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PHOL3902 Reading Research Project in Physiology

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Information for Supervisors and Students

Supervisors and Projects (Word)

Markers' Report Form(Word)

Marking Scheme (Word)

Project Registration Form (Word)

Guidelines for preparing Dissertation (Word)

Guidelines for preparing the poster (Word)

General Information

This is literature-based project which allows final year students to conduct research, utilizing library resources, on a physiological topic offered by a member of staff in the Division of Biosciences or associated departments.

Students wishing to take the course are asked to contact supervisors directly via email or telephone to discuss what projects are currently available. A list of supervisors and projects is regularly updated. This is by no means comprehensive and other supervisors may be considered so long as the proposed project has significant physiological relevance and content. The dynamic nature of research means that the titles on the list are often quite general and therefore it is up to the student to negotiate with the supervisor what is possible in the period of the project.

After choosing a project you and your supervisor must fill in and sign the project registration form and take it to the Biosciences Teaching Office, Room G10, Medawar Building by the end of the 2nd week of Term 1 in order to have it approved. You will then be enrolled on the module and given access to the Moodle site for further information.

Students have 6 weeks in which to complete their projects. The 6 weeks can be spread throughout terms 1 and 2 so long as this fits into the supervisor’s schedule and does not interfere with any other modules that the student is taking.

The dissertation must not exceed 8000 words (excluding references) and should contain a word count at the end. All work including hypotheses, diagrams, figures, tables and pictures not generated by the student should be appropriately referenced according to the style used by the Journal of Physiology. Referencing should be sufficient but not excessive. You should only include papers in the References that you have read. If you are quoting work that you have read in a review article then the review should be quoted and not the original paper.

A draft report should be handed in to your supervisor about 2 weeks before the deadline for handing in the project.

TWO COPIES OF THE DISSERTATION MUST BE PRODUCED AND HANDED INTO THE TEACHING OFFICE AND A THIRD COPY SUBMITTED TO TURNITIN VIA THE PHOL3902 MOODLE SITE SO THAT THE EXAMINERS CAN CHECK FOR PLAGIARISM AND THE WORD COUNT.

THE DEPARTMENT NOW USES A SOPHISTICATED DETECTION SYSTEM (TURNITIN®) TO SCAN WORK FOR EVIDENCE OF PLAGIARISM; THIS SYSTEM HAS ACCESS TO BILLIONS OF SOURCES WORLDWIDE (WEBSITES, JOURNALS ETC.) AS WELL AS WORK PREVIOUSLY SUBMITTED TO UCL AND OTHER UNIVERSITIES.

STUDENTS MUST ALSO SUBMIT THEIR POSTER AT THE SAME TIME AS THE 2 COPIES OF THE DISSERTATION.

Project Dissertation and Poster

Students are expected to produce both a dissertation  in the style of a paper published in the Journal of Physiology and an A2 poster. Two sets of guidance notes, “guidelines for preparing the dissertation” and “guidelines for preparing the poster” give essential information on how these should be assembled. Additional information will be announced later through the Moodle site. Failure to follow these guidelines will be considered when the marks are awarded. Poster presentations will be scheduled during the penultimate week of Term 2.

Deadline

Dissertations and posters must be submitted to the Biosciences Teaching Office, Room G10, Medawar Building and an exact copy of the dissertation submitted to Turnitin via Moodle. The deadline will be during the last week of Term 2 and given precisely on the Moodle site. Extensions to this deadline will only be given in truly exceptional circumstances. The module organiser and your supervisor will decide on such cases. Dissertations and posters handed in after the deadline without an extension will incur a penalty: The full allocated mark will be reduced by 5 percentage points for the first working day after the deadline and the mark will be reduced by a further 10 percentage points if the work is submitted during the following six days. If the work is submitted more than seven days late, the mark will be recorded as zero, but the assessment will be considered to be complete.

Over-Length Dissertations

Penalties for Over-length Coursework, including Research Projects, Dissertations and Final Reports

For submitted coursework, where a maximum word count has been specified, the following procedure will apply:

i) Assessed work should not exceed the prescribed word count.

ii) Assessed work with a stated word count above the prescribed word count should not be accepted for submission (i.e. it will not be date-stamped or otherwise recorded as formally submitted), but immediately returned to the student with instructions to reduce the word length. The work may then be resubmitted but the original deadline for submission still applies and penalties for late submission will be applied as specified in section 3.1.5.

iii) For work that exceeds the upper word limit by 10% or more, a mark of zero will be recorded.

iv) For work that exceeds the upper word limit by less than10% the mark will be reduced by ten percentage marks; but the penalised mark will not be reduced below the pass mark, assuming the work merited a pass.

v) For discipline specific practices such as bibliographies, tables, pictures and graphs, departments/divisions should specify in writing to students whether these are recorded as part of the upper word limit and how this will be counted.  

Plagiarism

Please read the notes on plagiarism at http://www.ucl.ac.uk/current-students/guidelines/plagiarism and in the Student Handbook. Plagiarism will not be tolerated, will be treated as cheating and the punishment will be severe. If you have any doubts about what plagiarism is then please discuss this matter with your supervisor, your Personal Tutor or the module organizer. All coursework is now scanned for plagiarism using a sophisticated detection system (Turnitin®); this system has access to billions of sources worldwide (websites, journals etc.) as well as work previously submitted to UCL and other universities.

Marking System

Supervisors and another internal examiner each produce an independent mark for the dissertation (42.5% each). Students also present a poster covering the main aspects of their project. Students cannot pass the course if they do not do a poster presentation. The proportion of marks is 85% for the written report and 15% for the poster presentation. The written comments of the markers will be returned anonymously with the report to the student.

Supervisors please note…

Students must hand you a draft copy of their project at least 2 weeks before the deadline and the students should be given ample time to incorporate corrections. You may comment constructively upon the draft but do not rewrite it!

Dr Jonathan Fry (July, 2011)