Approved honours requirements for each area of specialisation

An honours degree is awarded on the successful completion of a program of advanced study (theory), professional training (where appropriate), research training and a research project leading to a thesis that will demonstrate a contribution to the knowledge of the subject by original work and include a critical review of the literature and an oral seminar.

Schools/departments are able to cater substantially for the interests of individual students, although there may be compulsory elements to be completed by all students in some areas of specialisation. No overall guidelines are appropriate, but each area of specialisation will establish appropriate upper and lower boundaries for the proportion of the total assessment allocated to the research project component. The project components of most honours programs in science fall in the range 30-70 per cent. (AV-CC Guidelines for good practice)

Where feasible, schools/departments engage in collaboration across institutions so that the range of specialist coursework requirements, and the pool of students, for them can be increased.

4.1 Objectives for each area of specialisation

The primary goal of the honours program is to develop skills and expertise in support of scientific research and to contribute to the advancement of scientific development. By seeking to introduce and involve students in scientific research, under the university Course Structure Policy schools/department must formulate and explicitly state the objectives of their honours program (as listed in ‘Appendix 2 – Objectives of honours in areas of specialisation’). As noted in the amendment to the honours program that was approved in 2002, these objectives must address both the achievement of discipline-specific objectives and the overall objectives of the Bachelor of Science (Honours) course, including the acquisition of the Monash Graduate Attributes of written and oral communication, capacity for inquiry and research, critical thought and analysis, problem solving, teamwork, numeracy and effective use of information technology.

4.2 Publication of assessment requirements

The assessment and standards of the individual tasks to be completed by students during the honours program will be principally the responsibility of the teaching school/department for those units, upon their approval by the Faculty Education Committee. In accordance with the university Assessment of Coursework Procedures, for each area of specialisation the School Honours Coordinator should be explicit about the assessment tasks and the criteria by which students’ work will be evaluated. The overall honours program assessment requirements and their weightings for each science area of specialisation, as outlined in ’Appendix 4 – Honours assessment and coursework requirements’, must be published to all students and will be monitored by the Faculty Education Committee, with the assistance of the Faculty Honours Committee and Board of Examiners, to ensure an appropriate level of consistency of workload and standards. Any changes to the assessment requirements must be approved by the Faculty Education Committee and the faculty board prior to the first semester in which they will be applied.

The student results for each individual area of specialisation will be monitored by a Board of Examiners in each school/department, which will compare the performance of all honours students in that school with each other and with standards from previous years and other institutions. Where appropriate, examiners from other schools will be consulted in this process.

Quality assurance of standards between the science areas of specialisation will be founded upon a consistency of approach, as outlined in the guidelines that are detailed below, in combination with ongoing oversight by the faculty Board of Examiners, the Faculty Honours Committee and Board of Examiners and the Faculty Education Committee.

4.3 Honours assessment guidelines for typical assessment tasks

The purpose of these guidelines is to ensure some level of consistency and transparency in the standard of the curriculum, the acquisition of key generic skills, and the methods and standards of assessment across all science areas of study. In particular, these assessment guidelines endeavour to establish minimum standards of good practice that address concerns that the publication of marks and grades for the honours program may lead to non-uniform levels of assessment between schools/departments.

The content of the honours program in any area of specialisation, and the assessment processes, should clearly reflect the objectives of the program in that area. Throughout the honours program, students should be provided with detailed and timely feedback on all assessment tasks and provided with individual marks for each completed task.

Irrespective of the semester of first enrolment, all assessment tasks for full-time honours candidates must normally be completed and submitted for assessment within an elapsed period of 36 weeks of the commencement of the program, taking into account any period over which the student is not permitted to attend the university or the school (such as the Christmas-New Year break). The elapsed period should normally be 72 weeks for part-time candidates.

Coursework components

The coursework components of the honours program will vary according to the area of specialisation but, irrespective of the weighting, they should normally provide students with key specialist skills that have not been taught in their previous studies. Some of the coursework components should also relate to key generic skills that are relevant to graduates in that area, including the Monash Graduate Attributes and (particularly) the development of an advanced level of written and oral communication skills. Honours coursework components should normally be taught at a higher standard than level-three undergraduate units, and students should demonstrate a greater level of independent learning. Typically, the honours coursework curriculum might expose students to ‘state of the art’ research and knowledge in their area of specialisation, including peer-reviewed publications from the last five year.

In some cases students may be advised to undertake some additional preparatory studies for their honours program, for example by reading or taking a level-three coursework unit or an honours coursework unit offered by another school. Normally, no more than one level-three unit can be included in the honours program requirements for any student, and this unit must be assessed at a higher standard than for students undertaking that same unit at level three.

