EC2555 Further Particulars PDF

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Further Particulars...

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EC2555 Economics and Finance Placement Module Further Particulars

Contents Policy Statements

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Access to Support Material for EC2555

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Main Aims of the Module

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Placement Tutor and Work Placement Visit

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Problems During Placement

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Important Dates

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Assessment

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Late Coursework/Mitigating Circumstances

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Reassessment Details

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Complaints Procedures

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Important Companion Documents

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Background Besides from reading this document, the students are expected to familiarise themselves with the information provided in the Pre-placement Handbook. Policy Statements The CBASS Student Handbook is a useful source of information for all aspects of your studies, including policy, procedures, plagiarism, house style for assignments, and other important matters. The College assumes that you will familiarise yourself with this information, so you will need to read the CBASS Student Handbook carefully at various times throughout your studies. The College also operates within the rules and regulations of the University more generally, and you should also look at what are known as 'Senate Regulations’ under the University’s webpage. These policies and procedures, and rules and regulations, are liable to change from one academic year to another. You should therefore ensure that you make yourself aware of these, as you cannot later claim a lack of knowledge on these matters. Access to Support Material for EC2555 The teaching, learning and support material is provided electronically via the University’s Blackboard Learn system. You can gain access to the Blackboard Learn system via the following webpage: https://blackboard.brunel.ac.uk/ . It is important that you access the material on Blackboard Learn regularly to check for any announcements, updates and other postings. Main Aims of the Module The main aims of the module include applying principles and concepts taught in the Department of Economics and Finance to real industrial/professional situations and problems, so as to enhance student employability. The module will: • • • • •

introduce you to the recruitment and selection methods used by organisations; enable you to develop practical skills and training in your placement’s areas of specialisation; encourage you to reflect on your own strengths and weaknesses during placement to prepare you for your career after graduation; enable you to gain an understanding of how theory and research relates to practice in an employment context; enhance your employability.

Information on module credits, learning outcomes and reading lists is provided in the EC2555 Placement Module Study Guide. Placement Tutor and Work Placement Visit Whilst you are on your work placement you are assigned a work placement tutor. Your tutor's responsibilities are: • • • • •

To act as a guide in regard to your learning and other aspects during the placement. To be the first point of contact should you have problems in your placement. To visit you at your employer’s premises. To support the Tutorial Day. To support and advise you regarding the placement assessment.

Placement tutors will be assigned their work placement tutees soon after the start of the autumn term. For information regarding your visiting tutor, please contact the administrative support team (see Pre-placement Handbook for contact details). You need to help the placement tutor to organise the work placement visit, when s/he will expect to talk to you and your line manager. You must arrange this visit well in advance as both your tutor and your manager will have busy diaries. When making arrangements, ensure that your tutor is given adequate travel information, that s/he has up-to-date information and contact numbers for you and your supervisor, and that you arrange parking if necessary. The aims of the visit are to: • • • • •

Ensure your role is appropriate to the requirements of the work placement. Ensure that you are performing satisfactorily. Facilitate the resolution of any problems. Provide feedback in collaboration with the line manager/supervisor to help you improve your performance. During the visit your tutor will meet with you and, separately, with your line manager, to discuss how your placement is progressing. During the placement visit, your tutor will need to complete the Tutor Visit Form available on the module website.

Problems During Placement If you encounter problems during your placement, you should contact your assigned Placement Tutor and the Module Convenor. If there is an emergency, or for whatever reason you cannot talk to your Placement Tutor, alternative contacts are available in the Pre-placement Handbook.

Important Dates The Placement Visit must be completed by 6 December, 2019 Tutorial Day: TBC The Placement Report must be submitted before April 17, 2020 Assessment This section provides information about the Placement Report and how to prepare for it during the placement period. The generic grade descriptors available on the module website will be used to grade your work placement reports. Preparing for the Assessment: Reflective Journal During the placement period, you should think about your current position, and your long term aims and objectives. To help you, you should keep a Reflective Journal while studying this module. You should enter your thoughts and reflections on key issues, ideas and concepts raised during the time on your placement; and your thoughts on your own learning. You should include notes on any training courses you attended, and also how and when your supervisor practically helped you learn and acquire specific skills. This reflective journal is designed to help you think deeply about your learning, especially on issues such as: your progress in learning, the difficulties you encountered in the process of learning, the strategies you have taken to get around those difficulties, and your evaluation of your own performance. You should not only describe what happened but you should also think about what worked well and what didn't work well and why. It is your choice about what you include and how regularly you update your journal but regular entries will help you critically think about your placement, and you will find it very useful when it comes to writing your placement report. Placement Report Guidelines There is no fixed format and you have considerable freedom (and responsibility) to design your own Placement Report. Nevertheless, you will receive some guidance and advice on how to prepare the report. The placement report will be between 2000 and 3000 words. The report should be typed and contain full bibliographic references and a word count. You will need a clear title and your might want to include a short abstract or summary. You can include diagrams, figures and data, but they must be clearly labelled and the source referenced. Their relevance should be properly explained and discussed in the main text. In general, marks are awarded for well structured, clearly argued and relevant discussion. You should make appropriate bibliographic references. A report above the word limit or with irrelevant material may be penalised. Note, also, you should not submit a placement report which has been written for your employer as part of your employment duties. A key aim of

the report is to help you to translate the work experience while on placement into writing and to be able to draw broader conclusions from your day-to-day work. A typical report will be structured so that it will include the following: • • •

