Selection and Honours

In the planning day workshop today (Jeremy Parker, Adrian Miles, Rachel Wilson, Russell Kerr, Cathy Greenfield) we worked out selection processes for honours. We will be seeking a minimum distinction average in your final year (70% or better) and then there will be a supplementary form, which will ask:

• Please rank your preference for the 3 research labs.
• Please briefly describe why you have these preferences.
• Please use make a list of 10 words to describe yourself as a student.
• Please use make a list of 10 words to describe the problems that matter to you.
• (Optional) Is there any material of yours that you would like us to see? Please provide URLs.

Business Case

The business model come plan for the new honours has been formally approved. It loses money, but less than what we currently do, but I think with supervision as part of the mix it isn’t possible for an honours program to not lose money… Now we will wait and see what happens with the teaching and learning documents.

Academic Documents

Attached as a pdf is a copy of the completed Program Guide that is going to the College for endorsement. In addition the final (as in being submitted for endorsement) versions of the program guides are also included. The program guides are the Part A’s only, which have been very well edited by Fiona. They are very general, leave lots of room for how things actually get delivered and assessed, but do spell out learning outcomes and capabilities.

• BH066 Bachelor of Media and Communication (Honours) Program Guide
• Part A Program Guides

More (in) Progress

Turns out it is easier to edit changes here, as it is just plain text with a little bit of HTML, and since each is published versioning is easier than trying to do this in Word. So, next iteration after some excellent feedback from Cathy Greenfield, and a very timely reminder come explanation from Fiona Peterson that capabilities are assessable and so need to be described in a manner that allows them to be quantified and so measured. Below is very slightly changed from the earlier version.

Objectives of the Program
This program intends to develop research capable graduates who will be leaders in media and communication for the twenty first century. The emphasis within honours is on research, whether within a specifically academic, or professional context, and the key objective of the program is to develop sophisticated research skills, as well as the ability to understand and articulate the importance of research to media and communication professionally. Within a time of immense change within these fields, both academically and professionally, this program will help to create individuals who are capable of understanding, negotiating and contributing to knowledge in contemporary media and communication systems. This program will help you learn how to do this through its model of ‘process based learning’ within an interdisciplinary research context, because these provide the skills relevant for managing and understanding such change within industry and research. The program has an emphasis on themed, collaborative investigations that are undertaken in interdisciplinary laboratories because the ability to work collaboratively, across different professional and academic groups, is a key objective for future academic and professional work.

Statement of Capabilities
As an honours graduate you will be able to contextualise, problem solve and respond to critical and creative questions relevant to communication, technology and various media. You will engage with and respond to ideas from your disciplinary experience and extend this using your interdisciplinary and collaborative skills. You will have a knowledge of research as a creative and critical practice as it relates to your individual field and discipline. You will have developed as an investigators who demonstrate academic rigour in your understanding of your own and other disciplines. You will bring skills and leadership to complex situations including the development of projects and learning and research activities in individual or group pursuit. You will have a deep knowledge of your field and of research praxis, an enhanced capacity to identify and investigate problems in contemporary media, communication and creative fields and will offer applied as well as theoretical approaches in responding to these.

As a graduate of honours you will:

• be able to creatively and critically develop meaningful problems within media and communication
• apply research skills and practices to complex problems
• work within interdisciplinary teams and be capable of making significant contributions as a collaborator
• have deep knowledge of your field and how it relates to contemporary media and communication
• know how to use research as an integral part of creative and critical practice
• demonstrate leadership skills in your ability to develop projects and through your knowledge of the processes that enable collaboration
• comprehend the strengths and contributions of your own discipline to projects and the value and significance of other disciplines
• be able to undertake sophisticated self directed research
• know why your research matters and how to express this in a variety of discipline relevant ways

Approach to Learning and Assessment
Your learning experiences will contain a mix of learning modes. This will include lectures, seminars, workshops, and individual supervision. They will generally employ a mix of large and small group learning activities, with an emphasis placed upon problem and process based learning in the context of laboratory (studio) based learning. All of your key teaching experiences will involve face to face classes. Your learning activities will be a mix of group experiences, individual supervision, individual research, writing, making artefacts, and a variety of forms of scholarly, reflective documentation practices.

