Robert Dale: Teaching Activities: ITEC810: Assessment: Review of Sources

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ITEC810 Review of Sources

This page outlines the requirements for your review of sources, the second assignment related to your project. Note that this is a piece of work that is expected to take you around two or more days of effort.

Depending on whether you are doing ITEC808, 809, 810 or 811, the content of your review of sources may vary a little, but in all cases the aim is to get you to pull together the most important background information for your project, and provide some analysis, in around 10-15 pages.

ITE810 or ITEC811 projects with a research focus: Your review of sources corresponds to the conventional academic notion of a literature review, where you comprehensively survey the existing published literature that is relevant to your project---generally journal articles and conference papers, but also other types of sources.
ITEC810 or ITEC811 projects with a development focus: Your review of sources is also like a literature review in a research-oriented project, but it is likely that the material you draw on will also include items like existing software and tools, websites, and other `non-conventional' sources.
ITEC810 projects with an analysis focus: In this case, your final project report is itself really something like a literature review, so your review of sources can at best be a very early version of your final report. It will also inevitably be considerably restricted in scope; you may choose to limit it either in terms of breadth (the amount of material you cover) or depth (the amount of analysis you provide).
ITEC808 projects: As for ITEC810 projects with an analysis focus, your final project report is itself really something like a literature review, and so the same characterisation applies; see above.
ITEC809 projects: The nature of your review of sources depends on the exact nature of your project, and what you did in ITEC808; make sure you discuss this with your supervisor and the class lecturer.

In all cases the basic goal is the same: before you start the serious work on your project, you need to be familiar with what is already out there and how it will impact on what you do in your project. This provides some guarantee that you will not needlessly reinvent the wheel, and it makes it straightforward for those assessing your subsequent work to establish what you have contributed beyond what others have done.

As discussed in class, it is important that your review of sources be more than just a flat inventory or catalog of materials; you need to provide some analysis on top of just reading and summarising the material. Make sure you plan your work on this assignment to ensure that you have time to do this; your analysis is likely to take between 25% and 50% of the overall effort.

1 Submission Requirements

No later than 12 noon on Friday 27th March (Week 5), you should submit via the class Moodle website a review of sources of around 10-15 pages that summarises the most important existing work or other material that is relevant to your project, and identifies the key themes in that work, providing a clear picture of ideas and techniques that you will take as the starting point for your work. This should be provided either as a Word document or a PDF document.

You should also provide a set of 5--6 PowerPoint slides (including your title slide), or a PDF file containing the same, whose structure and content are described further below. You will use these slides to present the findings of your review of sources to the rest of the class.

2 The Aims of this Assignment

This assignment has a number of aims.

It ensures you get your source materials together early in the project.
It encourages you to think analytically about the content of these source materials.
It provides me with an idea of your abilities in writing a document of sufficient length to require good internal srtucturing.
It gets you into the habit of maintaining and presenting comprehensive and consistent bibliographic data.

3 Document Format and Structure

Make sure your submission meets the following requirements.

Your review of sources should have a cover page containing the title of your project, your name, yout student ID, and your supervisor's name.
The document should begin with an abstract or summary of 100-150 words in length that is able to stand alone as a concise and comprehensive description of your review.
Section 1 of your document should be an introduction of somewhere between a half page and a page in length that does two things:
- It should state the purpose of the review.
- It should provide a roadmap of what the document contains.
The body of your report should consist of a number of sections that organise and discuss the source materials you have reviewed around the key themes that are of relevance to your project, as discussed in class.
You should then have a concluding section that summarises the key information from the preceding sections of the review, and indicates the agenda for your project that this review leads to.
Finally, you should have a consistently formatted reference list or bibliography that contains full details of all materials cited in your review of sources: see Section 4 below.

In terms of general formatting requirements:

Don't use a point size smaller than 11 point.
Make sure your pages and sections are numbered.
Make sure you thoroughly spell and grammar check your document before submitting it.

Also, please ensure that your document is submitted with a filename that has the following format:

‹FamilyName_Givenname›_ReviewOfSourcesDoc.‹filetype›

So, for example, if I was submitting my review of sources as a PDF file, it would have the following filename:

Dale_Robert_ReviewOfSourcesDoc.pdf

4 Your Reference List

An important aspect of a piece of work like this is that it should be easy for your reader to follow-up any claims you make based on the content of materials you refer to. For that to be the case, you have to provide a reference list at the end of your document that is both detailed enough to allow the reader to obtain the referred-to material, and presented consistently so that there is no confusion about the content. More information can be found at the following links:

Make sure you have read and understood the information on these pages, and applied it appropriately to your review.

