Supervision
You will be allocated a supervisor for this module. Your supervisor may not be the same supervisor you had for Part 1. It is your responsibility to ensure your supervisor has the information they require from Part 1 to understand what you plan to undertake in Part 2.
You can expect regular meetings with your supervisor however, supervisors are entitled to take holidays during this process. Make sure you organise regular meetings where you can report your progress and discuss your next steps. Meetings may be online or in person, again in negotiation with your supervisor. You can expect the equivalent of 30 minutes supervision per week, you may not need this much time every week but if you miss a scheduled supervision session, staff are not expected to make the time up. How and when you schedule these sessions is negotiated with your supervisor.
Supervisors are entitled to take at least 3 consecutive weeks of leave. To alleviate this, you can expect longer meeAngs before or after their time away. It is the student’s responsibility to manage this.
The work
In this module and its assessment, you will conduct the extensive individual research project proposed in DES11155 Creative Research porfolio Part 1. You are expected to demonstrate self-direction and an ability to work independently (LO4), and your autonomy will be assessed. You will be expected to use your document from part 1 and project plan to build a means for investigating your subject and address the research question(s). Your submission is expected to represent 385 hours of independent study.
Your work will be non-trivial meaning you are expected to produce something that demonstrates a significant amount of work. i.e. you need to demonstrate the ability to overcome challenges that have not necessarily been taught in the modules you have studied. You may well produce an artefact as part of your work.
A significant piece of work might be:
- A working installation or stand-alone art piece.
- A detailed plan for the redesign of a gallery.
- A detailed proposal for an external partner.
- A detailed proposal for an exhibition.
- A report aimed at a non-academic audience detailing how to employ a specific technique.
- A film.
- An academic paper.
- A series of public workshops exploring a theme.
- A series of prototypes exploring a theme.
This list is not exhaustive and there may be other forms for a significant piece of work. If you are unsure whether what you propose is suitable, ask the module leader.
In this module, you will conduct your work to create a fully realised project. Your submission is through a portfolio documenAng your project and its process. As part of the portfolio, you will include documentation of any evaluation or testing you have undertaken. The portfolio will also include criAcal discussion and reflection of your own practice through the course of conducting this project.
| Item |
Submission Format |
LOs |
Size (±10%) |
Week Due |
Weighting |
| Portfolio |
PDF or other - negotiaated with supervisor
|
1,2,3,4 |
7500 words (or equivalent) |
13 |
70% |
| Evaluation |
PDF |
1,2,3 |
2500 words |
13 |
30% |
The most common format for the project submission would be a pdf. As a guide, a pdf would be expected to be between 30 and 40 pages. If you choose an alternative submission, consider what an equivalent may be and discuss this with your supervisor.
This work and its format should be produced in consultation with your supervisor.
The final medium through which this is delivered is negotiable and can include, pdf, web pages, video, a printed book, or a combination of these or any other medium you can reasonably argue is appropriate. You may be creating an artefact as part of your work, in which case this assessment is the documentation of building, testing, and evaluating the artefact. Moodle is set up as the most straightforward means for submission, but other formats can be accepted, you must give at least 2 weeks’ notice for this.
Consider three audiences for your proposal. The first audience is the academic team responsible for marking your work, the second audience is students joining the course in the year following your completion to give them a sense of what is achieved over the course.
The third audience are potential employers.
Your portfolio needs to demonstrate the development of your work over the course of the trimester, you are expected to use visual as well as written means of communication. Detail any prototypes you build, include relevant images that demonstrate your process. You may well be building a physical object or installation; you need to document this effectively for people who are unable to view the work in person, such as external examiners.
Ensure that your portfolio is used to evidence your ability to achieve the learning outcomes. For example, LO1 can be demonstrated by documenting your research process in a manner that effectively highlights your critical understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of employing this process. LO2 can be demonstrated by documenting how your process and resulting artefact complement or disrupt current practice. LO3 can be documented through highlighting how you have adapted any methods you employ to conduct your study. LO4 interrogates how you managed the project under your own initiative.
Evaluation Report
Alongside your portfolio you will submit an evaluation report of 2500 (+/-10%) words. The evaluation report is your main opportunity to specifically address LO1, LO2 and LO3 in writing. It is a separate document.
The evaluation report includes details of any testing or summative evaluation you have undertaken. Present the data gathered in these evaluations and use them to back up your discussion. Evaluation includes your own critical understanding of your work in comparison to work that is already in the world. You may want to submit your work to a festival, conference or similar appropriate venue, acceptance in or feedback from these venues are useful evaluation.
Your evaluation report relies on you demonstrating an ability to critically reflect and objectively discuss the project overall. This is where the project plan becomes a tool for reflection. What expectations did you have about the project? What was easier than expected? What took longer than expected? How does your work compare to similar existing work? What specific barriers did you encounter and how did you negotiate them? This is not an exhaustive list of questions that you might ask yourself about the work and using a critical framework to inform the reflective evaluation of your work will help you to examine your learning journey and your project output effectively.
