Duration
6h Th, 6h Pr, 60h AUTR
Number of credits
| Bachelor in bioengineering | 6 crédits |
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
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. 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.
- 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.
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
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 the report in the scientific article format and the experimental notebook, are evaluated at the end of the project.
- Unlike other courses (Applied Statistics, Quality Management, General Ecology and Plant Physiology), the content associated with the mastery of scientific information is not evaluated outside the project. As a consequence, in order to ensure that the resources taught during the course are acquired, an individual evaluation is organised via eCampus, in auditorium, during the second semester. If successful, the score of this assessment will be included in the calculation of the weighted average. In the event of failure, the score of the entire project will be limited to this individual assessment plus 2 out of 20 points (unless the project is in overall failure).
- 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)
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)