Tutorials

Tutorials will be held on Wednesday mornings in Weeks 1-6. These will cover information on assessments and how to complete them (blogging, tweeting, podcastsing and peer review), asking questions in discussions, individual discussions about proposals, and opportunities to discover the breath of research carried out in the Department by meeting academics. You are expected to attend and actively participate in each.

Seminars

The aim of attending a range of seminars is to broaden your knowledge and provide research inspiration. Weekly presentations in the Biology Seminar Series are held on Wednesdays (1-2 pm). This is a forum for visiting scientists to convey topics of interest to the department and an excellent opportunity for Department members learn about cutting edge research. You are required to attend these seminars during the semester. They will form the basis for the discussion groups, and your blog posts and tweets.

In addition to the Biology Seminar Series you will also be required to attend 3 seminars elsewhere (e.g. other departments at Macquarie University, other universities, museums, botanical gardens or other research oriented institutions).

You will also attend both the MRes and HDR conferences (dates and location will be announced on iLearn).

Taking photographs, filming or recording the audio during these presentations is not permitted, but we strongly recommend taking a notebook/laptop.

Discussions

Following the seminar you will meet with the speaker as a group and discuss the topic they presented (2-3pm).  These discussions allow researchers to explore the topics covered in more depth, and benefit from the knowledge and thoughts. Proactive participation in a discussion group subsequent to the departmental seminar is required.

You will write and post five blogs (using WordPress), and five tweets (using Twitter), based on a seminar in the departmental seminar series in the previous fortnight. You will also submit a text version both your blog and the tweet to a Turnitin link on iLearn. The blogs must (1) summarise the seminar topic, (2) place the seminar in context of the speaker’s other work, (3) provide an in depth analyses of how the seminar topic contributes to the field of interest, (3) be pitched at the level of a first year undergraduate student and (4) be accompanied by an effective Tweet. A Science Communication Workshop in Week 1 will cover blogging, Tweeting and podcasting skills and technology.  

Blogs will be due fortnightly on Tuesday's at 11.59pm. See iLearn for due dates.

Using the Turnitin Peer Mark tool, you will critically assess 20 blogs (three different blogs from 5 of your peers). The convenor will randomly allocate which blogs you will mark. All blogs will be based on the department seminars. You will have one week to mark each batch of your peers blog. The first blog will be in mock-marked, and we will start this in the Week 3 tutorial, to help you identify effective blogging styles and become familiar with the marking rubric.

Marking completion is due one week after blogs are submitted see iLearn for due dates.

Podcasting is an increasingly popular method of science communication. Based on the external seminars you attend, interviews with the speaker and other researchers in the topic discipline, and your own independent reading you will create a 6 minute popular science podcast, to be uploaded to your WordPress site, a transcript of the podcast will also be uploaded via a Turnitin submission link in iLearn. A Science Communication Workshop in Week 1 will cover blogging, Tweeting and podcasting skills and technology.  

Due date 2018: midnight 3/6/2018

In this exercise you will need to prepare a working group proposal for a hypothetical funding body (guidelines provided on iLearn). This will involve identifying (1) a novel topic of interest, (2) which individuals will be invited to attend the working group and (3) a strong argument justifying the importance of research. Make use of the seminars you have seen as a basis for your proposal (combining an interesting question from one speaker with the methods from another, for example). Significant thought will need to be given to this project and students are strongly advised to allocate adequate time to thinking about their proposal through the session.

Due dates 2018: 9am Monday 12/6/2018 (email directly to convenor).