Module Content

Academic Integrity Essentials Training  

Literature Reviewing 

• Finding and reading academic literature 

• Writing a literature review 

• Critical thinking and writing 

• Critiquing academic papers  

Research methods: 

• Overview of research methods (including anthropological methods and analysis, ethnographic methods, netnographic methods, user studies, focus groups, participatory and cooperative design methods, design facilitation, design science approaches, pragmatism, and abductive reasoning (e.g., design as inquiry, iterations in design reasoning, etc.)). 

• Understanding research methods 

• Understanding the ethical and social impact of research 

      Collecting, Analysing and Reporting Research Data: 

• Interpreting data and statistics 

• Designing and conducting a simple experiment, survey, or participatory design  

• Assessing computer interfaces including web, mobile, desktop, and virtual & augmented reality platforms 

• Reporting the results from an experiment or survey in an appropriate style to a broader set of methodological reflections 

• Referencing, citing, and quoting 

• Writing an academic paper 

Teaching Methods

This class is taught in different ways and the teaching strategy differs according to whether it is being delivered as a burst (two weekends) or a semester-long course. When taught in burst mode the first half of the course covers the ‘evaluation’ of research and the second half the ‘creation’ of research. 

As a highly practical module – the teaching/ learning is by example and by doing. Lectures are collaborative with class input and work done beyond the class is made relevant to the students according to their courses. 

As this is a skills-based course it is ideally suited to incremental class activities. The constraints on the assessment for this module require that students do work in between taught classes and that this is reviewed before formal assessment – to that end each assessment has a pre-hand in where students can get feedback. 

Assessment Methods

1. Exam: Weight 50%.
2. Research Paper: Weight 50%. 2,000 words.
To pass this module you must achieve a mark of 50% or above, aggregated across all the assessments.