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A summary of the organisation for which you worked and its activities. A description of what you did there, your role in the organisation, and how what you do fits into the organisation. An account of what you learned in your placement. These should describe: a) both general employee skills and also skills specific to the industry and employer; b) how what you learnt on your placement relates to what you have learnt from your courses at Brunel (including the PCC and other lectures). A reflection of your professional development. You should reflect on your placement, summarising your strengths and weaknesses in light of your placement experience, and the skills you gained from your placement.

Professional development: The core of your report should be a reflection on your professional development (e.g. your learning, performance and achievement). You need to explain your main duties, to present evidence about your work-based learning, and demonstrate achievement of some learning outcome(s). One purpose of the report is for you to relate your experiences on the placement to your degree programme. You will need to present evidence about the development of your skills during your placement: to show your knowledge about your employees operations in a particular sector or market; to show your ability to apply the methods, skills or techniques learnt during your placement. Thus the report is not intended to serve merely as a description of your activities on placement. The report should select an area of work with which you had practical experience and discuss your role and experiences critically. What issues arose, both for you personally and for your organisation? How did you deal with these issues? Your report will not assess how successful you were in your placement, but whether you can critically examine your experiences while in placement. And describing where you did less well is an important part of being critically self-aware. Note that although the report needs to be approached as a selfassessment exercise, it should contain an appropriate measure of scholarly and objective analysis. Finally, the report should adhere to accepted scholarly standards of presentation. Presentation You must prepare a short presentation for the open/tutorial day. On the open day you will be organised into small groups where you will discuss your presentation with other placement students. On the tutorial day you can also discuss your report with your placement tutor. Preparing the presentation is a requirement of the placement module, but does not involve any scores/marks. Confidentiality Your employer may have concerns about the organization or people within the organisation being 5

identified, or for aspects of its work being described. Please discuss these issues with your employer and the Placement Convenor if there is likely to be an issue regarding confidentiality. Normally, individuals will not be referred to by name unless they have given permission for their names to be used, nor will their identities to be clear from their roles in the organisation. If necessary, it is possible to ensure that (in order to preserve confidentiality in a dissertation) the placement provider is referred to throughout as simply "the organisation" or "the institution" or some other appropriate general nomination. Plagiarism Your attention is drawn to the College and University regulations on plagiarism. Plagiarism is the copying or close paraphrasing of published or unpublished work, including the work of another student, without the use of quotation marks and due acknowledgement. The University regards plagiarism as a serious offence. Work that contains substantial sections of plagiarised material will automatically receive a mark of zero. Work that contains even small elements of plagiarised material will be heavily penalized. References At the end of the report you need to include all the references, you must follow the following method. Citation: There is some dispute about who invented the Internet, but usually the same three names are mentioned (Jones, 2002). This indicates that this idea was published by Jones in 2002. You have used your own words, so it is not a quote. Direct quote: "The most important invention in Man's evolution is not the Internet, but the bicycle." (Brown & Smith, 1997, p.69) This is a direct quote. You need to use quotation marks to show this. The quote is from page 69 of the work published by Brown and Smith in 1997. Secondary source: If mathematicians had preferred drinking tea to coffee, the Internet may never have been invented. (Watts, 1991 cited in Miller et al., 2000, p.228) You have shown that the idea was published by Watts in 1991. But, you are not directly quoting Watts’ work, you are citing what Miller said about Watts’ idea.

Late Coursework/Mitigating Circumstances Late coursework submissions are subject to penalties (capping) that determine the maximum grade that you can achieve depending upon how late the work is. The current penalty scale can be found in the Student Handbook. The University mitigating circumstances policy applies to Placement students (see Student Handbook). Students with mitigating circumstances can apply to have penalties removed via submission of the appropriate form and evidence. See your student handbook for the procedure. Reassessment Details If you do not complete, satisfactorily, the requirements for your placement year, after any reassessment which you are permitted by the Board of Examiners, you will be required to transfer to the variant of the same degree without a placement year. Complaints Procedures If you wish to make a complaint about any aspect of your placement, and have not been able to resolve the problem directly with the employer, or via your University work placement tutor, please put your complaint in writing, addressed to the Placement Convenor. We will be unable to take any action without your comments in writing. If your complaint can not be resolved by the Placement Convenor, you should follow the normal complaints procedure as stated in the Student Handbook. Important Companion Documents CBASS Student Handbook available at http://www.brunel.ac.uk/life/student-handbook Pre-placement Handbook available on EC2555 Blackboard website EC2555 Placement Module Study Guide available on EC2555 Blackboard website Placement Visit Form available on EC2555 Blackboard website Undergraduate Grade Descriptors available on EC2555 Blackboard website...