Module Catalogue 2024/25

Pre Requisite Comment

N/A

Co Requisite Comment

N/A

Aims

To develop knowledge, skills and experience of the degree subject, by establishing, running and reporting an original piece of research on a topic of the students choosing.

To develop a range of key skills that will enable the student to engage with the research community in medicine, business or science.

ONC8097 and ONC8098 together form one module which spans 2 academic years of the programme. This module is the precursor for module ONC8098 Dissertation Part 2 (Jan) (E-learning) and acts as a period of orientation, preparation and practice for the dissertation submission.

Outline Of Syllabus

As the module covers all possible types of project and scientific enquiry the generic module content will support the student, through experiential learning to establish a research project in their workplace, putting in place all and any required site specific practical, ethical, governance and safety arrangements. The students can then run the project and be responsible for all the processes and tasks contained therein.

Intended Knowledge Outcomes

By the end of ONC8097 and ONC8098 students will be able to:

Investigate and identify institutional requirements for the practical, ethical, governance and safety needs for a research project within the workplace.

Set priorities within a project to ensure the aims of the project are met and design appropriate timelines. This includes both the individual needs of the project but invariably extends to how project requirements fit into a busy healthcare workplace in order to make progress.

Critically appraise how their project relates to the current literature and to a wider field of knowledge.

Communicate new knowledge and research to the wider professional community in their own field, and articulate what the expected standards are for such communications.

Intended Skill Outcomes

By the end of ONC8097 and ONC8098 students will be able to:

Navigate the practical, ethical, governance, regulatory and safety processes necessary to produce a viable research or practice development project in the professional setting, demonstrating skills in literacy, numeracy, administration, authorship, diplomacy at a postgraduate level.

Run a project and amass a dataset, including organisational, records management, project management and ensure compliance with legal and institutional requirements and the individual skills necessary for the project (eg. practical laboratory skills, interview skills, patient assessment or clinical skills, records review etc.).

Critically evaluate and analyse data in line with the standards and criteria of their chosen subject and its methodologies.

Critically evaluate the findings and relate them to the findings of others.

Relate findings to the original aims of the project and to the wider field of knowledge.

Produce a research report of publishable standard in their chosen topic area.

Teaching Rationale And Relationship

Writing a dissertation requires the student to develop and demonstrate a range of different skills in combination (planning, organisation, judgement etc.). In bringing these disparate skills together the chosen teaching method is to encourage the students to submit early drafts of their work for comment and discussion. This allows the students to develop their individual strengths and improve on their individual weaknesses. Given the individual nature of the projects these students undertake, the time available to them and the wide diversity of topics, no other teaching strategy would deliver the advanced ‘fine tuning’ of their skills.

Given the wide variety of project types, and professional situations that students find themselves in, there is no fixed timeline within the two modules - students determine their own planning and time management with advice.

As each dissertation project is unique and chosen by the student there are no set class activities. Students interact in a one-to-one manner with an experienced investigator and are supported in the workplace by additional specialist advisors for specific needs (stats advice, use of qualitative methods etc.).

The dissertation is submitted in module ONC8098 Dissertation Part 2 (Jan) (E-learning).

Assessment Rationale And Relationship

The assessment relating to this module is completed in module ONC8098 Dissertation Part 2 (Jan) (E-learning).

General Notes

N/A