MA Film Practice
Programme Specification
ARTS UNIVERSITY BOURNEMOUTH
ARTS UNIVERSITY BOURNEMOUTH
PROGRAMME SPECIFICATION
The Programme Specification provides a summary of the main features of the MA
Film Practice course and the learning outcomes that a ‘typical’ student might
reasonably be expected to achieve and demonstrate if she/he passes the course.
Further detailed information on the learning outcomes, content and teaching and
learning methods of each unit may be found within this Handbook and the online
Unit Information, which is available on your course blog.
Key Course Information
Final Award Master of Arts
Course Title Film Practice
Award Title MA Film Practice
Teaching institution Arts University Bournemouth
Awarding Institution Arts University Bournemouth
Offered in the School of: Media & Performance
Contact details:
Telephone number 01202 363138
Email fomp@aub.ac.uk
Professional accreditation None
Length of course / mode of study 53 weeks/Full Time
Level of final award (in FHEQ) Level 7
Subject benchmark statement QAA Master’s degree characteristics
Language of study English
External Examiner for course: Simon Van Der Borgh
University of York
Please note that it is not appropriate for students to contact external examiners
directly
Date of Validation 2019
Date of most recent review 2019
Date programme specification 2020
written/revised
Postgraduate Taught Degree Ethos
The Master’s course recognises individuals and their aspirations, and celebrates
ideas, making, and creative risk-taking. Our guiding principle is to offer distinctive,
exciting and challenging opportunities for you to engage in your respective subject
disciplines in order to critically engage with, and redefine, your particular
approaches to your practices and position them within your chosen external,
creative, economic, and cultural environment.
We support this principle through our passionate engagement with interdisciplinary
and collaborative practices, with the integration of theory and practice, with our
understanding of the particularities of individual practitioners and the broader
world, global view, and with an attitude to career development that creates a
dialogue between professionalism and risk taking.
Such a context affords possibilities to engage with fresh, often unpredictable and
certainly challenging methodologies and techniques with which you can research,
test, develop, interrogate and challenge, through forms of making that enable you
to reflect on your own practice and subject discipline. Whilst you will be
encouraged to develop your own themes, relationships between the aesthetic, the
political, the ethical and 'value' are ever-present and the courses support your
engagement with what are often difficult contemporary issues.
Crucial to this endeavour, is that you demonstrate a committed passion for your
practice and the particular media within your chosen subject discipline or field of
study. Each course devises specific discipline-focused project work to enable you
to be suitably informed in taking the right path towards your chosen career in a
diverse range of professions or progress to further study at doctorate level. This
discipline focus is, however, enhanced by your experience of interdisciplinary and
collaborative approaches and activities which enrich your journey.
Different levels of teaching delivery structure your learning experience in such a
way as to enable you to take broad, overarching transdisciplinary issues or
questions, and ground them within the specificities of your discipline and individual
practice. Our focus on the relationships between personal professional
development and the development of communities of practice through sharing and
collaboration is underpinned by the unique AUB reputation for truly collaborative
working across disciplines.
Through involvement in cross-course groups, shared lectures and other MA
activities you will have opportunities to work together with other MA students to
form a 'postgraduate network' that will facilitate a wider dialogue around art and
design, sustainability, ethics, the political and the often-global reach of creative
industries and professions. Our ethos focuses on not only developing your
systematic and critical understanding of knowledge and of the application of that
knowledge in an appropriate, professional context but also in having the resolve,
the skills and the acumen to exercise initiative and personal responsibility in a
world which is asking many questions of all of us with respect to our abilities and
desires in coexisting with a global community.
Our ethos focuses on the ability for our graduates not only to develop their careers
and be employable but also to be engaged in the redefinition of what employment
might look like in what are times of tremendous social, political, economic, and
ecological change, and indeed upheaval.
