BB843: Research Project V (2.5 ECTS)

STADS: 04015301

A supervisor contract and project statement must be handed in.

Submission is conducted electronically via https://blanket.sam.sdu.dk/form/103/submit. Submission must take place no later than 1 week after the semester has started, but it is recommended, that it is handed in as soon as possible. The contract must be approved by supervisor, teaching committee and the head of studies, before the project is started.

Level
Master's level course

Teaching period
The course is held twice a year, once in the autumn semester and once in the spring semester.

Teacher responsible
No responsible teachers found, contact the department if necessary

Timetable

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Prerequisites:
None

Academic preconditions:
Must be familiar with bachelors curriculum in biology or equivalent.

Course introduction
This course is designed to introduce the student to the basics of conducting a research project. The student should learn how to identify and formulate a research problem (along with the help of a supervisor), and once formulated, how to solve it. The student will evaluate the significance of his/her work in light of previous research as found within the scientific literature. The specific research problem may fall within any area of biology, and the research required to solve it can be based on laboratory experiments, field observations, theoretical mathematical modelling, or literature review. Under all circumstances, even when the research is based on experimentation or observation, it will be important for the student to become comfortable with searching and using the scientific literature in support of the research.

Expected learning outcome
The course will give the students a basic understanding of how to formulate and conduct a research problem. The student should be able to:

• With the help of a supervisor, define a research problem.
• Search, with keywords, scientific literature databases for other work whose results support the student’s research project.
• Evaluate the pertinent scientific literature.
• Conduct laboratory experiments, field observations, theoretical modeling, or literature review, as necessary to solve the research problem.
• Analyze data as relevant for addressing the research problem.
• Evaluate the results relative to previous work as found within the scientific literature. 
• Write a report in the structure of a scientific paper.
• The report should contain:
• An introduction which:
  1) provides background and rationale for the chosen research problem,
  2) includes a summary of previous work in the area of the research and
  3) provides a clear statement of the specific problem to be researched.
• A method section describing the methods to be used.
• A results section presenting the results of the research.
• A discussion section where the results are discussed and evaluated with special reference to previous work as found in the scientific literature.
• For a literature review methods and results sections are only included if necessary.

Subject overview
Research projects may be conducted in any area within the field of biology, as coordinated with a faculty member within the Institute of Biology.

Literature
There isn't any litterature for the course at the moment.

Website
This course uses e-learn (blackboard).

Prerequisites for participating in the exam
None

Assessment and marking:
The course is evaluated with a project assignment, graded by Danish 7-mark scale, internal evaluation. The student will be evaluated by the project supervisor on a written report describing the results of the research project.

Deadline: Projects in fall-semester must be handed in 31 January. Projects in spring-semester must be handed in 31 July.

Expected working hours
The teaching method is based on three phase model.

Projektarbejde.

2,5 ECTS svarer til en arbejdsbelastning på cirka 65 timer.
Educational activities

Language
This course is taught in English, if international students participate. Otherwise the course is taught in Danish.

Course enrollment
See deadline of enrolment.

Tuition fees for single courses
See fees for single courses.