School of Physics and Astronomy

School of Physics and Astronomy

Year 3
Project Handbook

Year 3 Project Overview

The project module extends over the Autumn and Spring semesters. It is worth 20 credits. Nominal times for undertaking your project work have been allocated on the timetable. Technical support is more readily available during these times, but there is considerable flexibility about when you undertake project work. The important thing is to set aside roughly eight hours per week for your project and work steadily throughout the year.

The first week:

Make contact with your supervisor as soon as possible. You should be seeing your supervisor at least once per week. It is best if you arrange a regular, weekly meeting time with your supervisor. You will be given Section A from your project assessment documentation and a Risk Assessment form. Take these to your supervisor and complete and return both by the end of Teaching Week 2. A risk assessment is required for all projects (even if it is a statement to say that there are no risks involved). The Original Objectives agreed on Section A of the assessment documentation forms the outline “contract” for your project against which your assessment is based. There are opportunities later to modify this if circumstances dictate.

Assessment:

The project assessment is broken down into four main components:

Interim Report and Viva20%
Youare required to submit an interim report just before Christmas. This should give an overview of the preparatory work involved in your project, a discussion of any preliminary findings and a work plan for the next semester. The report will be assessed as a piece of written communication by your supervisor and an assessor, who will also give you a viva voce of about half an hour during the Guided Study Week. The interim report usually forms the basis of your final report, and you will be given feedback on both the written work and the oral examination to help you improve the latter.
Project Report40 %
The project report provides a written account of the theory involved in your project and a critical analysis of your own findings. The report will be assessed as a piece of scientific writing by your supervisor and an assessor. Project reports are also seen by the External Examiners.
Supervisor’s Assessment25%
This mark is awarded by the supervisor based on your overall performance in the project and takes into account the final outcomes of the project, your ability to manage your time and effort, your general organisation, your record keeping, the quality of your results and your critical analysis of your observations or findings.
Oral Presentation15 %
You are required to give a 15 minute conference-style presentation of your project to a small group of staff and students (about 12 minutes talk plus three minutes of questions). These are scheduled towards the end of the Spring Semester. Assessment criteria include clarity of presentation as well as scientific content.

Assessment Criteria:

The assessment criteria against which your project is marked are shown on line at:

Plagiarism:

You are reminded about the importance of avoiding Plagiarism. Please see Appendix II of the Undergraduate Student Handbook:

You will be required to sign a declaration that you have read and understood this when you submit your report. If you are unsure about what constitutes plagiarism, make sure you discuss this in detail with your project supervisor.

As well as the paper copy, you are also required to submit an electronic version of your final project report, which will be subjected to scrutiny by the plagiarism-detection software TurnItIn.

Deadlines:

Please note the following deadlines. For the dates of teaching weeks, please refer to your Calendar in your Year 3 Information Sheets or the Module Catalogue:

Agreed objectives and risk assessmentWhen: Friday of Autumn Week 2

Where: Supervisor

Interim ReportWhen: 4.00 pm Friday of Autumn Week 11

Where: General Office

VivaWhen: Scheduled during Autumn Week 12

Notification via email and Learning Central

Final Report (Paper copy)When: Midday Monday of Spring Week 13

Where: General Office

Final Report (Electronic copy)When: Midday Monday of Spring Week 13

Where: Learning Central

Oral PresentationWhen: Scheduled during Spring Weeks 11

Notification via email and Learning Central

Deadlines are strict and late submission will not be accepted except where there are extenuating circumstances, in which case documentary evidence will be required.

Project Documentation:

The remainder of this handbook gives further details of the format of the interim report and final project report. Please note the special requirements for the format of the front cover of your final project report (paper copy) and a requirement for the inclusion of a specific declaration sheet. These will be provided by the General Office when you hand in your final project report.

Interim Project Report and Viva

The deadline for submitting your Interim Report is 4.00 p.m. on the last Friday (Week 11) of the Autumn semester. Reports should be handed into the General Office and you should sign to say that it has been handed in. Please remember that the Office is closed between 12.30-1.30 p.m.

