Duration
6h Th, 6h Pr, 60h AUTR
Number of credits
Lecturer
Yves Brostaux, Pierre Delaplace, Sébastien Massart, Benoît Mercatoris, Arnaud Monty, Bernard Pochet
Coordinator
Language(s) of instruction
French language
Organisation and examination
All year long, with partial in January
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. Each group is supervised by a master student which is considered as the tutor and by the teacher team as well.
The objective 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.
CERTIFICATIVE LEVEL OF SKILLS:
- Design original scientific and technical solutions.
- Analyse and summarise in a criticial way a preselected bibliography.
AT THE END OF THE COURSE, THE STUDENT HAS TO BE ABLE TO:
- 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.
Mode of delivery (face-to-face ; distance-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).
Recommended or required readings
http://infolit.be/supports/index.php/Main/Livres
All the material is available via eCampus.
Assessment methods and criteria
An assessment is organised at mid-term with a feedback on the bibliographic research, the protocol and the quality analysis.
The practical sessions related to the documentary research and the scientific written are assessed individually.
At the end of the project, a report is written in French with the format of a scientific publication. The experimental notebook is also assessed.
The assessment criteria are based on the scientific and soft skills developed during the project.
Work placement(s)
Organizational remarks
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@ulg.ac.be)
Scientific literature: B. POCHET (bernard.pochet@ulg.ac.be)
Statistics: Y. BROSTAUX (y.brostaux@ulg.ac.be)
Plant physiology: P. DELAPLACE (pierre.delaplace@ulg.ac.be)
General ecology: A. MONTY (arnaud.monty@ulg.ac.be)
Quality management : S. MASSART (sebastien.massart@ulg.ac.be)
Organisation : B. MERCATORIS (benoit.mercatoris@ulg.ac.be)