Duration
6h Th, 6h Pr, 60h AUTR
Number of credits
| Bachelor in bioengineering | 6 crédits |
Lecturer
Yves Brostaux, Pierre Delaplace, Sébastien Massart, Benoît Mercatoris, Jacques Mignon, Arnaud Monty
Coordinator
Language(s) of instruction
French language
Organisation and examination
All year long, with partial in January
Schedule
Units courses prerequisite and corequisite
Prerequisite or corequisite units are presented within each program
Learning unit contents
This course highlights the project-based learning and leads the students to work in group in a non familiar scientific context. The groups are supervised by tutors and by the teacher team as well. The tutors are master students who follow learning of the conduct of group work.
The objective of this course is to discover the job of a researcher by conducting a scientific research project in order to respond to a real and current problematic in the field of the plant physiology or of the ecology. The project is divided in different steps:
1) Be informed on the state of the art by mean of an extensive documentary research.
2) Understand the problematic.
3) Design and write an experimental protocol.
4) Analyse a priori the experiment from a point of view of quality.
5) Manage an experiment on plants.
6) Hold an experimental notebook.
7) Analyse the experimental results by means of appropriate statistical tools.
8) Write a report in the format of a scientific paper.
Learning outcomes of the learning unit
INTERMEDIATE LEVEL OF SKILLS:
- Design and model scientific and technical solutions, support decision.
- Research, summarise and analyse in a critical way the sources of information and the scientific and technical literature.
- Collect data, manage experiments and interpret results.
- Assume responsabilities within a community.
- Design original scientific and technical solutions.
- Analyse and summarise in a criticial way a preselected bibliography.
- Put into practice theoretical notions studied in other courses and acquire new knowledge by oneself.
- Collect and interpret scientific and technical information in a non familiar context.
- Access information in an autonomous way.
- Adopt an ethical and critical attitude to deal with different sources of information.
- Summarise the obtained information by respecting the basic rules of bibliographic citation.
- Design and write an experimental protocol.
- Criticise the obtained results by means of statistical tools and conclude on the research.
- Summarise the work in a scientific-quality report consistent with the standards of the academic scientific literature.
- Assume responsabilities within a team.
- Develop skills in team and project management.
- Communicate in an efficient way with colleagues and in a formal way in a scientific context.
- Read English articles of international scientific journals.
- Learn to solve a complex problem.
Prerequisite knowledge and skills
The course of Fundamental statistics is a pre-requisite.
The courses of Applied statistics, Plant physiology, General ecology and Quality management are co-requisites.
Planned learning activities and teaching methods
Project-based learning.
The concepts related to the scientific literature are firstly introduced by blended learning, i.e. a combination of individual learning and practical sessions.
Group activities are organised in order to report to tutors on project achievements and group evolution.
Mode of delivery (face to face, distance learning, hybrid learning)
Face-to-face learning regarding the introduction of each step of the project.
The groups are working autonomously and coached by a team of student tutors coming from Master (Portfolio Guidance).
Compulsory face-to-face group activities are planned at key stages of the project.
Course materials and recommended or required readings
http://infolit.be/supports/index.php/Main/Livres
All the material is available via eCampus.
Written work / report
Out-of-session test(s)
Additional information:
The evaluation of the project consists of 3 parts:
- The deliverables of the first semester relating to the bibliographic research, the experimental protocol and the quality analysis are evaluated mid-way with a feedback at the beginning of the second period.
- The deliverables of the second semester, namely a report in the scientific article format, an experimental notebook and a notebook describing the group evolution including a reflective report, are evaluated at the end of the project.
- The content associated with scientific information literacy is assessed individually during a session in auditorium via eCampus in the second semester. This evaluation is motivated by the fact that, unlike the other subjects of the project (applied statistics, quality management, general ecology and plant physiology), the learning of scientific information is not validated in other courses.
Since the project is a group work, students will be asked to co-sign the submission of each report by approving that each member of the group has contributed in a meaningful and balanced way to any part of the work. Signatures will be sent to the teachers anonymously.
- In the event of one or more missing signatures at the end of the first semester, the group is called to identify problems and find ways to improve. Sanctions may be taken for extreme cases.
- In the event of one or more missing signatures at the end of the second semester, the group is convened by the teaching team to identify the imbalances. A 50% decrease in the final score will be applied individually depending on the identified shortcomings. In extreme cases, an exclusion note may be applied.
Work placement(s)
Organisational remarks and main changes to the course
In order to respect the project philosophy, the groups will be formed randomly.
Contacts
Please contact the teachers according to their expertise.
Teaching method: C. COLAUX (catherine.colaux@uliege.be)
Scientific literature: B. POCHET (bernard.pochet@uliege.be)
Statistics: Y. BROSTAUX (y.brostaux@uliege.be)
Plant physiology: P. DELAPLACE (pierre.delaplace@uliege.be)
General ecology: A. MONTY (arnaud.monty@uliege.be)
Quality management : S. MASSART (sebastien.massart@uliege.be)
Organisation : B. MERCATORIS (benoit.mercatoris@uliege.be)