Disruptions to Study (DTS)

Weekly Online Quizzes and Feedback - as we count the best 4 quizzes from a possible 12 quizzes, there is no need to submit a DTS if you miss a quiz.

Weekly Tutorial Work and Feedback - as we count the best 8 home-works from a possible 12 home-works, there is no need to submit a DTS if you miss a tutorial.

Assignment

- If you are unable to make the submission of the assignment on time (due to a valid reason), you may submit a DTS. If your case is approved, the Unit Convenor will give you an appropriate extension. Late assignments need to be handed in to BESS (E4B 106). Late assignments will be accepted up to 96 hours after the submission deadline. There will be a deduction of 20% of the total available marks made from the total awarded mark for each 24 hour period or part thereof that the submission is late (for example, 25 hours late means a 40% penalty)

Final Examination

- If you are unable to sit for the final examination (due to a valid reason), you may submit a DTS. If your case is approved, the university will organise a supplementary examination for you.

Recommended Textbook:

Students are recommended to purchase this textbook:

• Parkin, M., Microeconomics: Australia in the Global Economy, Pearson

Additional References (in alphabetical order):

Apart from, or in addition to the textbook above, students may find the following resources useful as well. Most reputable microeconomic textbooks cover the same economic theories, but perhaps you may want to refer to supplementary chapters from these texts for topics that you need extra help on:

• Gans, J., King, S., & Mankiw, N. G. Principles of Microeconomics: Australia and New Zealand Edition, Cengage Learning
• McEachern, W., Microeconomics: A Contemporary Introduction, Cengage Learning
• McTaggart, Findlay and Parkin, Principles of Microeconomics, Pearson Education, Australia.
• Stiglitz, J., Introductory Microeconomics: Australian Edition, Wiley

A copy of all of these books has been placed in the reserve section of the library. If you purchase a copy of a book, the publisher provides a range of support material for the textbook, including a website. Information on accessing this material is provided in the introduction to the text. The website material includes trial questions and quizzes. You may find it useful to devote some limited time to these questions and quizzes. They will give you some feedback on how your understanding is progressing. Note however that the bulk of your study time, outside of the classroom, should be devoted to studying.

For equity concerns, the library has assisted ECON111 with placing scanned resources from a variety of resources on the library's e-Reserve website. If you are facing financial difficulties in obtaining a textbook, this could be an option for you.

Technology Used and Required

Unit Web Page The unit uses the learning management system (iLearn) that can be accessed via iLearn.mq.edu.au. The lecture slides for each week’s lecture will be posted on the unit web page, before the lecture. You will find it useful to download the slides prior to the lecture, and bring them to the lecture. The web page is also used to post important notices from time to time. You should check this web page regularly. The unit web page has the facility to allow peer to peer discussion. The unit web page also allows students to put questions to an Online-Tutor. The Online-Tutor will attempt to answer your questions in a timely manner.

Learning and Teaching Activities

This unit is taught as a mix of tutorials and lectures. The lectures are designed to provide the tools which can then be applied in tutorials.

Lectures – large group learning (2 hours for each topic)

Lectures are intended to provide an overview of the key concepts explored in the unit. Students are expected to read the relevant chapters before each lecture. Independent learning ECON111 relies heavily on independent learning where students read the relevant chapter, revise lecture notes and prepare answers to the tutorial questions.

Tutorials – small group learning (1 hour for each topic)

Tutorials constitute a critical learning experience of this unit and students must attend. Group work is an essential part of this learning. In ECON111 we emphasise peer-to-peer learning by working as a group through the exercises and learning from others. Your tutor's role is to help you understand the material. Ask your tutor for guidance on how to approach questions and problems.

After the tutorials – the learning continues. At the end of each teaching day, review your tutorial notes, compare your answers to those of friends, members of your group and the discussion board. Note that model answers will not be provided. You get the answers by engaging in all the above activities.

PAL, Peer Assisted Learning (1 hour for each topic)

Revision of the material from both lectures and tutorials.

The corresponding chapter readings will be provided on iLearn.

* The Unit Schedule is subject to change depending on the lecture pace. Any alterations will be advised via iLearn and during lectures.

While the coverage of each lecture stream is identical, students are encouraged to attend a single lecture stream for the entire session. This is to ensure continuity of a train of thought within a lecture stream. It is expected that students will be attending lectures on a weekly basis. The lecture streams are advertised on iLearn. Students are free to attend any lecture stream, regardless of their official enrolment in e-Student.

The Unit Schedule was re-sequenced in Session 2 compared to Session 1, to reflect the sequencing pre-2015. However, the content is of identical quality and identical quantity.