Course assessment in honours is intended to be formative and to help you develop your capabilities as a researcher, whether in a clearly academic or professional/practitioner capacity. Assessment forms and modes will vary across courses, however all assessment is directed to assisting you in achieving the highest possible outcome for your research project. Assessment will consist of class presentations, essays, and a variety of assignment based tasks. Some will require you to demonstrate an ability to work individually, and others will require you to demonstrate your ability to comprehend and analyse the roles and activities within a collaborative task. The major assessment activity in honours is your research project or thesis. This is generally undertaken individually, and is expected to demonstrate a high level of research and ability. It is worked on throughout your honours year. A thesis is usually in the order of 15,000 words and project based research must have a durable outcome, an exegesis, and the project itself. All research outcomes, whether by thesis or project, will be examined according to the University’s honours research examination criteria. While such work is always assessed by independent examiners, and so is summative assessment, a variety of formative assessment and learning activities are undertaken to support the development of your research. These may include a literature review, class presentations, critiques of ongoing work, presentations of work in progress and specific support within your laboratory group.

A significant part of your learning experience will happen within the laboratories. This is a ‘studio’ mode of learning where “learning through action – an investigative and creative process driven by research, exploration and experimentation; making and constructing; and critique and reflection” (Studio Teaching Project, 2010) is the model adopted. As a part of this laboratory model forms of self and peer assessment and critique will be modeled and implemented. In addition, self reflective documentation practices, both for the purposes of project and research development, and to develop a critical, self aware research practice, will be undertaken. The laboratory mode is used because it relates strongly to the sorts of abilities that industry and universities require, and is able to help emphasise for you all the ways in which research is relevant to what you will go on to do in the fields media and communication in general.

In Progress

A long document, which is the program guide, contains a variety of key statements about the honours program. Some parts are boilerplate that have to be copy and pasted from existing university documents, but other parts are all ours. Below I have put the key bits for comment and feedback:

Objectives of the Program
This program intends to develop research capable graduates who will be leaders in media and communications for the twenty first century. The emphasis within honours is on research, whether within a specifically academic, or professional context, and the key objective of the program is to develop sophisticated research skills, as well as the ability to understand and articulate the importance of research to media and communication professionally. Within a time of immense change within these fields, both academically and professionally, this program will help to create individuals who are capable of understanding, negotiating and contributing to knowledge in contemporary media and communication systems. This program will help you learn how to do this through its model of ‘process based learning’ within an interdisciplinary research context, because these provide the skills relevant for managing and understanding such change within industry and research. The program has an emphasis on themed, collaborative investigations that are undertaken in interdisciplinary laboratories because the ability to work collaboratively, across different professional and academic groups, is a key objective for future academic and professional work.

Statement of Capabilities
Honours graduates will be able to contextualise, problem solve and respond to critical and creative questions relevant to communication, technology and various media. They will engage with and respond to ideas from their disciplinary base and extend this using their interdisciplinary and collaborative skills. They will have a deep understanding of research as a creative and critical practice as it relates to their individual field and discipline. They will be investigators who demonstrate academic rigour in their understanding of their own and other disciplines. They will bring skills and leadership to complex situations including the development of projects and learning and research activities in individual or group pursuit. They will have a deep knowledge of their field and of research praxis, an enhanced capacity to identify and investigate problems in contemporary media, communications and creative fields and will offer applied as well as theoretical approaches in responding to these.

As a graduate of honours you will:

• be able to creatively and critically develop meaningful problems within media and communication
• apply research skills and practices to complex problems
• work within interdisciplinary teams and be capable of making significant contributions as a collaborator
• have deep knowledge of your field and how it relates to contemporary media and communications
• know how to use research as an integral part of creative and critical practice
• demonstrate leadership skills in your ability to develop projects and through your understanding of the processes that enable collaboration
• understand the strengths and contributions of your own discipline to projects and the value and significance of other disciplines
• be able to undertake sophisticated self directed research
• know why your research matters and how to express this in a variety of discipline relevant ways

Approach to Learning and Assessment
Your learning experiences will contain a mix of learning modes. This will include lectures, seminars, workshops, and individual supervision. They will generally employ a mix of large and small group learning activities, with an emphasis placed upon problem and process based learning in the context of laboratory (studio) based learning. All of your key teaching experiences will involve face to face classes. Your learning activities will be a mix of group experiences, individual supervision, individual research, writing, making artefacts, and a variety of forms of scholarly, reflective documentation practices.

Course assessment in honours is intended to be formative and to help you develop your capabilities as a researcher, whether in a clearly academic or professional/practitioner capacity. Assessment forms and modes will vary across courses, however all assessment is directed to assisting you in achieving the highest possible outcome for your research project. Assessment will consist of class presentations, essays, and a variety of assignment based tasks. Some will require you to demonstrate an ability to work individually, and others will require you to demonstrate your ability to understand the roles and activities within a collaborative task. The major assessment activity in honours is your research project or thesis. This is generally undertaken individually, and is expected to demonstrate a high level of research and ability. It is worked on throughout your honours year. A thesis is usually in the order of 15,000 words and project based research must have a durable outcome, an exegesis, and the project itself. All research outcomes, whether by thesis or project, will be examined according to the University’s honours research examination criteria. While such work is always assessed by independent examiners, and so is summative assessment, a variety of formative assessment and learning activities are undertaken to support the development of your research. These may include a literature review, class presentations, critiques of ongoing work, presentations of work in progress and specific support within your laboratory group.