5 Your Presentation

Each time we meet from Week 5 (27th March) onwards, I'll randomly select 10 people to provide a five minute presentation that updates the class on their progress on their project. Everyone in the class has to submit the slides for these reports as part of that week's assignment, even although only 10 people will be selected to present verbally: this gives me an opportunity to also provide feedback on the slides of those who don't get a chance to present that week.

For Week 5, you should prepare a presentation containing 5-6 slides that (a) summarises the purpose of your review, (b) identifies the key themes, and (c) ends by clearly stating how the results of your review refine how you will approach your project from here on.

Your aim should be to demonstrate to the audience how your understanding of what is required in your project has progressed over the last two weeks. You will not be formally assessed on the presentation, but I may provide you with some feedback.

Ensure your presentation is submitted with a filename that has the following format:

‹FamilyName_Givenname›_ReviewOfSourcesSlides.‹filetype›

So, for example, if I was submitting my slides as a PPT file, it would have the following filename:

Dale_Robert_ReviewOfSourcesSlides.ppt

Remember to revisit the 'Hints and Tips on Giving Presentations' document available from the Moodle class website as a checklist of things to watch out for in preparing and presenting your contribution.

6 Assessment

Only the written review of sources is assessed. It is worth 15 marks. Proposals will be assessed by your supervisor according to the following rubric:

Assessment
Attribute Levels of Attainment

Unsatisfactory Functional Proficient Advanced

Comprehensiveness of Coverage Very limited coverage; significantly less than is expected given the workload assumptions for this assignment. Covers the most important material for the project. Comprehensive and complete, given the workload assumptions for this assignment. Very comprehensive and complete. Has clearly gone to some lengths to locate obscure but relevant materials.

Document Structure Generally poor organisation. Overall structure is clear. Document structure is clearly road-mapped in the introduction, and key points are drawn out in the conclusion. Exceptionally well-structured, very easy to navigate the document; outcomes very clearly signposted.

Depth of Analysis No analysis; just a flat list or catalog of the material considered for the review. Basic attempt at clustering the materials reviewed in a thematic manner. Thematic organisation of the review demonstrating a considered extraction of key ideas from multiple sources. Thoughtful analysis of the material that goes beyond the themes identified explicitly by the sources.

Appropriate use of Referencing Conventions Incomplete references, no consistency in formatting. Consistent formatting of references with a few missing details. References all complete and consistent. ---

Format and Presentation No obvious care given to the quality of presentation of the report. Technically meets the stated requirements for presentation format. Meets technical requirements and is also aesthetically pleasing. Exceptionally well presented.

Quality of Writing Very poor; problems with coherent presentation of ideas. Understandable, but with some problems in grammar, style and spelling. Grammar and style of an acceptable standard; could be safely given to an external party with only minor editing. High quality prose; well written; could comfortably be made available via a corporate website.

Assessment Attribute	Levels of Attainment
Unsatisfactory	Functional	Proficient	Advanced
Comprehensiveness of Coverage	Very limited coverage; significantly less than is expected given the workload assumptions for this assignment.	Covers the most important material for the project.	Comprehensive and complete, given the workload assumptions for this assignment.	Very comprehensive and complete. Has clearly gone to some lengths to locate obscure but relevant materials.
Document Structure	Generally poor organisation.	Overall structure is clear.	Document structure is clearly road-mapped in the introduction, and key points are drawn out in the conclusion.	Exceptionally well-structured, very easy to navigate the document; outcomes very clearly signposted.
Depth of Analysis	No analysis; just a flat list or catalog of the material considered for the review.	Basic attempt at clustering the materials reviewed in a thematic manner.	Thematic organisation of the review demonstrating a considered extraction of key ideas from multiple sources.	Thoughtful analysis of the material that goes beyond the themes identified explicitly by the sources.
Appropriate use of Referencing Conventions	Incomplete references, no consistency in formatting.	Consistent formatting of references with a few missing details.	References all complete and consistent.	---
Format and Presentation	No obvious care given to the quality of presentation of the report.	Technically meets the stated requirements for presentation format.	Meets technical requirements and is also aesthetically pleasing.	Exceptionally well presented.
Quality of Writing	Very poor; problems with coherent presentation of ideas.	Understandable, but with some problems in grammar, style and spelling.	Grammar and style of an acceptable standard; could be safely given to an external party with only minor editing.	High quality prose; well written; could comfortably be made available via a corporate website.