ITEC810 Report Outline

This page explains the requirements for the Report Outline that you are required to submit for ITEC808, ITEC809, ITEC810 and ITEC811.

1 Submission Requirements

No later than 3pm on Friday 16th October, you should submit your Report Outline, in the form of a 5-6 page PDF document. Note that the submission procedure for Report Outlines is different to that used for other assignments: instead of using Moodle, we are using the EasyChair conference system for reviewing the report outlines and final reports. So you will need to submit your outline via the EasyChair system at http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=itec2009h2.

Note that you have to sign up with the system in order to submit, so you should do this immediately, in case there are any problems. If you leave this to the last minute and there are problems, you will miss the deadline.

You can submit a dummy file to the system in the first instance just so you understand how to use it. You are permitted to resubmit right up to the deadline, and we will use the versions of your submissions that are there at that time.

So, please visit the URL above asap, submit a dummy PDF file (note that it must be a PDF file that you submit), and let me know via the General Discussion Forum on the Moodle site if you have any problems.

You should also provide five or six slides that you will use to give a five-minute presentation on your report outline. See Class Presentations Page for what is required in this presentation. Your slides should be submitted via the the class Moodle website in the normal way.

2 The Aims of this Assignment

This assignment has the following aims.

1. It forces you to plan out the structure of your final report before you begin writing it.

2. It allows you to get feedback about your plans for the final report before you commit too many words to paper.

3. It provides an item of work that will be assessed by more than one staff member, so that each supervisor gets an idea of how your work compares to that of other students.

3 Document Format and Structure

Your report outline is intended to serve as a plan for your final report, so it's important to think about what that document will contain.

Your final report is likely to contain between five and eight major sections, and so your report outline should reflect that structure. The first section of your final report will be your introduction, and the last will be your conclusions section; what the other sections are depends very much on the specifics of your project, and it is imperative that you discuss the possibilities here with your supervisor.

A good strategy in writing is to tell the reader what you are going to tell them, tell them it, then tell them what you've told them. The first of these elements is what we have also referred to in class as a 'roadmap' for the document. Translated to the context of your final report, your introductory section is where you provide a roadmpa for the rest of the document, and the conclusions section is where you tell the reader what you have told them in the intervening sections.

You can apply the same structure at the next level down: each major section should begin with a subsection that outlines what the section contains, and ends with a subsection that summarises what the section has contained and what has been learned as a result.

Given this structure, you can think of your report outline as consisting of these initial subsections of the final report.

Make sure your submitted report outline meets the following requirements.

1. Your outline should be provided as a PDF file of 5-6 pages in length.

2. The structure of your document should mirror the intended structure of your final report: for each major section you intend to have in the final report, you should have a section in the outline.

3. The document should have a separate title page, and begin with an abstract or summary of 150-200 words in length that is able to stand alone as a concise and comprehensive description of your project's objectives, approach and outcomes.

4. For each intended major section in your final report, provide a page that outlines what you will cover in that section. Each page should be structured as a set of paragraphs that correspond to the subsections that will appear within that section. As noted above, you should view these as first drafts of the introductory subsections of each section of the final report.

5. Write in coherent prose. It is not appropriate just to provide bullet points; it is important that you provide a coherent summary of what your final report will contain, since the document will be assessed by staff who have no prior exposure to your project.

Please ensure that your document is submitted with a filename that has the following format:

• ‹FamilyName_Givenname›_ReportOutline.pdf

• Dale_Robert_ReportOutline.pdf

4 Assessment

Your report outline is worth 10 marks. The outline will be assessed according to the following rubric.

Assessment Attribute	Levels of Attainment
	Unsatisfactory	Functional	Proficient	Advanced
Comprehensiveness of Abstract	Incomplete, in that it does not provide a brief statement of all three of the problem, approach and outcomes; or, all three are expressed, but the descripiton is muddled and generally unclear.	Conveys the problem, the approach, and outcomes, but a little less clearly than might be expected, or at an inappropriate level of detail.	Stands as a surrogate for the full report: a clear summary of the problem, approach and outcomes; but may require some rewording to make it accessible to a non-specialist.	An excellent summary of the work carried out, clearly stating the problem, the approach taken, and the outcomes, in a manner that is accessible to a technical but non-specialist audience.
Logical Structure	The order of presentation of material seems jumbled or confusing.	Overall structure in terms of major sections is fine, but the ordering of content in individual sections needs some attention.	Structure and ordering both within and across sections is good; tells a coherent and conmvincing story.	An exceptionally well-structured summary of the content of the final report; would serve as an example of best practice.
Coverage	There appear to be major gaps in the material covered in the outline; additional work or additional content is required.	Most of the expected material is accounted for, but some minor omissions need to be addressed, or some superfluous material needs to be removed.	The outline suggests that all the material required to clearly demonstrate the aims, approach and outcomes will be covered.	Proposed coverage suggests an exceptional understanding of the problem, possible approaches to its solution, and significance of the outcomes; would serve as a great example for others to follow.
Overall 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.

[Home|Projects|Research|Publications|Professional Activities|Resources]

Please send comments or queries about this web site to Robert.Dale@mq.edu.au
Last Modified: 19th October 2009