The portfolio consists of 1500 words in total - being 5 x 300 word Moodle posts.

You are required to submit five 300 word posts to the graded Moodle Forum set up for the relevant week. Each individual post will marked out of 10 for an overall mark out of 50.These are to be submitted to the Moodle forum at the end of the relevant module. There will be a separate Moodle forum to which you can submit a rough draft - using dot points or interesting sources - for feedback from the lecturer and for discussion with your peers. This will remain open until the final posting is due. Students are encouraged to post early to this forum and discuss their posts and then re-submit to the graded forum before the due date. Other posts in the final graded forum will not be visible until you submit yours.

The purpose of these Moodle posts is to develop your ability to reflect on the unit materials and demonstrate your learning. You are required to critically reflect on an idea or issue that you found particularly interesting or significant.

Each posting to the Moodle Forums should provide evidence of your learning and thinking about the module. The posts to the Moodle Forums do not need to be lengthy and should not exceed the required 300 words per posting. Put your post in the text box not attached as a document or file. Postings do need to demonstrate that you have given some thought to the topic - back up by other sources you have looked at (no more than 2 or 3). A brief, concisely written answer to the question is more effective than a long, winded general comment.  Where appropriate, you should refer to the literature to support your discussion and provide an in-text citation for any sources that you use. If you do use a direct quote, it should only be included if you then make comment on what the author has said. If you use a direct quote as part of your discussion it MUST BE clearly indicated as such and you will need to provide full reference details in Harvard (author/date) style.

THE MINIMUM EXPECTATION FOR THIS ASSESSMENT ITEM IS THAT YOU PROVIDE FORTNIGHTLY POSTINGS FOR GRADING AS OUTLINED ABOVE. YOU ARE ENCOURAGED TO ENGAGE WITH THE WEEKLY DISCUSSION FORUMS AS FEEDBACK WILL IMPROVE YOUR GRADE.

Insight and reflection: To what degree have you reflected on the topic?

You are required to write a 1500 word essay on an area of social innovation that was discussed in the unit. Taking your cue from the module "workshops" or changemaker interviews you should examine an issue of social change that interests you and examine how it might contribute to solving social problems we are facing. The essay should use the process of 'Theory-U' that we cover in the unit as a method for analysing social problems and thinking deeply about what socially innovative solutions might look like. 

The following criteria will be used to grade the assignment (they are not of equal weighting):

Referencing: All evidence and all ideas which are not your own must be adequately acknowledged at the appropriate point in the text through the Harvard system of referencing, whether you are quoting directly or paraphrasing. You should familiarise yourself with the University policy on plagiarism. Plagiarism is defined in the Undergraduate Handbook, and is explained on the University’s library website. It is essential that you know your obligations in relation to presenting well documented and original work.

Presentation: There is a certain standard of presentation which is expected at this unit level. This includes correct spelling, grammar, punctuation and referencing. If there are typographical errors in your assignments, you will lose marks. You should not use sexist, racist or other forms of discriminatory language.

Originality: To get a distinction or high distinction, there needs to be evidence of critical thinking and original thought. You are encouraged to create original arguments by analysing and evaluating the works of other people in the literature. Regardless of the grade you are aiming at, you should put things into your own words as much as possible, and structure the assignment in your own way.

Sociological insight and understanding: You will be assessed on your ability to understand and to apply relevant concepts, theories and methodologies. Depending on the assessment task, you may only refer to one or two perspectives in a particular piece of work, but it is important to know how the perspective you refer to relates to other possible perspectives within the field. Theories do not develop in isolation. New perspectives develop through modification of previous ones, or as critical reactions against them. Thinking critically is an important skill which follows on from such appreciation. This means being able to assess the adequacy of the theoretical models being used by the writers you refer to, as well as the adequacy of the evidence they present to support these models. Purely descriptive accounts will not be acceptable.

Use of supporting evidence: Except for purely theoretical essays, it is important that you back up your arguments with appropriate and solid evidence. There is no point in simply asserting that something is true, you need to substantiate your major claims with relevant concrete information, statistical or other. In general, this would be evidence derived from sociological works that you have come across in your reading, although this may need to be supplemented with other kinds of evidence (from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, for example).

Relevance and structure of your argument: Your assignments should be relevant to the question or task set, and should be structured in a logical and coherent fashion. The essay needs to contain an introduction, discussion, conclusion and reference list. In the essay your argument should unfold in a clear and logical manner, with appropriate signposts for the reader. Subheadings may be used in the essay to help structure your writing. An introduction sets out how you are going to approach the topic—that is, it is a statement of intent, rather than of content. You should stick to the required word length. Being under the word limit usually indicates insufficient research; being over means you are having difficulty in focusing on the most relevant or most important points.

Independent reading and research: You will be assessed on the extent, depth and relevance of your reading. You should make full use of the textbook and other readings, but it is essential that you do your own independent reading as well. This means making use of the library databases and catalogue and doing you own searches. Within the limitations of library resources, you should access the most relevant and most important works relating to your topic. It is difficult to provide exact requirements, but as a rough guide a major essay would contain at least ten references. These references should be mainly sociological books, book chapters, or journal articles; other sources may be used as appropriate to supplement these. In general the following types of sources should be avoided when writing essays—encyclopaedia, popular magazines, newspapers (except for providing up-to-date information or real life examples), introductory sociology textbooks, ordinary dictionaries (use the definitions in a specialist source; in some cases a sociology dictionary may be appropriate) and general internet sites (those containing information not peer-reviewed). You should rely mainly on specialist sources—avoid general or popular sources, except perhaps to provide evidence which is not available in the more specialist sources. Where possible use the original source, or an equivalent one.

A copy of the criteria and marking sheet and Harvard (author-date) referencing style guide will also be available in the Assessment block on Moodle. It is strongly recommended that you refer to these documents in the preliminary stages of your assignment preparation and prior to submitting your work for marking.