ENCN301-17W (C) Whole Year 2017

Communication Skills Portfolio 2


Details:
Start Date: Monday, 20 February 2017
End Date: Sunday, 19 November 2017
Withdrawal Dates
Last Day to withdraw from this course:
  • Without financial penalty (full fee refund): Friday, 3 March 2017
  • Without academic penalty (including no fee refund): Friday, 8 September 2017

Description

Development of communication skills required by practicing professional engineers. Sketches, oral presentation, and various types of written reports.

This course was developed to aid engineering students develop and improve their overall communication ability. The ability to write and speak clearly and concisely is an important factor in the effective communication of ideas. Professional engineers need to be able to communicate their concepts and research to a wide audience. Professional engineers might need to express their technical knowledge to conference audiences, co-workers, supervisors, clients, architects, designers, lawyers, councils, public forums, and lay persons. Having a high level of technical and mechanical skill is not enough to achieve success in the modern engineering environment. It is essential that ideas can be conveyed within and between industries and disciplines. Each error you leave in a draft report means extra time and money for your employer, and so attention to detail and proofreading are key skills you will need to develop now to be a valuable employee later. Effective communication can save time, money and even lives. It is with these aims in mind that students taking this course are asked to follow precise guidelines in preparing material for submission and to pay particular attention to fine details.

Learning Outcomes

At the conclusion of this course you should be able to:

- Apply the skills learnt from reading the CPG and attending tutorials to course work.
- Apply skills learnt in ENCN301 to ENCN470, ENCN493 and beyond.
- Improve on communication skills, with an emphasis on clear and concise writing.
- Deliver effective written communication.
- Develop an awareness of professional communication standards in the engineering profession.
- Give effective oral presentations.

Prerequisites

Course Coordinator

Tonny de Vries

Tutor

Kim Parrent

Assessment

For 2nd Pro there are seven assignments, three of which are submitted in 2017 (all due 5 pm on the given dates unless otherwise stated). The other four were part of the assessment for 1st Pro. Even if you passed ENCN201, if you did not meet portfolio standard in any of those assessment items in 2016, you must resubmit them this year. The only exception is made for students who successfully complete the ENCN201 extra-support programme.

1.  There are only two chances to submit reports for 301. If a report fails in the first submission students may resubmit in September. The September resubmission is the last for 2nd Pro, 2017. If a student fails this resubmission then the student will fail 301 in 2017. The September submissions are for resubmissions only, and if a student does not make a first submission then they fail the course.

2.  All assignments must be submitted by the due date. Late submissions will not be accepted. If a student is unable to complete and submit an assignment by the deadline due to personal circumstances beyond their control they should discuss this with the lecturer involved as soon as possible. Note: An extension given for Portfolio submissions does not carry over into the supporting course for that report. Requests for extensions for reports in supporting courses must be addressed to the lecturer for the core course.

3. All reports must have a signed coversheet. Reports without a signed coversheet will not be marked.

4. All students are required to use the Portfolio template for their reports. This template is provided on learn. The template has been created in an attempt to minimise presentation errors and allow students to focus on their writing skills. Student will be asked to sign a declaration on the coversheet to state that they have used the template. Failure to do so could result in failure due to presentation issues, and incur a resubmission charge.

5. All reports must be submitted via Learn, with a signed coversheet, into the appropriate drop boxes. To help in assessment, name the file: SubmissionType-Userid-FamilyName (e.g., Lab-mvm24-Milke). No submissions will be accepted via email or in paper. Reports not submitted correctly will not be marked.

6. Students must meet Portfolio standard on all seven items (including the oral presentation) and attain an overall communication assessment of at least 5.5 out of 10 in order to pass ENCN301. For each required tutorial that a student misses, one point out of ten will be deducted from their overall communication score. A student who otherwise might pass ENCN301 could fail because of missing the required tutorials. If in doubt whether a tutorial is required for all students (see Section 16), contact the senior tutor before the tutorials commence. If the tutorial session you have been assigned to conflicts with another compulsory course activity (labs, set tutorial, or lecture) contact the course coordinator or senior tutor prior to the start date of the tutorial. If you fail to alert us to any issues regarding tutorial attendance prior to the tutorial, you will be recorded as absent. Failure to pass 301 in 2017 will result in students being ineligible to go on Exchange in 2017.

7. Changes to due dates: Students will be notified prior to the submission date if due dates are changed. It is at times unavoidable that dates need to be changed due to conflicts with other courses, or the submission date is changed in one of the supporting courses. Changes will be posted on Learn in the Forums section and students notified via email. It is the student’s responsibility to check and read all course emails.

Textbooks / Resources

Required Texts

Upton, Creon; Communications Portfolio Guide ; Department of Civil and Natural Resources Engineering, University of Canterbury, 2013 (Can be purchased from University bookshop).

Required Text: The core text for ENCN 301 is the Communications Portfolio Guide (CPG) (2nd edition can be purchased from the University Bookshop for approx. $30). Students are expected to read this text and adhere to its guidelines for all submissions.

Other supplementary material can be found on Learn. It is the student’s responsibility to check Learn regularly for up-dated course material.

Additional Course Outline Information

Late submission of work

Resubmission details

Students in ENCN301 have seven compulsory reports (this includes the oral presentation). Students must submit and pass all of these reports in order to have a chance at passing 301 in 2017. There are only two chances to submit a report for 2nd Pro. If a student fails a report in the first submission they are able to resubmit the report in September. Failure to submit (or resubmit) any of the required items will result in a Fail for ENCN301. Students who fail to submit one or more items will not be eligible for the catch-up programme February, 2018.

There is a fee of $50 for each all resubmissions. This fee is to cover the additional cost of remarking reports (remember this course is a zero fees course). The procedure for payment is set out below.

All payments must be made in-person to student services on or before Friday16 September, 5 pm. Students must then show their receipt of payment to Catherine O’Shaughnessy (Civil-Mechanical Eng. Level 4). Payment will be recorded. Failure to pay the resubmission fee will result in the final grade not being released for that report. Therefore, the report will remain as a ‘fail’.

For further information see Civil and Natural Resources Engineering .

All ENCN301 Occurrences