Content and Length of Interim Reports:

It’s difficult to give general advice about the content and length of your interim project report, and it’s best if you discuss such matters with your supervisor. You should state your aims and objectives, and it would be advisable to present some preliminary data/results. You should also discuss the work which you are planning to do in the coming semester and provide a “timetable” to ensure successful completion.

What else goes in the Interim Report? You should have read around your subject matter in books and/or scientific papers. This would be a good opportunity to write about the background theory of your subject. This puts your own work in some context. Remember that you will get feedback on your Interim Project Report, so any feedback you get on these general aspects of the work can help you to improve the content of your final report. If you are using complicated equipment or using complex processes or experimental procedures, or if you are writing computer programs, it would be helpful to discuss these also in your Interim Project Report; again, you’ll get some feedback on your ability to communicate. If your work involves a lot of literature review, again it would valuable to present this in as much detail as you can at this stage.

Your report should be written in a formal style. Use section headings (and provide an index) and please remember to label graphs and table and also reference your work properly. Try to limit references to transient web sites (and that include Wikipedia!).

Finally, remember what plagiarism means. Make sure your work is your own, or, where necessary, you ensure that you correctly attribute ideas or statements to others. If you are in any doubt about the meaning of plagiarism or the ways of avoiding it, see your Undergraduate Student Handbook or discuss matters with your supervisor.

The Final Report has a word limit of 6000. Your Interim Report should not be nothing like that length!

Interim Viva:

Interim Vivas will be scheduled in the Guided Study Week just after the Christmas recess. The schedule will be published on Learning Central prior to the end of Teaching Week 11. Vivas will last for about 30 minutes and (unless otherwise indicated) be held in your supervisor’s office. You will be assessed by your supervisor and your assessor.

In most vivas, you are given the opportunity to give a brief overview of the project. This allows you to prepare something in advance and also allows you to settle into the occasion. It’s hard to say what questions you will be asked, but it’s common to be asked for more detail about the project and the background theory. You may well be asked some “general physics” questions related to the topic as well. You can’t really revise for a viva – but make sure you understand properly all the things you have written about in your project. If you don’t understand a question, ask for clarification. And if you really don’t know the answer, it’s often better to say so than to try to bluff your way out. If you can’t answer a question, it’s likely that the examiners will find a different way of probing your knowledge, so you’ll still have an opportunity to demonstrate what you know.

Above all – don’t be overly nervous about the viva. It may not seem like it at the time, but the examiners are there to help you demonstrate what you know not to show up what you don’t know.

Assessment:

The Interim Project Report and Viva count for 20% of your Project Mark. There are nominally 15 marks for the report and 5 for the viva, but depending on the clarity of your report, your examiners may wish to use some of the viva for clarification of your written work.

The examiners’ criteria for assessing your Interim Report and Viva are shown below.

Interim report:

General writing style and presentation:
Format, abstract, references, contents listing, general appearance, pagination. Quality of writing, style, logical flow, concise and focused account. Illustrations, tables, graphs, risk assessment.
Scientific Content:
Appropriate background, description of work, quality of work and results, errors and significance, critical assessment, discussion of results and conclusions.
As a guide, approximately equal weight should be given to the two sections.

Viva:

Understanding of scientific background and relating to broader areas of physics.

Clarity of explanation of work.
Ability to discuss and answer questions.

Final Project Report and Oral Presentations

Schedule:

Oral presentations will be held in Teaching Week 11 of the Spring semester.
Final Project Reports must be submitted to the General Office no later than midday on the Monday of Teaching Week 13 in the Spring semester. An electronic copy must also be submitted to Learning Central by the same deadline.
Deadlines are final. Reports will not be accepted if they are received after the stated deadline unless there are clear mitigating circumstances that are supported by written evidence e.g. a medical certificate.

Oral Presentations:

You are required to give an oral presentation of your work to a group of at least four or five other students and a small panel of staff. Talks will be scheduled in one of the afternoons of Teaching Week 11. The timetable for the talks will be published on Learning Central closer to the date. Note that you are required to attend for the full duration of the session in which your talk is scheduled.

