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Appendix 1 - Relevant university policies and procedures
This section provides references to the relevant sections of the guidelines that ensure their compliance with the university Honours Year Programs Policy and Honours Year Programs Procedures at September 2004.
Policy requirements
In accordance with the university Honours Year Programs Policy, the honours program in the Faculty of Science should:
- contain a mix of advanced theory, research training and research. Each discipline should establish appropriate upper and lower boundaries for the proportion allocated to a specific research project.
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- ensure that the academic staff involved in supervising honours candidates are active researchers. Where appropriate, co-supervision by qualified non-academics, for example from industry, should be encouraged.
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- include components involving the development of both written and oral communication skills. As part of this development, students should be required to provide a seminar on their thesis and/or to engage in an oral defence of their work.
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- maintain a requirement for admission to the program based upon high achievement in a relevant three-year bachelor degree, and publish those requirements in handbooks. The circumstances in which such requirements may be waived or varied should also be clearly defined.
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- provide regular and systematic feedback to students on all elements of their performance in the honours year as it proceeds.
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| Faculties/departments should provide a formal organisational and administrative structure for the honours program involving either a co-ordinator or an Honours Course Committee charged with such matters as: |
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- scrutinising thesis proposals;
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- making recommendations on course proposals;
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- monitoring the structure and coherence of the honours course offerings;
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- monitoring the effectiveness of the supervision provided;
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- monitoring assessment procedures;
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- counselling students and mediating disputes on an informal basis.
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Procedural requirements
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- formulate and explicitly state the objectives of their honours programs. The content of the program and the assessment should clearly reflect the objectives.
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- identify the particular purposes and character that distinguish their honours program from other undergraduate and postgraduate coursework programs.
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- where feasible, encourage collaboration across institutions so that the range of specialist courses and the pool of students for them can be increased.
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- ensure that the expectations and responsibilities of project supervisors and students are clearly set out in a code of practice similar to that developed by the university for doctoral programs, suitably modified for the honours level. They should ensure that staff and students are familiar with these guidelines.
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- prepare a handbook setting out the aims, nature and benefits of the honours program, together with details of staff interests, the role of supervisors, facilities available, course requirements and assessment procedures, thesis requirements (including word limit) and assessment criteria, weightings of the various components, submission dates, and guidelines for such activities as laboratory or field work. In particular, faculties/departments should develop explicit criteria for the assessment of theses, including definitions of performance at the various grades of honours.
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- provide to potential honours students early in their undergraduate program a systematic information and advice program. As well as individual advice and encouragement, documents should be provided which set out entry requirements, expectations, the structure of the program and facilities. In particular, admission criteria should be carefully spelt out.
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- work to ensure comparability across institutions by exchange of information and staff, and where appropriate, involvement of professional associations.
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- undertake regular comparison of grade distributions with those of faculties/departments in similar institutions if this information is available.
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- consider subjecting their programs to regular external review or appointing external assessors to provide ongoing monitoring of the conduct and standards of honours programs, where feasible.
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- evaluate their honours program in terms of success in achieving its objectives, the comparability of its standards, and its equity across students.
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Admission
- When a faculty/department wishes to admit a student without the normal qualifications, a case should be made to the dean of the faculty for permission. Permission for variations to admissions requirements may also be requested from another person or persons recommended by the faculty for the purpose of approving variations to admissions requirements. Should permission be granted to admit the student, a subsequent brief written statement of reasons for this decision should be prepared and submitted to faculty board for ratification, perhaps through a relevant faculty committee. Faculties should monitor the outcomes for students admitted in this way.
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Supervision and assessment
- The supervisor's role as an examiner should be delineated, and policy on the number of examiners and the use of external examiners clearly specified. Faculties should provide a statement of current practice to their students.
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- Examiners should provide written reports, which include a short statement of the reasons for the grade of honours awarded to the thesis. The reports should also contain a section to be provided to students.
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- Written records on student work should be maintained in faculties/departments to facilitate comparability from year to year. These records should go beyond the data on scores awarded to include written comments on students' performance, and statements of criteria used for grading performance.
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