What stakeholders want from ‘Rethinking Final Year Projects and Dissertations: Creative Honours and Capstone Projects’
This document was produced in answer to the question 'How do we know that this is what these stakeholders want?'. Consequently, following wide consultation, the following viewpoints were expressed.
Students want:
- Confidence that Creative-Honours projects represent a worthwhile challenge appropriate to their discipline and development
- A Creative-Honours output that is useful in job hunting
- An opportunity to understand and integrate theory and practice, to secure academic study and practical benefits
- A wide range of possibilities for final year projects
- An opportunity to develop skills that go beyond narrow disciplinary research and writing that is of clear use in life and career
- An opportunity to pursue activities which are meaningful or life enhancing (such as volunteering) and have them count towards their degree
- Creative-Honours projects that allow students a chance to reflect on their values and motivations behind their activities
- An opportunity to challenge conventional wisdom and be creative
- Assurance that they will be well supervised and supported by the university and any partner organisation
- Clear assessment procedures including entitlement to formative feedback and assessment criteria that are unambiguous
- To gain from a process that enables them to synthesise knowledge and information
- Projects that represent good value for money
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Projects that can be shared, published or recognised as good practice
Staff and academic institutions want:
- Confidence in Creative-Honours projects that represent a challenge appropriate to the undergraduate level and discipline
- A Creative-Honours output that is useful to students/graduates in gaining employment
- Projects that provide an opportunity to integrate theory and practice, to inform and secure academic study and practical benefits
- Creative honours projects that provide an opportunity to explore new approaches relevant to their discipline, and which constitute a manageable work load.
- An opportunity to integrate or synthesise knowledge and experience within and beyond the classroom
- A clearly designed assessment process
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Projects that foster collaboration with students to produce academic reports, published research or new products/initiatives
Employers want:
- Confidence that Creative-Honours projects represent a challenging and practical application of relevance to the discipline and their business
- A Creative-Honours output that demonstrates to potential employers the skills and capability of students and graduates
- A Creative-Honours output which expands and consolidates the skills and knowledge of students
- Outputs which engage with sustainability and ethical concerns
- Students equipped with the knowledge and experience to succeed in the work place, create materials of value to businesses, and undertake work-based research
- A Creative-Honours output that offers solutions to problems, is evidence-based, realistic, timely and pragmatic
- Clarity and structure to the project, i.e. on how it may affect the individual’s work capacity and any further requirements on business resources
Society wants:
- Students to gain skills that help them link and act on economic, cultural, social and environmental aspects of problems
- Reflective practitioners, creative thinkers, and researchers
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Projects that engage with real issues and that make a difference
Community groups want:
- An output that makes a practical difference that directly benefits the community
- A project that community groups can contribute to as partners, gain insights from, and apply to improve their circumstances
- Confidence that Creative-Honours projects undertaken by students are properly supervised, providing community groups with clear links to university staff whilst encouraging students and community groups to jointly explore ideas, share skills, knowledge and experience that are situated in the community