Semester in Industry Project with Reflective Engineer

Module overview

The individual project in industry is a learning experience that enables you to carry out independent research and bring together many of the concepts you have been learning in Parts I and II. You will conduct your project through careful planning, research and execution of the tasks while developing critical judgement and engineering competence. The work from this project will provide you with the opportunity to produce information or results which can be of immediate engineering value, and are perhaps worthy of publication. You should consult the section "Individual Project" in the Part III course book for details regarding conducting the project, meetings, forms required and important deadline dates. You are expected to spend more time doing an Individual Project in Industry, than time spent on an individual project at the University. This is reflected in the higher credit worthiness of the Project in

Industry. You will have an industrial supervisor who will advise you on a regular basis and hold meetings with you to review your progress and discuss the work. You will also have an academic advisor that you can contact mainly by Email, telephone or on-line video conferencing. The academic supervisor and/or the Industrial Coordinator will visit you at least once during your placement. After about 7 weeks into your placement, a review meeting will be held between the academic and industrial supervisors to discuss your progress up to that point. If you are judged to have been successful in carrying the work forward, then you will continue with the placement, otherwise the placement will be terminated and you will have to take on an individual project.

During the Semester in Industry you are required to keep a personal development log using the Blackboard blogging facility. You will be provided with an electronic notepad so that you may readily upload handwritten notes (e.g. sketches, meeting notes) on the blog. In the blog you should include details of work that you carry out on a day to day basis including plan of work for the day, description of the activity (e.g. literature search, experiment, design calculations, computer simulations), notes from meetings, details of papers or books found or read and a summary of their main points, calculations, measured or calculated data, graphs and a discussion of the results. You should also periodically write in your blog a critical reflection and assessment of your work and reassess the direction of the work and accordingly revise your plan of work. The blog will be periodically reviewed by your University supervisor who will give you feedback on the blog and the project.

Aims and Objectives

Learning Outcomes

Disciplinary Specific Learning Outcomes

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

Your knowledge and understanding of essential facts, concepts, theories and principles of a particular subject area (depending on chosen project), and its underpinning science and mathematics,
Communicate information at the forefront of your discipline both in writing and orally
Plan and meet your own deadlines by appropriately managing your time and prioritising competing demands
Demonstrate creative and innovative ability on the synthesis of solutions and in formulating design, taking into account constraints of environmental impact, sustainability, health and safety, cost and/or customer and user needs as appropriate.
An appreciation of the social, environmental, ethical, legal, economic and commercial considerations affecting the conclusions or decisions made during the conduct of the project
An appreciation of the wider multidisciplinary engineering context of the project and its underlying principles and thus work with appropriate level of detail
Locate, read, understand and review research papers
Learn how to critically reflect on and assess your own work
Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the information that needs to be taken note of and included in a logbook
Apply appropriate quantitative science and engineering tools to the analysis of problems tackled by the project, using relevant computer software if appropriate.

Learning and Teaching

Teaching and learning methods

Teaching methods include:

Generic lecture on individual project.
Discussion with supervisors (both industrial and academic).
Regular interaction with supervisor to discuss project aims and progress.
Library course and lecture on literature search.

Learning activities include:

Learning through reading, note taking and time management.
Learning through problem solving in a real world environment and approaching a complex task in a systematic manner.
Learning through independent research and, depending on the chosen project, design, use and numerical or analytical validation of models and experiments.
Learning through independent production of report and by locating, reading, understanding and reviewing relevant literature.
Prioritising competing demands and planning and meeting your own deadlines.
Communicating information at the forefront of your discipline both in writing and orally.
Preparing and giving a conference-style poster and presenting summaries of your findings.
Depending on the subject of your project, you will learn specific practical laboratory, or manufacturing skills and or you will learn how to use certain computer software for analysis and design.
Learning through writing a personal development log and feedback from supervisors.

Relationship between the teaching, learning and assessment methods and the planned learning outcomes:

Regular meetings with your industrial supervisor, and regular email contact and regular but less frequent meetings with your University academic advisor allow you to develop an understanding of the relevant ideas and works in your chosen subject area. You will gain an overview of possible approaches to your given problem, initially through suggestions from your industrial supervisor and then from your own investigations. You will practice and improve your note-taking skills during meetings with your industrial supervisor, and your time-management skills in the time between these meetings. The production of the interim and the final report, provide you the opportunity to review your work, reflect on the progress made, and outline future work. The interim report and the meetings and email contacts with your supervisor and/or academic advisor provide (on-going) feedback on your progress in terms of project related knowledge and understanding, and self-driven learning.

Placement mid July – mid January.

Study time
Type	Hours
Completion of assessment task	425
Project supervision	25
Total study time	450

Resources & Reading list

Internet Resources

Internet Resource.

Assessment

Assessment strategy

NB: The industrial placement will start around the middle of July and finish by the end of December of the same academic year. Through continuous meetings with you and your industrial supervisor, your

work progress will be monitored. If by September, you are judged to have made unsatisfactoryprogress, then the placement will be terminated and you will have to undertake an individual project

(IP). Your interim report (15%) will be carried forward and added to your individual project mark. As IP is a core module, a pass mark of 40% must be obtained in order for a degree to be awarded. In the

event of failure in IP, the referral process can be found at

http://www.calendar.soton.ac.uk/sectionIV/credit-bearing-progs.html

Method of repeat year:

This will be decided on an individual basis and the module may be repeated internally if failure is judged to have been due to exceptional circumstances. Possible repeat options include:

o Re-writing of the final report, o Conducting an extensive literature review, If possible, carrying out simulations related to the placement subject area.

Feedback:

Feedback on progress is mainly provided by regular meetings with the industrial supervisor. You will also receive feedback from the academic and/or industrial placement supervisor on your general

progress. Additional feedback will be through the interim report. For personal development log, feedback on progress is mainly provided on-line or by regular meetings with the industrial supervisor.

You will also receive feedback from the academic and/or industrial placement supervisor on your general progress. After about 7 weeks into your placement, a review meeting will be held between the

academic and industrial supervisors to discuss your progress up to that point. If you are judged to have been successful in carrying the work forward, then you will continue with the placement,

otherwise the placement will be terminated and you will have to take on an individual project. Upon completion of the project, feedback will be provided through marking of the logbook and your final

report.

Referral Method

There is no referral opportunity for this syllabus in same academic year.

Formative

This is how we’ll give you feedback as you are learning. It is not a formal test or exam.

Interim Report

Summative

This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.

Breakdown
Method	Percentage contribution
Continuous Assessment	100%

Repeat Information

Repeat type: Internal