The final assessed result for any significant coursework component should be determined using a process similar to that for any undergraduate science unit, and normally it should be based upon more than one type of assessable task. All failed coursework components should be verified by a second examiner.

Literature reviews, essays and major written assessment tasks

All major written assessment tasks should be marked by at least two members of academic staff, with the average of the two marks being recorded as the final component mark. Where there is any disagreement between these examiners, a third examiner should be used. Schools/departments should develop a consistent policy on whether the student’s honours supervisor can be one of the markers for any major written assessment task.

Seminars and oral presentations

All science students are required to provide a seminar on their major honours project or to engage in an oral defence of their research project thesis. The seminar should be assessable and weighted at between 5-10% of the total honours assessment. (Approved at Faculty Education Committee meeting 03/00)

Assessment of oral presentations should be determined by the average mark assigned by a school/department panel of at least three examiners. Where a sufficiently large number of examiners is used, it may be appropriate for the school/department to agree to not include (one of) the largest mark and (one of) the smallest mark awarded when calculating the average mark for all of its students.

The examiners should be asked to consider the presentation according to specific criteria that should be advised to students in advance. Wherever appropriate, these criteria should be as similar as possible across all related areas of specialisation (see, for example, ‘Appendix 5 – Sample oral presentation assessment sheet’) in order to assist in the moderation of results across the science program.

Major research project thesis

The thesis that is submitted upon completion of the major honours research project must be assessed according to the approved guidelines in ‘Appendix 4 – Honours research thesis assessment guidelines’.(Approved at Faculty Education Committee meeting 01/02)

4.4 Submission of results for honours component units

The Faculty Honours Committee and Board of Examiners shall receive from the relevant unit chief examiners, through the School Honours Coordinators or otherwise, recommendations for the marks achieved by all students in every honours component unit upon the completion of each period of enrolment in that unit. Grades for all assessable honours component units will be assigned using the normal grading scale for undergraduates units, i.e., N, P, C, D and HD. The Board shall also receive the overall honours mark and grade for each student at the completion of their program.

The Faculty Honours Committee and Board of Examiners will consider those recommendations on final marks and grades to ensure their comparability and consistency from year to year and shall monitor the moderation processes adopted within each school/department to ensure best practice. Therefore, under some circumstances, the Faculty Honours Committee and Board of Examiners may recommend to the Board of Examiners final results for individual students that may differ from those recommended initially by the administering school/department.

The results and grades for all assessable units for the honours program will be submitted in accordance with the university requirements for the release of results in each semester. In each semester of enrolment the marks for all assessable units must be finalised in time for consideration by the Board of Examiners, unless the Associate Dean (Education) has approved an extension, upon the recommendation of both the Faculty Honours Committee and Board of Examiners and the relevant head of school/department. Unit marks that are not returned will be recorded as withheld (WH) until the end of the fourth week of the following semester, after which they will be amended to a fail result (0 N) if no further communication has been received from the school/department.

Honours candidates are not permitted to repeat any honours component units for which they have received a fail mark and grade. Supplementary assessment is not available for any component unit of the science honours program.

Examination of the final honours project mark and the recommendation of the Schools Honours Coordinator on the overall mark and grade for honours must also be finalised according to the timelines for the submission of results for the final semester of enrolment.

4.5 Overall honours mark and grade

In addition to the results for the individual honours component units, students receive an overall honours mark and grade upon completion of the program. This overall mark and grade is recorded against a zero-point ‘dummy unit’ on each student’s academic transcript.

The overall mark is normally determined by the points-weighted average of the marks for the component units, with a variation of up to two discretionary marks upon the recommendation of the relevant Chief Examiner. Typically, the discretionary marks might be equivalent to a slightly higher weighting to the mark for the project unit, in reflection of the overall objectives of the honours program. However, schools/departments may seek approval from the Faculty Honours Committee and Board of Examiners to use an alternative formula for calculating the final honours mark in terms of the marks for the component units, for example based on the objectives rather than the relative workload (credit points) involved. If this request is approved of the Faculty Education Committee then all students to which they are applied must be notified of this formula prior to the commencement of any assessment tasks for their honours program.

The overall grade of honours is determined by the overall mark awarded. Honours degrees are graded as first class, second class or third class, with the second class further divided into two sub-classes.

Such grades are referred to as:

Class of honours	Grade awarded	Range of overall mark achieved
First Class Honours	HI	80+
Second Class Honours – Division I	H2A	70-79
Second Class Honours – Division II	H2B	60-69
Third Class Honours	HIII	50-59

A student who achieves an overall honours mark less than 50 will be awarded a ‘Fail’ grade for the honours course. (Of course, this result does not affect their result for their Bachelor of Science ‘pass degree’.)