A significant part of your learning experience will happen within the laboratories. This is a ‘studio’ mode of learning where “learning through action – an investigative and creative process driven by research, exploration and experimentation; making and constructing; and critique and reflection” (Studio Teaching Project, 2010) is the model adopted. As a part of this laboratory model forms of self and peer assessment and critique will be modeled and implemented. In addition, self reflective documentation practices, both for the purposes of project and research development, and to develop a critical, self aware research practice, will be undertaken. The laboratory mode is used because it relates strongly to the sorts of abilities that industry and universities require, and is able to help emphasise for you all the ways in which research is relevant to what you will go on to do in the fields media and communications in general.

Another Draft A

Cathy Greenfield has had a go at doing the Part A course guide for the media and communication subject. Available as a pdf. (The other first versions are also online.) Also I’ve got all the existing Part A’s together into a single pdf to make lives easier (below).

• Draft Part A for Media and Communication Futures
• All current Part A subject guides

Draft Part A’s

The draft versions of the course overview’s have been knocked together. Attached as zip archive (they’re all pdfs).

Please keep in mind that Part A’s need to be simple as they are not supposed to be changed each year for each delivery, they are more set and forget. Also nothing is writ in stone, these are drafts, and even if these are what get approved if we are unhappy they can be changed (changing them is much easier than getting them on the books in the first instance).

• part A pdfs

Program Capabilities (2)

Cathy Cole offered a compelling rewrite:

Honours graduates will be able to contextualise, problem solve and respond to critical and creative questions relevant to communication, technology and various media. They will engage with and respond to ideas from their disciplinary base and extend this using their interdisciplinary and collaborative skills. They will have a deep understanding of research as a creative and critical practice as it relates to their individual field and discipline. They will be investigators who demonstrate academic rigour in their understanding of their own and other disciplines. They will bring skills and leadership to complex situations including the development of projects and learning and research activities in individual or group pursuit. They will have a deep knowledge of their field and of research praxis, an enhanced capacity to identify and investigate problems in contemporary media, communications and creative fields and will offer applied as well as theoretical approaches in responding to these.

And then Jeremy Y and Adrian M quickly sketched these:

As a graduate of this program you will:

• be able to creatively and critically develop meaningful problems within media and communication
• apply research skills and practices to complex problems
• work within interdisciplinary teams and be capable of making significant contributions as a collaborator
• have deep knowledge of your field and how it relates to contemporary media and communications
• know how to use research as an integral part of creative and critical practice.
• demonstrate leadership skills in your ability to develop projects and through your understanding of the processes that enable collaboration
• understand the strengths and contributions of your own discipline to projects and the value and significance of other disciplines
• be able to undertake sophisticated self directed research
• know why your research matters and how to express this in a variety of discipline relevant ways

And we mapped them as:

Official

The first Expression of Interest for the new Bachelor of Media and Communication (Honours) has been endorsed. This means this blog can now be visible to the world, and we are allowed to tell everyone that, yes indeed, we are cooking up and hatching out a media lab style honours program.

Costing Scenarios

Honours loses money. Apparently no way it can’t since a) it is premised on individual supervision (aka expensive) just like postgraduate research, yet b) is funded at an undergraduate rate. So the juggling act becomes how to structure, deliver, make happen what is really important to honours without going too far into the red. No one really can tell you how much too much is, so it is a funny sort of dance since you don’t really know the steps.

However, the heart of honours is the laboratory and our methods subject. So to cost different models these are the sorts of things that will be run through the financial analyst’s spreadsheet; what happens if we:

• remove the communication subject?
• reduce the labs from 4 to 3 but retain the same enrolment numbers?
• increase our international enrolment by n?
• change the supervision model so that it is group supervision?
• what happens if supervision is ‘rolled’ into the lab?
• only having supervision for one semester?
• how much would it cost if no labs?

Also, if we called labs a studio or similar does that make a difference to how the university thinks about its costing?

Ideally several scenarios should be able to be sent ‘up’ for discussion and consideration, however I think the decision making systems in place might not cope with treating this as an informed conversation and would prefer a single model that they can say yay or nay to (after all they do know the steps to this dance so the working group choreographing several dances just, well), in which case we may have to pick and plump for our preferred option and leave it at that.