General Assessment Information

Assessment for this unit consists of a mixture of quizzes, a written assignment, a short test, a team-project report and a final exam. Submission of all assessments and completion of all tests is essential for adequate progress, since all assessment tasks are required to master the content of this unit. Most importantly, it will be essential to keep pace with the quizzes, as marks accrue weekly throughout the semester.

HURDLE: The final exam is a hurdle for this unit. Students must achieve a mark of at least 40% in the final exam to pass the unit. Students who fail to achieve this hurdle on the first attempt, but demonstrate a 'serious attempt' by achieving a mark of at least 30%, will be given a second attempt to cross the 40% hurdle in a supplementary final exam. Students that achieve or surpass the hurdle on the second attempt will obtain a mark of 40%. The final mark will then be calculated from the in-semester grade (out of 65 marks) and the final exam (out of 35 marks).  An overall mark of 50% is the minimum required to pass the unit.

All assessments will be graded and we aim to have marks available within three weeks of the assessment due date. Marks will be available on Gradebook in iLearn. Feedback on the written assignment will be provided through Turnitin when the marks are released.

Weekly ‘lecture’ quizzes:

Questions will be inserted into the lecture slides each week, based on the lecture material. Quizzes will be open on iLearn each week from Tuesday (the day of your lecture) and close the following Sunday at midnight. Once you start the quiz you have 15 minutes to complete it and you are only allowed one attempt. These questions are designed to ensure that you have some familiarity with the lecture material and should be completed ideally before the practicals so you have the best opportunity to learn from the practical exercises. They do not require a deep understanding of the lecture material. There are a total of 12 weekly quizzes, starting in Week 2. The quizzes will be automatically marked and the marks and correct answers will be released once submissions have been completed.

Weekly ‘practical’ quizzes:

These quiz questions will be based on the material covered in the practicals. Questions will be available on iLearn at some time during the practical sessions; have your internet access ready. Answers must be submitted online during the practical session and you are only allowed one attempt. These questions are designed to test your understanding of the practical exercises but are very simple and do not require interpretation of the data. There are a total of 9 practical quizzes (each with multiple questions). Multiple-choice answers will be entered online and quizzes will be automatically marked and the marks will be available immediately.

Written assignment:

Students will choose from a list of topics provided in Week 4. The topics are designed to cover a wide range and for each topic, two recent publications will be provided. These papers are the source for your assignment work but more references should be used to support your arguments. Write (up to) a 1000-word report which will be submitted through Turnitin. The write-up will be divided into three distinct questions to direct you: (a) what did the papers report? (b) are they a sound piece of research? (c) what would you do as a follow-up experiment? A rubric which outlines the assessment criteria will be made available on iLearn.

This report is due by 11:59 pm Monday 8 Oct 2018 (end of Week 8) and must be submitted through the Turnitin link in iLearn (no hardcopy is required). Students are reminded that Turnitin is plagiarism-checking software and all assignments must comply with the Academic Honesty Policy of the university, which you can read at: http://www.mq.edu.au/policy/docs/academic_honesty/policy.html.

Apart from plagiarising other external sources of material, be aware that your work will be electronically cross-checked against other students’ work. We encourage you to discuss ideas with your fellow students but you must write original work for submission. Assignments can only be submitted to Turnitin once, so make sure your assignment is finalised before you submit.

Mid-semester test:

The mid-semester test will be closed book, will take 50 minutes and will be held in the Tuesday lecture timeslot in Week 7 (3 pm Tuesday 11 September 2018) in the Macquarie Theatre. The test will consist of short-answer questions and cover all lecture and practical content up to and including Week 6 (i.e. lectures 1-12 and practicals 1-5). Calculators without text retrieval capacity will be allowed into the exam room.

Prac Project (in the final weeks of the pracs):

The project is an innovation which you will be testing for the first time. It attracts only 5% towards your final mark in recognition of this. The aim is that you select an experimental topic from a list provided and execute a small experiment of your own to test a hypothesis. Further details will be released in Week 6 but in brief, there are several steps from Weeks 7 - 13. These are: (1) a discussion to form your team of four (not more and not less!) and choose your topic; (2) after the break, you will give introductory talks on your topic and how you will tackle it in the lab; (3) in Weeks 11 and 12 you will execute your experiment and (4) in the final week you will present your data to the class. A lot of equipment will be made available and the aim is to plan what you need and we will have it set out for you when you start your experiments.