Course Description
MA Film Practice is a uniquely positioned programme that offers students the
opportunity to develop and realise their creative ambitions through practice-based
research, in an inclusive, integrated and highly stimulating environment. The
course is underpinned by a team of lecturers, who are experienced practitioners
and research active in a wide variety of film practice modes.
The MA Film Practice course asks reflective practitioners to interrogate the nature,
context and position of their work in relation to the film and wider creative
industries. Your study originates in your passions, the practice relared questions
you want answered, and this enquiry will generate your Research Question, which
the course will ask you to address. The course recognises and celebrates an
expansive understanding of film practice, its audience and the sites and contexts
in which it can be presented. Your practice-based research will be developed
across a focused programme of study, through a critical approach to individual and
collaborative practice and reflective enquiry.
The course gives you the opportunity to potentially produce short films, and other
audio-visual projects, that show an awareness of contemporary life and ideas,
practice awareness and expertise, but also experimental dramas, documentary
hybrid forms and art films, all works that emphasize innovation, a commitment to
examining form and content.
The course has a really experienced and multi-talented staff, who cover a broad
range of professional and research activities, from feature films to art projects.
These individuals have the necessary awareness and range to nurture the
development of diverse and challenging projects. Each student has two
supervisors (course leader and personal tutor) who are responsible for their
pastoral and tutorial cares.
You may come to the course as an active professional and/or film graduate who
wants to develop your own practice awareness through intensive practice-based
research. Or you may arrive as a graduate from subject areas outside film,
including animation, photography, fine art, creative writing, graphic design,
drawing and painting, amongst others. If so, you should already be using film
within your creative practice and be able to demonstrate a clear rationale for doing
so.
Whatever your background, the course will encourage you to further your own
ideas and realise your aspirations for future employment and/or freelance practice.
Your work will be considered in a international context, and critically examine the
emergence of approaches that challenge orthodox practices.
Statement of Student Entitlement
• All students are entitled to three supervisory tutorials per unit, totalling nine
over the course. In addition, feedback tutorials and group critiques will
accompany each of the units’ projects.
• Staff and student-led lectures and seminars.
• Regularly timetabled group meetings with MA Course Leader and/or
relevant tutors.
• Access to the Quiet Study Room during Library hours.
• Access to relevant resources agreed through your Course Leader.
• Agreed attendance on undergraduate workshop/darkroom/resource area
inductions.
• Agreed access to relevant studios as required for assessments purposes.
• Postgraduate show where appropriate.
• Agreed access to discipline-related and cross-discipline lectures/seminars
on undergraduate programmes.
• Attendance at Gallery events, Research days and other appropriate AUB
events.
Course Aims
The course aims to:
1. Encourage intellectual progression by providing a stimulating forum for
critical debate and inter-disciplinary approaches to film practice.
2. Support you in developing the research methods and skills required in the
gathering, sampling and analysing of data, in order to find and solve
complex problems.
3. Encourage you to reflect critically on your achievements and to evaluate
them within a challenging environment that will enable you to meaningfully
extend your practice professionally and/or towards PhD study.
4. Enable you to develop professional maturity and to understand and discuss
your work in the context of your discipline as well as the social, political and
cultural spheres in which your work will be situated.
5. Develop a rich cultural community that actively engages creative practice in
issues of ethics and sustainability.
Course Outcomes
By the end of the course you will be able to:
1. Produce a high level of individual and collaborative work that acknowledges
and potentially challenges current orthodoxies within film practice and the
disciplines and communities associated with it.
2. Demonstrate advanced ability through making and thinking to research,
investigate, describe and critique issues and situations thereby providing
original insights into contemporary practice.
3. Demonstrate and apply highly developed and advanced practical and
conceptual understanding of film techniques and processes and to raise
questions for further study or professional development.
4. Show acquisition of appropriate skills and acumen in communication,
presentation and autonomous learning in relation to career aspirations.
5. Develop your work with respect to relevant issues of sustainability, ethics
and the cultural and political environment in which your practice sits.
