Department of Biology & Biochemistry, Unit Catalogue 2010/11 |
BB50142: Lab project 1 |
 Credits:
| 27 |
| Level:
| Masters |
| Period: | This unit is available in... |
| Semester 1 |
| Assessment:
| CW 100% |
| Supplementary Assessment: | Like-for-like reassessment (where allowed by programme regulations) |
| Requisites:
| |
| Description:
| Aims: To provide students with skills in planning and undertaking a scientific investigation, analysing and interpreting findings and reporting the outcomes. Learning Outcomes: After taking this course the student should be able to: * design, execute, analyse and communicate a programme of research in a safe and effective way; * understand the intellectual, time- and resource-management and technical requirements for productive, rigorous and responsible scientific investigation and reporting; * demonstrate experience of scientific writing at the level of a primary research paper; * have acquired technical, analytical, interpretative and literature-accessing skills appropriate to the undertaking and presentation of the project. Skills: Generic and specific skills training, as described by Research Councils UK for postgraduate research students, will be provided to support the project. This will include sessions on safety and COSHH, radiological protection and practical radioisotope sessions, introduction to, and searching, bibliographic databases, oral presentations, time planning, project management, introduction to facilities in the bio-imaging suite, poster preparation, production & assessment and IT training for managing long documents (such as project reports). Content: All stages are undertaken under the guidance of an academic supervisor. The planning stage involves defining the problem or hypothesis and devising an appropriate strategy to investigate it within constraints of time and resources. The investigation stage involves the acquisition of appropriate data with sufficient replication and controls. The analysis and interpretation stage involves the use of appropriate statistical techniques and the evaluation of results in relation to published work. The final phase is to communicate the outcome of the project in the form a written report and a poster presentation. |