Final examination:

The final exam will be closed book and three hours duration and held in the official university examination period at the end of the session. The exam will consist of short- and extended-answer questions. Some short-answer questions will be drawn from the sample short answer questions made available each week in lectures. Calculators without text retrieval capacity will be allowed into the exam room. For further information please see the university examination policy at: https://www.mq.edu.au/policy/docs/assessment/schedule_4.html

If you receive special consideration for the final exam, a supplementary exam will be scheduled in the week of 17 - 21 December 2018. By making a special consideration application for the final exam you are declaring yourself available for a resit during the supplementary examination period and will not be eligible for a second special consideration approval based on pre-existing commitments. Please ensure you are familiar with the policy prior to submitting an application. Approved applicants will receive an individual notification one week prior to the exam with the exact date and time of their supplementary examination.

If you are given a second opportunity to sit the final examination as a result of failing to meet the minimum mark required, you will be offered that chance during the same supplementary examination period and will be notified of the exact day and time after the publication of final results for the unit.

Lectures

There are two lectures each week: Tuesday 11 am - noon in the T1 Theatre (23 Wally’s Walk) and Tuesday 3 - 4 pm in the Macquarie Theatre (21 Wally’s Walk). These lectures are recorded and made available through the iLearn page soon after the lecture is presented. Audio and screen capture of lectures are available for you. Since some topics in this unit are not dealt with in the textbook, it is important to listen to/watch all lectures, especially as assessed quizzes are embedded in each lecture. Students who do not listen to/watch all lectures often find it difficult to manage the quiz regime and therefore to pass the unit.

Practical sessions

Practical sessions are held in either 14 Eastern Road room 120 (the RED lab) OR 5 Wally’s Walk room 428 (the glasshouse lab) each week, commencing in Week 2. Practical sessions are compulsory and a roll will be taken. You are required to attend the practical timeslot in which you are enrolled unless prior arrangements are made with the Unit Convenor or you risk missing that week's practical session and the associated assessment marks. The laboratories have a capped student load. There are three practical timeslots of which you must attend one:

1. Thursday 10 am - 1 pm
2. Thursday 2 pm - 5 pm
3. Friday 10 am - 1 pm

You need to bring a lab notebook, pencils and pens with you to the practical sessions for making notes and drawings of what you observe. A calculator would also be an advantage. Textbooks will be referred to during lab classes so having it on hand will help.

You need to bring a lab notebook, pencils and pens with you to the practical sessions for making notes and drawings of what you observe. A calculator would also be an advantage. Your textbook will be referred to during lab classes so having it on hand will help.

Safety

Students are required to bring a lab coat to all practical sessions. Lab coats can be purchased from the campus shop (there are no lab coats available for loan in practical sessions). Closed in shoes are required for practical classes. If you do not have closed in shoes you will not be allowed into the lab and will therefore miss out on that week’s practical material and associated assessment marks.

Technology

A computer with internet access is required to access iLearn which contains the unit materials and assessments. If you do not have a computer at home then computers with internet access are available in the Library for all students to use. We expect you to log on to iLearn several times each week so you can:

• Check for announcements
• Download lecture notes (available as pdf files)
• Complete weekly online quizzes and submit assessments
• Post questions and replies on the discussion board
• Check your grades

Remember that we can check your individual log-ins in iLearn so best that you make this a habit.

There are 16 desktops in the practical labs but probably 32 students. The lab-based quizzes will require internet access. You can easily complete the quizzes using a smartphone or tablet connected to the university Wi-Fi. However, if you do not have a convenient way of doing these quizzes with your own device, then locate yourself at a desktop computer.

Practical notes will be available online but are kept deliberately short in order to make printing off these notes practicable. You may use a tablet in the practical sessions but paper notes are often more convenient in the reality of wet surfaces, lots of equipment and risk of things toppling overboard.

Textbook and readings

The recommended textbooks for this unit are:

• Plant Physiology by Taiz and Zeiger – published by Sinauer;
• Animal Physiology by Hill, Wyse and Anderson – published by Sinauer; and
• Biology of Plants by Evert and Eichhorn – published by Freeman.

These will be available for purchase from the Co-op Bookshop on-campus. Limited copies will be available in the Reserve Section of the library. We recommend textbooks but do not insist on them. However, these are classical texts which are in at least their fourth edition and there will often be good second-hand copies to be found. An older edition is far better than not having a text.

First offered in 2017. In 2018, the principal changes are: (1) you have five days to complete ‘Lecture Quizzes’; (2) the final practical slots are used for you to design and run a team-based experimental project and (3) the final exam is a hurdle.

Absences from lectures and practicals that lead to missed assessments must be covered by a medical certificate (this needs to be lodged through Ask.mq.edu.au unless otherwise discussed with the unit convenor. Any assignments submitted after the due date will incur penalties (10%/day) for late submission. Extensions will only be granted in extenuating circumstances with supporting documentation. Matters of a personal nature can be raised in strict confidence with the unit convenor.