Reference Points
• UK Quality Code for higher education, including:
o Subject Benchmark Statement: Master’s degree characteristics
o Framework for Higher Education Qualifications (FHEQ)
• AUB Regulatory Framework and Postgraduate Assessment Regulations
• AUB Creative Learning Plan
• AUB Strategic Plan
• AUB Employability Framework
Learning and Teaching Strategies
The Postgraduate Network Model (see diagram at end of this section)
All teaching sessions delivered across the postgraduate taught courses are
located in a network of learning, which has three different levels. The top level —
the macro level — is predominantly made up of lectures delivered to the whole
Graduate School. These lectures are transdisciplinary in nature in that they
address issues and understanding common to all postgraduate courses at the
AUB.
These overarching broad themes at the macro level can be interpreted differently
by clusters of disciplines. The next level in the network — the meso level —
therefore involves learning and teaching sessions that provide a disciplinary
interpretation and focus to macro level lectures. These are more relevant to
students on allied or cognate courses, and preference is given to students from
such allied courses to attend these sessions, however students from across the
Graduate School can elect to attend any sessions as long as space and resources
permit.
The final level in the network — the micro level — involves course specific: tutorial
sessions, critiques, and project launches. This level contextualises the learning
from the top two levels within your individual practice.
While students at undergraduate level are encouraged to learn through their
peers, at MA Level this is an imperative through peer learning and group
work. Each member of the MA cohort across the Graduate School is an active
participant in learning and teaching, and through this postgraduate network, the
sharing of good practice is established. Through involvement in cross-course
groups, shared lectures and other MA activities you will work together with other
MA students to form the postgraduate network that will facilitate a wider dialogue
around the Arts, sustainability, ethics, the political and the creative industries.
Course Leaders in the Graduate School will meet at the beginning of every year to
plan combined sessions for the forthcoming year. This planning will take into account
student numbers on each course.
Set within a community and culture of makers, you will engage in dialogue and
debate with your peers. This experience provides dynamic and interactive sessions,
which are vital to the enhancement of new thinking and ideas generation as well as
offering a critical arena for discussion and progression of your work.
Lectures and screenings
Lectures are used to focus on aspects of film practice and provide information for
you as you progress through the course. They are generally followed by question
and answer sessions. Screenings of historical and contemporary film practice
artefacts are designed to provide context and inspiration for the students in the
development of their own work. These will often involve an introduction and/or
discussion by a tutor or visiting professional. Masters students will also screen
work as part of their growing critical skillset.
Practical workshops and exercises
Practical workshops will provide students with technical skills and creative
knowledge in the fundamental components of film practice. Sessions will focus on
practice related areas, such as storytelling and script development, its
development, visualisation, audioization and final realisation. A series of technical
and creative exercises will challenge students to put their new knowledge into
practice and link their learning outcomes to their own research goals.
Seminars, group criticism and peer learning
Discussion seminars and group criticisms are important opportunities for
generating dialogue and interrogating practice. These tutor and student-led
sessions primarily focus on the individual and collaborative work produced in the
units. You will become confident in discussing and verbally articulating your
practice and that of your collaborators in preparation for working within the creative
industries or further study.
Tutorials and self-directed study
You will be allocated a personal tutor, who will provide academic guidance at
tutorials and present an overview of individual progress. Personal tutors will
normally have extensive and current professional experience in your own research
area and be available to support you during the study period. In order to ensure
that you benefit as much as possible from the tutorials, it is essential to be properly
prepared. This provision is complemented by a second tutorial supervisor, usually
the Course Leader, who has overall responsibility. The dual tutorial combination
provides for a focused and comprehensive tutorial and pastoral oversight.
Tutorials can often face-to-face but can also be delivered online.
