Unit Requirements and Expectations

You are all HDR students undertaking an MRes-level postgraduate seminar at a research university with an international reputation. As such, we expect a high level of commitment, diligence, and engagement.

Students must achieve an overall mark of 50% or above to complete this unit satisfactorily. A mark of less than 70, however, represents cause for serious concern in an HDR program.

Assignment submission

All written work will be submitted digitally, using a platform we will determine early in the unit (probably not iLearn). Feedback will be provided using the same platform.

Please ensure that others can understand and contextualise your assessment submissions (e.g., who you are, what issue you are addressing, what you are arguing).

Extensions

All weekly work is due for assessment by your peers by noon the day before seminar. The peer assessment is due by the seminar.

Likewise, the eResearch proof-of-concept major project, SoftwareX article, and prepared Pico presentation, are due by noon the day before the final presentation (to be scheduled during week 13 instead of the seminar).

Please avoid asking for extensions as missing deadlines complicates the work of markers and puts you behind. If you have to ask for an extension, please request it before the deadline, and only request the extension if you face serious crises that can be documented in some way (e.g. with a medical certificate). ‘Getting behind with your work’, 'I ran out of time’ or 'the computer lost my work' are not excuses.

Extensions can only be granted in exceptional cases and may only be sought in consultation with the unit convenor and with support of documentary evidence. If you anticipate any difficulty in meeting assigned due dates then it is important that you contact the course’s convenor as early as possible.

Unless a Special Consideration request has been submitted and approved, (a) a penalty for lateness will apply – two (2) marks out of 100 will be deducted per day for assignments submitted after the due date – and (b) no assignment will be accepted more than seven (7) days (incl. weekends) after the original submission deadline. No late submissions will be accepted for timed assessments – e.g. quizzes, online tests.”Written assessment tasks submitted without proper referencing, i.e. little or no page numbers or no bibliography will receive an automatic fail.

Marking Rubric

All assessments will have posted rubrics.

Unit structure

Each weekly seminar will have dedicated time to review and discuss your Software Development Journal working through most problems. Seminars may also have a mini-lecture or workshop.

Unit Guide

Students should check the Unit Guide for deadlines and instructions. The best way to start on a path to success it to read and understand it. Once you have read this Unit Guide, please email us a picture of a dinosaur.

Week 1

• Establish research question parameters. 
• Explore structure and expectations of class.
• Begin software carpentry independent study.
• Walkthrough of the software development journal.

Week 3

• Feedback on software development journal and feedback on peer marks from instructors.

Week 5

• Pipeline scoping complete
• Students will have a written and agreed upon research goal with instructors. 

Week 7

• Pipeline "health check"
• Discuss SoftwareX, Pico presentation, and Pipeline parameters

Week 9

• Demonstration of research Pipeline
• Preliminary writing towards SoftwareX
• Start practice Pico presentation.

Week 10

• Discuss draft SoftwareX article.
• Practice Pico presentation.

Week 11

• Pipeline complete with full pipeline demo
• Practice Pico presentation.

Week 12

• More presentation practice
• SoftwareX article due Sunday midnight after class.

Week 13

• Pico presentations for a public audience

This unit has been fully revised from the previous offering. 

• Refocused from Digital Humanities to HASS research methods.
• Clear requirement for technical deliverables
• Documentation of technical deliverables via SoftwareX style article
• Clarification of weekly journal activity
• Marking Rubrics for all assessments

In this unit, we are asking you to 'learn how to discover and learn' digital tools. As such, many of your weekly 'IT implementation' assignments will come with few or no instructions from us. Rest assured, however, that instructions and help are available.

With that in mind, do not contact us with technical questions until you have completed - and documented - the following process:

1. Avail yourself all help provided of the creators of the tool or technology.
2. Search online (including the Stack Exchange Network, YouTube, etc.)
3. Ask your classmates.

If you are still unsuccessful after going through this process, then you should:

1. Replicate the error or failure (don't just try once!).
2. Document exactly where and how your implementation failed, including any errors, in your 'reflection'.

We will review failures and errors before class, and either contact you or (more likely) walk you through the problem in class.