On Wednesday 30 October 24, the TM470 module team facilitated a module briefing event. On the day, I was only able to attend for a few minutes, so afterwards I went to the recording of the session. What follows are some notes of what I took were the key takeaway points from the session, written from the tutor’s perspective.
Generative AI
The university has devised a simple framework which has been shared to module teams: students muse use, may use, or shouldn’t use generative AI (Gen AI). The TM470 module team position is that students may use Gen AI, but students must use it critically, and clearly (and unambiguously) reference its use.
This point of clarification led to an interesting discussion. A project might use Gen AI to create resources (such as program code) which may then be critically evaluated and discussed within a project report. A project may evaluate the use of generative AI, but generative AI should not be used to write parts of a report; doing so would be a breach of academic conduct. Students must be clear about what was, and what was not produced by Gen AI.
The module team will share some guidance on the tutor’s forum.
Ethics approvals
The university now has a requirement that all student projects need go through an ethical review process. This now applies to TM470 projects.
Here is a summary of how I currently understand the process that has been set up:
- A tutor will have a conversation with a student to enable them to understand more about the broad aims of their project.
- Students complete an online form which aims to collect a summary of their project idea.
- The tutor will determine whether the student’s project will meet the criteria for an appropriate project; they either approve a project, or they refer a proposal to the module team.
- If a project is approved, then students receive a confirmation email which contains some further information and guidance.
To facilitate this process, there is a new TM470 Project Ethics approval portal, which has three views: a student view, a tutor view, and an assessment panel view.
Students submit their form through the student view, where they give a title, and a brief description of their project, and answer set of simple questions. These questions ask whether the project will involve people, may involve animals and/or plants, and how data protection will be dealt with.
From the tutor’s perspective, the portal will share a summary of all the students in your group. When reviewing the student’s ethics form, there will be a space for tutors to respond to the information that a student has shared. You may, for example, offer further guidance, or say that a further conversation is necessary.
All these records are saved in a simple database which facilitates to the Faculty Board of Studies, showing how everyone has engaged with a process.
Early conversations with tutors is essential, so tutors can potentially steer students away from projects that might be difficult from an ethical perspective.
If there are changes to the aims and intent of a project, there could be either a new form, or additional information could be recorded that a change has taken place.
Changes in module assessment
There have been some important changes to assessment strategy for the forthcoming module presentation.
There will be a greater weighting to the important Computing and IT elements to ensure that the module meets both current and future accreditation standards. There will also be more emphasis that students must demonstrate how they have extended their study of their level 3 modules.
As with earlier presentations, there will remain 5 groups which cover each of the 11 learning outcomes. An important difference is that these learning outcomes will now be more explicit in terms of where to award marks, and what for.
The module team will be sharing a very basic TMA template for students, but tutors are free to suggest their own versions and alternatives. A recommendation is that students adopt whatever template they choose for TMA 1, and then use it for forthcoming TMAs.
TMA 1 will now become more of a proposal: what they aim to do, and how they how to do it. TMA 2 and 3 will be now known as interim reports; TMA 3 will no longer be known as the draft TMA. Students should, of course, write enough to evidence each of the learning outcomes. In other words, students can write more than the 10k word limit, but some practical advice is: don’t go too far over, since if you do, this might influence the ‘communication’ learning outcome.
Reflections
I welcome the introduction of the ethics processes for the simple reason that the processes will help to facilitate conversations between students and tutors. It is also right and appropriate that ideas that relate to projects are scrutinised and considered.
I also welcome the tightening of the criteria that relates to learning outcomes. This can only help with clarity for students, and consistency in marking.
Acknowledgements
Many thanks are extended to Alexis Lansbury and Chris Gardner. A number of TM470 tutors were involved in proofreading the updated guidance.