At Masters level you are expected to undertake a high proportion of self-directed
study. You are required to determine appropriate research and practical resource
requirements and, with the agreement of the Course Leader, your personal tutor
and other designated staff, ensure that access to these resources is agreed under
course and AUB guidelines.
Visiting professionals
The course invites visiting film practitioners to contribute to the Professional
Lecture Programme. These talks are vital, in that they enable you to understand
how the creative industries really operate. These practitioners will discuss their,
professional practice and experience. These visits energise the course as they
engender lively and current debate.
Study visits
These can involve visits to cinemas, festivals, galleries and exhibitions. There are
added costs notified in advance of the visits.
Using technology to assist and enhance learning
The University is systematically developing technology-enhanced approaches to
learning. AUB learning technology provides access to a full range of course
documentation and provides an effective mechanism for the maintenance of
course and broader institutional communication.
The course adopts a blended learning approach where lectures, demonstrations,
and tutorials can occur on-line via channels such as Zoom as well as face to face.
Third-party content is also integrated within the network model and sessions are
collected, scheduled and disseminated through the University’s virtual learning
infrastructure. Lectures and other sessions within the Graduate School are
normally recorded and available to access at times appropriate to your study. This
blended learning approach preserves opportunities for on-campus studio culture to
emerge through the social and interactive nature of traditional face-to-face learning
and teaching, while providing greater flexibility through a wider range of learning
experiences that can be accessed off-campus as well as on-campus. This is
particularly useful to those with family or work commitments; providing greater
flexibility to learn in a time and place of your choosing.
Assessment
Each unit is assessed separately, and the assessment forms part of the unit.
Assessment both provides a measure of your achievement, and also gives you
regular feedback on how your learning is developing.
For every unit of your course, we will inform you of what you are expected to learn;
what you have to submit; how your work will be assessed; and the deadline for
presenting your work for assessment. This is made available through Unit
Information, which is on your course blog.
You will receive a final mark for each unit in the form of a percentage, which will be
recorded on your formal record of achievement (transcript). Each component of
assessment is graded using a notched marking scale, whereby only certain marks
are used within each grade. The only marks available within any ten-point band
are *2, *5 and *8 (eg 62, 65, 68). These marks correspond to a low, mid, and high
level of achievement within each grade band.
All learning outcomes must be passed to successfully complete the unit.
You are assessed, broadly speaking in two ways: formatively and summatively.
Formative assessment provides feedback that will help you to develop your
learning. It should be seen as ‘ongoing’ assessment in the sense that it enables
you to pinpoint strengths and weaknesses and address them appropriately.
Formative assessment may take place in tutorials, seminars, critiques and other
discussions about your work.
Summative assessment generally takes place at the end of a unit of study. It is
an overall evaluation of your acquisition of the skills and knowledge developed in
that part of the course.
There will be specific tutorials and formative assessment events at least once per
term to make you fully aware of your progress on the course and monitor your
development.
Award of Merit/Distinction
A Master’s Degree with Award or Distinction may be awarded. Only units at Level 7
contribute towards the determination of a Merit or Distinction.
For further information on assessment and awards, please visit:
https://aub.ac.uk/regulations
Description of Assessment Components
Body of Work
The body of work is guided by your understanding of your own practice-based
research and your discussions and negotiations with your tutors and peers. Each
unit has instructions regarding the specific definition of Body of Work but in
general it will comprise of:
• Your film exercises and completed works; evidence of your creative
audio/visual work that allows you to meaningfully demonstrate and display
the outcome of your study.
• A research portfolio of written and visual work that evidences the progress
of your work, the course’s collaborative film exercises, provides a context
for its production, sets out a theoretical framework and offers synthesis of
your developmental process.
• A critical and analytical evaluation, a series of analytical papers, one per
unit (Research Positional Paper, Research Development Paper, Research
Resolution Paper) which shows evidence of practical and analytical
conclusions and outcomes to your original research question.
• Evidence of research methods, academic protocols, analysis, the
development of a theoretical argument, critical evaluation and reflection.