Following this re-sequencing, the assignment has been converted to a single uninvigilated (but including TurnItIn) submission in Session 2, compared to three submissions in Session 1 where in Session 1, two of these submissions were invigilated under MQ Test Conditions. Thus, the assignment was decreased from a 30% weighting in Session 1, to a 20% weighting in Session 2.

To keep the invigilated component comparable to Session 1, the final examination has been increased from 50% in Session 1, to 60% in Session 2.

While the coverage of each lecture stream is identical, students are encouraged to attend a single lecture stream for the entire session. This is to ensure continuity of a train of thought within a lecture stream. It is expected that students will be attending lectures on a weekly basis. You are free to attend any lecture stream, regardless of your official enrolment in e-Student.

Experience and feedback from past years indicate that students who miss an on-site lecture, and thus decide to watch recorded lectures end up delaying the viewing of these. Students have reported that they themselves create a negative situation having accumulated too many hours of pre-recorded lectures to be viewed - and thus feel overwhelmed. Experience and feedback from students also indicates that watching a pre-recorded 2 hour lecture actually ends up taking 3 or more hours - due to continuous pausing and re-playing - thus ending up taking more time than originally intended or envisagaed. The live iLecture stream intends to address the negatives of pre-recorded lectures. However, the live iLecture is not intended to be a substitute to attending the on-site lecture in the first place.

It must be noted that, the university and the The Tertiary Education Quality Standards Agency (TEQSA), has listed the unit as "internal". Therefore, the expectation from staff, the university and TEQSA is that you are physically attending classes on-site. Innovations such as iLecture and Echo360 are provided as a supplement to assist in your study experience and journey at Macquarie University. These innovations are not intended as a substitute. This is because the unit is not listed as "external" - in other words, it is not a component of an online degree. The fees you pay, either deferred fees or upfront fees, are reflective of the extra resources and facilities required for an internal offering of the unit.

Furthermore, you will miss out on the "full" university experience by not being on-site, physically interacting with staff, physically interacting with peers and practising real-world social skills and collegiality that a university campus provides as training for your future careers.

It must be further noted that, the lectures in ECON111 are very dynamic and not static. The lecture recordings - whether via Echo360 simply capture the audio of the lecturer's voice and the video of the projections on the main theatre screen. The video recordings are unable to record the various classroom interactivities, demonstrations and experiements. This is because the video recordings simply capture what has been projected onto the main theatre screen. Furthermore, theatres at Macquarie University have multiple screens which at times the lecturers will utilise to display various content. In this instance again, the video recording is only able to capture the content on a single (the main) screen.  

Finally, whichever lecture stream you choose, if you take part in all learning and teaching activities on a regular basis - you will be setting up yourself to not only pass but excel in ECON111 !

PLEASE REMEMBER THAT ALL STAFF INVOLVED IN ECON111 ARE HERE TO FORWARD AND NOT HINDER YOUR LEARNING.

WE ARE ALWAYS AVAILABLE AND READY TO ASSIST YOU IN ALL MATTERS RELATED TO ECON111. PLEASE COME AND SAY, " Hi !" .

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Research & Practice

Approximately 25% of the tutorial questions each week revolve around contemporary research, that is relevant to the student learning experience. This includes research and practice into the in/efficiencies of taxes, research and practice into solutions for climate change as well as research and practice about government de-regulation of public assets. Students are encouraged to refer to government websites such as the Australian Taxation Office, the Productivity Commission and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to access such contemporary research.

The assignment has an approximately 25% weighting of research-based questions.

The final exam has an appproximately 60% weighting of research-based questions, where students are designated certain case studies which they have to research themselves, and apply their knowledge to be able to tackle the final exam questions.

Global contexts

There is a designated week to discuss comparative advantage, the economic rationale for trade - including the arguments for and against trade, and allowing the student to make their own informed decision. Through this topic, the students are invited to ECON110 - Macroeconomic Principles, to give them a further chance to explore the global context of economics.

The examples in lectures, tutorials and the assignment are not necessarily Australian, and includes (but is not limited to) class discussions of OPEC, the EU, ASEAN, the USA and Australia's three recent Free Trade Agreements (China, South Korea and Japan).

Sustainability

There is a designated week devoted to the study of efficiency - where students are exposed to the measurement mechanisms of whether society is efficiently allocating its resources.

Furthermore, there is a designated week devoted to the study of market failures - where students are exposed to the research and policies of addressing instances where the market fails to allocate resources efficiently.

Throughout the entire unit, students are encouraged to engage the economics threshold concepts of Welfare and Efficiency when analysing any economic problem or scenario. As would be the case for any microeconomics unit, students are trained to be aware of the efficient allocation of scarce resources. Furthermore, with contemporary research, as well as domestic and global fora, students are made aware of the debates and the policy options available to efficiently allocate scarce resources.