Assessment: Unit information handout

Policy

For each unit, a printed handout with essential unit academic and administrative information should be distributed to students by the end of the first week of the semester. The handout should include the following information:

Unit name and title
Year and semester of offering
Unit coordinator and his/her contact details
School information: Name, Office location and opening hours, phone number and/or enquiries email address (or url)
Teaching staff
Unit objectives
Attendance requirements
Assessment requirements, including:

list of items and their percentage weightings
submission dates or weeks
topics
word limits (where applicable)
examination(s) and tests: dates, duration and permitted items

Lecture schedule (outline or url)
Practical/tutorials schedule (outline or url)
Textbooks and other resources, including unit website
The following two statements (url needs to be updated every year):

Academic policies
Students should be aware of academic policies, in particular the policies on plagiarism, special consideration and deferred examinations, and special examination conditions for students of non-English speaking background. These policies are included in the Student Resource Guide available in print through the Student Services Office, or online at
http://www.monash.edu.au/pubs/handbooks/srg/.

Unit evaluation
Towards the end of the semester, students will be required to evaluate this unit. Unit evaluations are an integral part of Monash’s commitment to monitor the quality of the programs it offers.

SUPPORTING INFORMATION

Purpose and rationale

It is normal practice within schools to provide students with unit information handouts at the commencement of each semester. However, the kind of information provided varies across science units. This policy intends to define the minimum level of detail science students can expect to find in such guidelines.

Scope

This policy applies to all science units.

Governing documents

Although university academic policies and procedures assume that unit handouts are distributed to students, they do not prescribe directly what should be included in these and when should they be distributed. References to unit information handouts are made indirectly in:

Education and Research Policy, 2.3.7: ‘Subject coordinators shall provide students with copies of the objectives for the subject no later than the commencement of teaching in that subject. … Departmental statements of educational objectives for students taking a major in the discipline or field and faculty statements of objectives for courses shall be printed in the faculty handbook.’

University Procedures related to assessment: ‘All descriptions of units in the faculty handbooks shall contain a statement of assessment requirements, in the form of a list of items and their percentage weightings. In unit booklets and/or handouts, students shall be informed in writing of other details including topics, submission dates, word limits where applicable and duration of examinations and requirement for presentation. If there is provision for some negotiation of assessment tasks (for example, allowing students to nominate topics), the procedures for this negotiation must be clearly stated.’

Responsibilities for implementation

Unit Coordinators, Heads of Schools

Date Effective

Semester 1 2006

Approval

Faculty Education Committee 06/05, Faculty Board 05/05