Presentation
During the course, you will be asked to give presentations – some assessed,
some not assessed. Although you may ‘present’ your work in other contexts (e.g.
research and practice proposals, group critiques, tutorials), the term ‘presentation’
usually refers to a formal process where you talk about work-in-progress, placing it
in context, using visual aids such as Powerpoint and test shoots. The expectation
with a presentation is that you do not simply ‘show’ work, but that you critically
contextualise it.
Contextual Journal
The Contextual Journal highlights insights in three important areas:
• The context that informed your practice: the relevant: theories, subjects,
issues, political perspectives, designers, artists, images, literature and so
forth.
• The research that is ‘on’, ‘for’, or ‘in’ your practice – this includes:
research on the ways you practice/the outcomes of your practice; your
own research undertaken to enable your practice; and research that is
embedded in the practice.
• The developmental aspect of the project: both in terms of your own
personal development as a creative practitioner, and the processual
development of an emerging body of work.
The Contextual Journal provides a space for you to map your evaluation and
application of research methods. Projects might potentially use one or more
research methods selected from a wealth of methods that have emerged in the
literature. These methods provide ways of obtaining data, of analysing it and of
testing your conclusions. Methodology involves the study of methods, and you will
begin to identify the assumptions that underlie different methods and to develop
the skills necessary to coordinate them and to synchronise them with your
theoretical framework.
This also connects your study and professional development, which could initiate
doctorual study and/or enble professional progression. To further aid this students
engage in professional development sessions – these include masterclasses from
industry professionals, an industry day in London where industry professionals
give presentations and hold surgeries, an engagement with Creative Screenskills
and the relevant professional bodies and the network.
Course Content
This uniquely positioned programme offers the opportunity for students to develop
and realise their creative ambitions through practice-based research. The course
is underpinned by a team of lecturers who are experienced practitioners and
researchers in a wide variety of film practice modes.
All three units require the completion of set film exercises, which display an
awareness of practice based study and evidence of progress towards your
research goals through individual and collaborative experimentation:
1. Strategies for Practice: Identification - Art As Inspiration
2. Master’s Project 1: Research - One Plus One
3. Master’s Project 2: Resolution - Final Project
Also, you are required to produce a critical and analytical evaluation for each unit,
which evidences research methods, academic protocols, critical, contextual and
conceptual analysis and applied reflection:
1. Strategies for Practice: Identification - Research Positional Paper (3,000
word) that examines your original research question and clearly identifies
contextual and conceptual intentions.
2. Master’s Project 1: Research - Research Development Paper (3,000 word)
that advances your research and indicates its direct application.
3. Master’s Project 2: Resolution - Research Resolution Paper (3,000 word)
that shows evidence of practical and analytical conclusions and outcomes
to your original research question.
As part of all three units you will produce a Contextual Journal, which will be a
illustrated and written submission that documents the development of your
practice and research and will include: academic engagement, reflective
evaluation, critical analysis (through practice and literature reviews), processual
thinking, technical and specialist skills, and your developing professionalism.
Strategies for Practice: Identification
This unit, is designed to orientate you and offers an introduction to all that follows.
Through a series of lectures, film exercises, workshops, critiques and seminars,
film and your relationship to it is examined. These different elements are
structured to relate your practice (the work that you desire to make) and research
(the critical questions you want to answer) to historic and contemporary film
discourses (that consider aesthetics, technology, form, content, cultural and social
concerns) and develop your work’s conceptual purpose within an informed frame
of reference. A Research Audit will be conducted, which will indicate your specific
interests, share them with the tutors and your peers, allow the identification of its
scope and purpose, and what rescources and supervision it will require.
This unit, through its varied elements, encourages independent study and
collaborative work, focused through Art As Inspiration, which aims to facilitate
authorial awareness and direction. Undertaking practice based research means
that your film exercises and experiments form the basis for your project
development; an ethos that relates to every level of filmmaker, no matter their
experience or focus, and offers the opportunity to build on existing knowledge and
generate new understanding.