The Chair of the session will keep each talk to a strict 15-minute time slot. You should aim to speak for 10-12 minutes with a further 3 minutes allocated for questions. Overhead projectors, computer projectors and white boards will be available in the lecture rooms, but if you require any other demonstration equipment, please discuss your requirements with Mr Steve Baker (Lab Technician) as soon as possible. Please avoid using your own laptop; bring your presentation on a memory stick, and ensure that sound files and videos are appropriately linked.

You should discuss the content of your talk with your supervisor. It’s a good idea to use “props” to help guide you and the listener through your talk. It’s generally recommended that you use one “prop” (e.g. one demonstration or slide including text or figures) per minute of your talk, so your talk might use about 10 slides. Make sure you that you use text and figures which can be read from the back of a medium-sized lecture room (I’m sure you’ve all seen good and bad practice from the lecturing staff!).

It’s natural to feel a little nervous about speaking in public. You can help yourself considerably by planning your talk carefully. Think carefully about properly introducing the subject matter of your project, then you might present something about the method and results (as appropriate) but make sure you leave time at the end to conclude and re-state important outcomes. If you have time, you might talk a little about potential future work. It’s a good idea to write out your talk and speak it out loud (when everyone else is out of your accommodation!). Remember to speak rather more slowly than you would in ordinary conversation or the acoustics of the room will scramble your words. Once you have refined what you want to say, it’s preferable to use “cue cards” and speak freely rather than read your talk in public; that always gives a more dynamic “performance” and it allows you to respond to the audience or modify what you want to say in the light of talks which precede yours. You might think that 10-12 minutes is a long time for which to speak, but the challenge is usually getting everything into such a short time.

Final Project Report:

You should consult your supervisor about the exact form and content of your final report. The report should be written at a level which assumes that the reader has knowledge of physics at university degree level but not necessarily a detailed knowledge of the topic involved. The report should be about 6000 words in total, (i.e. including figures, data tables, computer printouts etc. at 250 words per page that’s roughly 25 pages). The report must be expressed in your own words or if you quote the words of others these must be fully referenced (see your Student Handbook for advice on the avoidance of Plagiarism).

Format of the Report:

You can format the bulk of your report as you like, but you should include an Abstract and it is good practice to include a contents page. You are also advised to use a “standard” type face and point size. Remember that your report is a formal document, so use appropriate language, grammar and layout. Make sure you reference any quotations and diagrams/figure/photographs which you use from another source. You should try to minimise references to Web sources (other than for figures); Web references are notoriously “flaky” and can often be rather transient and of unknown provenance.

Reports should be printed single-sided on A4 paper and submitted loose (not bound). Your pages should be numbered. You are advised to put your sheets of paper in a folder or hold them firmly together with a bulldog clip (not a paperclip, please). It is your responsibility to ensure that pages are in the correct order.

The office will give you a copy of the declaration page, which you should read and sign, and a front and rear cover, pre-printed with your project title, the names of your supervisor and assessor etc. These will be colour coded from year to year (for ease of administration). You should, of course, include your own title page as Page 1 of your report. The format of your own title page and any ensuing material is entirely at your own discretion, but you are advised to keep the format and fonts "simple".

Specimen copies of the declaration page and front cover can be found on Learning Central. Note that the declaration page requires you to read (and understand) Appendix II of you Student Handbook. If your copy is not to hand, it can be found here:

Assessment:

The Final Project Report counts for 40% of your Project Mark and the Oral Presentation a further 15%.

The examiners’ criteria for assessing your Final Project Report and Oral Presentation are shown below.

Final project report:

General writing style and presentation:
Format, abstract, references, contents listing, general appearance, pagination. Quality of writing, style, logical flow, concise and focused account. Illustrations, tables, graphs, risk assessment.
Scientific Content:
Appropriate background, description of work, quality of work and results, errors and significance, critical assessment, discussion of results and conclusions.
As a guide, approximately equal weight should be given to the two sections.

Oral presentation:

Introduction, logical flow, clarity, pace and scientific content (as for report).

Clarity and quality of visual aids.
Ability to answer questions.

Plagiarism and Referencing

Avoidance of Plagiarism:

School of Physics and Astronomy

Contents:

Year 3 Project Overview

Interim Project Report and Viva

Final Project Report and Oral Presentations

Plagiarism and Referencing