GS536

Title Communication and Outreach

Credit: 5 ECTs

Module code GS536

Module description

This module aims to give students the opportunity to understand the relevance and impact of research in society and to communicate research to diverse audiences, including non-specialists. Students will be given an opportunity to broaden their understanding of the social context of research. Students are expected to engage in activities to improve their communication skills, such as workshops and training courses. A key goal of this module is to challenge the student with the task of promoting the themes of their discipline/School/College and communicating technically complex and/or advanced concepts to non-specialist audiences. Detailed learning outcomes for this module should be developed by the supervisor taking into account the suite of online training materials available and the suite of communication opportunities and outreach activities available.  Students must complete a report:

• describing in detail the training undertaken,
• outlining their engagement in practical outreach activities ,
• providing evidence of their effectiveness (for example audience feedback reports) and
• including any outputs, such as presentations or demonstrations.

Learning outcomes

1. Communicate complex research topics to non-specialist audiences.
2. Engage with community through active participation.
3. Appreciate the role of research in society.

Module resources/ Any other resources: Epigeum Conferences, Presenting & Networking

Common Content for all supervisor-owned GS modules:

Teaching period all year

Module description The student should only register for this module in the academic year that they intend to complete the module.

Module content & assessment

Indicative content Completion of this module may require the student to attend workshops or seminars, complete training (including online training), maintain a reflective journal recording the student’s experience of their learning and/or completion of specific tasks or assessments. The content will be designed by the student’s supervisor so as to ensure that the student can achieve the module’s learning outcomes and that the supervisor can assess that the learning outcomes have been met by the student.

Department-based assessment

The research student’s supervisor is responsible for ensuring that the student has achieved the learning outcomes for this module and for recording this result in the student record system.

The supervisor will gather and retain written evidence that the student t has achieved the module’s learning outcomes. Each piece of evidence may only be used to demonstrate that the learning outcomes have been achieved for a specific module, i.e. no double-counting of learning achieved.

Results to be recorded on a Pass/Fail basis, with a Pass mark of 40%.

Each student may only receive credit for this module once.

Workload type/Independent & Directed Learning (non-contact)/

All learning and assessment activities/ all learning outcomes/100-125 hours for 5 ECTS

Any other resources: Online training materials are available on the Researcher Development Centre (RDC) Portal. Such resources include those from Epigeum (The Epigeum Research Skills Toolkit is available under the Self-Paced Courses section).