Your progress, through the unit, will focus your developmental intent and aid the
formulation of the next two units (Master’s Project Research and Resolution). This
is supported by practice based research and personal tuition. The process of
making work (and critiquing it in individual and group tutorials), better
understanding your field of practice, analysing and composing your research
(through developing a written and practical body of work), will further enhance your
practice related awareness and will help you become a more complete and
reflective practitioner.
Master’s Project 1: Research
The second unit builds on all you have accomplished in the first. It encourages you
to further develop your specific practice related interests and apply them directly to
your research question. Your research, through practical tests, contextual
investigations and interrogative analysis, will expand your understanding, whilst,
also, focusing your own purpose, the form and content of your final project.
The proposed nature of your project will, in many ways, decide the direction of
your research, for instance, a film drama requires a different approach and
resources to a documentary, and these considerations will determine your focus
and requirements, the degree of collaborative engagement, your creative
relationships, how you plan to present the completed project. Experimentation is a
vital part of this process, which is focused through One Plus One, which consisits
of a series of practice related exercises, because only through exploration
(sometimes taking a leap of faith) will you find a satisfying creative and applicable
solution.
Your research will interrogate related conceptional and contextual concerns,
analysing your position and developing the best strategy for facilitating your final
project. An important part of this process is ‘testing’ your perspective and engaging
with other opinions, therefore personal and practice bssed tutorials, presentations
and critiques, with both staff and students, are a vital part of this process. Your
critical awareness, working methods, relatable structures, will help make the final
stage of your study achievable, one which will find worthwhile fruition in the final
unit, Master’s Project 2: Resolution.
Master’s Project 2: Resolution
In the third unit you will implement your final project plan, which was intitally
identified in Strategies for Practice: Identification and then developed and refined
in Master’s Project 1, producing a completed major project of audio/visual work(s).
You will assess the project’s means of presentation (e.g. single screen and/or
installation) and dissemination (e.g. festival and/or digital platform) resolving the
outcomes of your project in ways that communicate to both specialist and non-
specialist audiences. You will also complete a critical and analytical evaluation of
your progress, which considers the practical and conceptual outcomes to your
original research question, that applies appropriate research methods, academic
protocols, critical analysis and displays active reflection.
Course Units
Unit Code Unit Title Credit Weighting
FRF751 Strategies for Practice: Identification 60
Materials, methods, contexts
FRF752 Master’s Project 1: Research 60
Investigate, propose, experiment
FRF753 Master’s Project 2: Resolution 60
Resolution, presentation, evaluation
Course Diagram
This diagram shows the proposed start/end dates for each unit and shows teaching weeks only; holiday periods are not included.
Level 7 Full-time
Trimester One (weeks 1-15) Trimester Two (weeks 16-30) Trimester Three (weeks 31-45)
Assessment
Assessment
Assessment
FRF751 Strategies for Practice: FRF752 Master’s Project 1: FRF753 Master’s Project 2:
Induction
Identification Research Resolution
(60 credits) (60 credits) (60 credits)
Glossary
Body of Work Practice of any kind that can be submitted in fulfilment of
learning outcomes. The body of work could be an individual
artefact, a piece of writing, film, performance, installation, a
digital outcome or a mixture of any or all of these things.
Contextual Journal A written journal produced over the course of your Master’s
that contextualises your practice.
Credit ‘Notional learning hours’ are used to describe the size of a
unit, and indicate the length of learning time which it is
estimated will be taken, on average, to achieve the specified
learning outcomes. This includes all the study time for the
unit including contact hours (lectures, demonstrations,
seminars, tutorials etc), directed study, independent study,
and assessment activity (including preparation). In
accordance with practice across the UK HE sector, one
credit is allocated for ten notional learning hours, one whole
Master’s Course comprises 180 credits or 1800 notional
learning hours. Credit is not used for grading but quantifies
the volume of learning and is thus used to determine
eligibility for progression or awards.
