the final deliverable of your progress report that will be due in week 12. The task requires you to present and defend your project planning. The presentation must essentially provide sufficient details about your research project. Further details about presentation structure will be provided in the Moodle site. Presentations will take place via Zoom only. You will present your intended project to the respective unit coordinator, supervisor and peers. You will have a strict 15 minutes of presentation time plus 10 minutes of Q&A and feedback time (15+10=15 mins). 

Part A: Research Plan Report

Assessment will be done according to the presentation, accuracy and coverage of the content for each aspect as set out under 'Task' section. Specifically, the following criteria will be used to assess your work:

• Clear analysis, summary and synthesis of identified sources (10%)
  
• Comprehensive review and appraisal of relevant literature (15%)
• Well-articled and evidenced research gap and need of the research (10%)
• Clear linkage and alignment between the literature, research questions and methodology (10%)
  
• Sound Analysis and justification of research design (15%)
• Soundness and adequacy of data collection steps and instrumentation (15%).
• Effective and accurate project management documentation as required in the assessment task (15%)
• Sound academic language, formatting, structure, organisation and presentation of the report (10%).

Part B: Oral Defence