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Research Skills and Bioethics

Module description

This module will help you develop key transferable skills that will assist you with your studies and career development. You will receive training in essay writing skills, encouraging you to argue your case in a logical and coherent manner. During the term you will write a formative essay on a topic agreed between you and your personal tutor. On the basis of the feedback from your tutor, you will fine-tune your essay and resubmit it for a summative mark. This exercise will help you prepare for your January exams. You will also participate in a substantial group “Dragons’ Den” style exercise that will develop your organisational, team working and presentation skills through the preparation of a scientific grant proposal that will be assessed through both peer review and a group presentation. As biological research is becoming more and more quantitative in approach, you will also receive training in experimental design and statistics, practical computing and bioinformatics through a combination of lectures / workshops. You will also be introduced into the world of ethics so that current progress in biology can be appreciated in a broader, societal/ethical context. In addition, this module will give you career advice and employability guidance.

Module aims - intentions of the module

This module aims to prepare you for research and employment in the biosciences. It aims to enhance your performance in exams, independent research project or dissertation by providing essay training. It will provide you with training in key mathematical, statistical and bioinformatic methods. The “Dragons’ Den” will give you some insight into the design, costing and communication of bioscience projects, and at the same time develop your organisational and presentation skills. An element of the Dragons’ Den assessment will be based on peer review marking, giving you the chance to critique others’ work, and to evaluate your own competencies. Lectures on bioethics aim to introduce ethical, philosophical and social issues emerging from modern research in the biosciences, such as biomedical questions and concerns in biotechnology and environmental conservation. In addition, the module aims to provide basic training career planning, and employability awareness. Parts of this module can count towards the Exeter Award.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 1. With some guidance, design, analyse and present projects to an academic audience
• 2. Explain the term 'ethics' and describe different philosophical and ethical positions in bioethical debate and, with some guidance, apply a bioethical analysis to questions emerging from the biosciences
• 3. With some guidance, evaluate your own employability skills
• 4. With some guidance, evaluate your own preparedness to undertake final year projects and dissertations and understand the basic requirements of a good essay
• 5. With some guidance, execute basic bioinformatic and statistical procedures and understand their use in biosciences

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 6. Describe and evaluate approaches to our understanding of the biosciences with reference to primary literature, reviews and research articles
• 7. Describe in some detail essential facts and theory across a subdiscipline of the biosciences
• 8. Identify critical questions from the literature and synthesize research-informed examples from the literature into written work
• 9. With some guidance, deploy established techniques of analysis and enquiry within the biosciences
• 10. Illustrate and discuss the contested and provisional nature of knowledge and understanding

ILO: Personal and key skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 11. Communicate ideas, principles and theories fluently by written and oral means in a manner appropriate to the intended audience
• 12. Develop, with some guidance, a logical and reasoned argument with valid conclusions
• 13. Collect and interpret appropriate data, drawing on a range of sources, with limited guidance
• 14. Work in a small team and deal proficiently with the issues that teamwork requires (i.e. communication, motivation, decision-making, awareness, responsibility, and management skills, including setting and working to deadlines)
• 15. Evaluate own strengths and weaknesses in relation to professional skills, and apply own evaluation criteria
• 16. Reflect effectively on learning experiences and summarise personal achievements

Syllabus plan

2 x sessions covering how to write essays for exams

3 x essay, plagiarism awareness and scientific paper sessions

3 x small group feedback with academic tutor

5 x experimental design/statistics workshops

2 x sessions on bioethics

3 x sessions covering career, CVs, interviews and presentation skills

4 x sessions relating to the “Dragons’ Den” activity

Accessibility Statement:

As part of this module you will be required to undertake extensive group work and deliver a presentation to a panel of assessors (including external markers) that counts towards your summative assessment. The module also has activities that take place in a computing laboratory (of up to 80 students) that are of 1-2 hours in duration – however breaks are possible and students are able to leave the PC cluster for short periods.

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Formative assessment

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Details of summative assessment

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Re-assessment notes

Deferral – if you miss an assessment for certificated reasons that are approved by the Mitigation Committee, you will normally be either deferred in the assessment or an extension may be granted. If deferred, the format and timing of the re-assessment for each of the summative assessments is detailed in the table above ('Details of re-assessment'). The mark given for a deferred assessment will not be capped and will be treated as it would be if it were your first attempt at the assessment.

Referral - if you have failed the module (i.e. a final overall module mark of less than 40%) and the module cannot be condoned, you will be required to complete a re-assessment for each of the failed components on the module. The format and timing of the re-assessment for each of the summative assessments is detailed in the table above ('Details of re-assessment'). If you pass the module following re-assessment, your module mark will be capped at 40%.

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

• Study and Communication Skills for the Biosciences, 3rd Ed. S. Johnson and J. Scott. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-879146-1

Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources

• ELE page: http://vle.exeter.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=312

Key words search

Bioethics, practical computing, bioinformatics, statistics, employability, exam performance, transferrable skills