Cross-disciplinary Cross-disciplinary practice involves understanding one
discipline from the perspective of another.
Interdisciplinary Interdisciplinary practice describes activity that integrates or
shares, theory, methods, tools, types of data, and so forth
from different disciplines.
Keynote Lectures Longer, macro level lectures that introduce a theme or major
topic. Keynote lectures can be live face-to-face lectures,
streamed live, and recorded.
Learning Outcomes The result of each unit is expressed as a series of Learning
Outcomes. Attainment of these is the objective of the unit;
measuring their attainment is the purpose of assessment.
The expression of unit objectives as Learning Outcomes, and
how they are assessed, is included within each unit
descriptor and published for students.
Macro Level These sessions are more transdisciplinary in nature and are
relevant to all courses that make up the Graduate School.
They are often informed by staff research. Macro level
lectures include Keynote and Thread Lectures.
Meso Level These sessions are the bridge between the more
transdisciplinary macro sessions and the course specific
micro sessions. Meso level seminars, workshops and
demonstration are delivered to related courses that share
approaches, understanding or methods.
Methodology The study of methods. Methodology concerns an evaluation
of which methods provide valid steps in creating new
knowledge. Choosing a methodology is an important part of
a research process as this will determine the method that
you use to investigate your research question. Particularly,
how you will collect and analyse data in a way that aligns
with the theory underpinning your research. This choice will
be based on your beliefs about what is possible to know
(ontology) and assumptions about how you can know
(epistemology).
Micro Level These sessions are specific to your chosen course discipline,
they include unit briefings, individual and group tutorials,
critiques and presentations.
Multidisciplinary Multidisciplinary practice involves collaborators from different
disciplines working on the same project, each drawing on the
knowledge and methods of their individual disciplines.
Postgraduate The network of teaching sessions delivered across the
Network Model Graduate School. These operate on three broad levels: the
macro, meso and micro levels.
Praxis The thinking in doing, and the doing in thinking. Praxis is the
symbiotic relationship between theory and practice.
Primary Sources These are the objects that are the foci of research. They
could be a document, interview, film, painting or artefact, for
example. Primary sources provide data that can then be
analysed.
Reflection Thinking about action as it is happening (reflection in action)
or sometime after it took place (reflection on action).
Reflexivity Is the correspondence between our understandings that we
project onto the world through our actions and the
understandings that result from what gets reflected back.
Research In the Research Excellence Framework, research is defined
as ‘a process of investigation leading to new insights,
effectively shared.’
Secondary Sources Are explanations/descriptions of the analysis of primary
sources that have already been carried out. Secondary
sources provide mediated accounts that can be critically
reviewed and contrasted.
Seminars These small group sessions help to contextualise learning
delivered through other sessions. They explore issues
related to practice in context where student-led responses
are encouraged and individual and/or collective inquiry is
developed in detail.
Study Plan A plan for a proposed course of study or research.
Tertiary Sources Provide ways to locate primary and secondary sources, they
include: library catalogues, bibliographies, indexes,
databases, and so forth.
Theory A coherent system of ideas with explanatory power.
Thread Lectures Smaller usually 10-15 minute sessions that expand on the
topics introduced in Keynote lectures. These can be face-to-
face, recorded or can include third-party content.
Transdisciplinary Transdisciplinary practice attempts to ‘transcend’ disciplinary
boundaries by locating all practice within one holistic
framework.
Tutorials A teaching session involving lecturer/s and one student or a
small group of students. These typically occur at the micro
level within the Postgraduate Network Model as a means of
reviewing progress and developing ideas.
Units Self-contained blocks of learning, each of which has a
coherent set of aims and learning outcomes, and associated
assessment processes.
graduateschool.aub.ac.uk
