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An Integrative, Client-Centred Communication Project
In the second year of the BA Communication course at Napier, all students are required to undertake a core module entitled Integrative Project 2. This module takes the form of live projects, whereby the course acts virtually as a communication agency. Students are invited to video themselves into groups according to their own interests, each of which is then given responsibility for a project with an external company that has identified some communication problem.
Over the fifteen weeks of the semester, students are expected to liaise with the client, to analyse and investigate his or her problem, to come up with proposed solutions, to put these to the client and negotiate their feasibility, and to carry out the agreed final programme. The assessment the module is as follows:
- Interim group presentation 10%
- Final group presentation 30%
- Group written report 50%
- Tutorial assessment 10%
Each group is awarded a mark by the course team for elements a, b, and c and the group is responsible for allocating the mark within the group. The group is encouraged to develop criteria for mark allocation from the outset of the module, but only in the case of irreconcilable differences do the staff team interfere or intervene in the allocation of marks within the group. The aim is to allow students to allocate marks according to their understanding of who has contributed most to the overall developing project. Considerable work is done on such group functions as gate¬~keeping, inspiring others, writing up minutes and so on. The final 10% for each student is given directly by staff on the basis of performance in class contact time.
Sheila Lodge, Napier University
(From the ASSHE Inventory - Changing Assessment practices in Scottish Higher Education with kind permission of the Centre for Teaching, Learning and Assessment, University of Edinburgh)
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