Unit information: Industrial Experience and Advanced Distance Learning in 2021/22

Unit name	Industrial Experience and Advanced Distance Learning
Unit code	CHEM30003
Credit points	120
Level of study	H/6
Teaching block(s)	Teaching Block 4 (weeks 1-24)
Unit director	Professor. Bedford
Open unit status	Not open
Pre-requisites	CHEM20170, CHEM20180, CHEM20190, CHEM20480
Co-requisites	None
School/department	School of Chemistry
Faculty	Faculty of Science

Description including Unit Aims

The unit comprises a year spent on an industrial placement with a chemical company. The major part of the year is spent carrying out a research project under the supervision of a member of staff of the Company and a member of staff of the School of Chemistry. Students also undertake coursework consisting of distance learning of key third-year lecture courses.

This unit provides the experience of working in an industrial environment to provide students with skills they will use in a career as a professional chemist, or in an area of employment requiring the skills of scientific reasoning, critical evaluation and numeracy. Students will use laboratory techniques they have learned in their previous two years of study which can be employed to face new challenging experiments where they can learn to research and choose appropriate techniques for a given problem and work independently, managing their own time. This placement aims to provide an advanced understanding and knowledge of the an area of practical chemistry, reinforcing and building on year 2 material and laying the basis to enable progress to independent laboratory work in later years and academic study in the final year.

Intended Learning Outcomes

• Practical training in research methods through supervised work
• The ability to manage their own learning
• Independent learning through the use of scholarly reviews and primary sources (for example, refereed research articles and/or original materials appropriate to the discipline).
• Present complex issues to others through written reports
• Develop communication skills through written reports and oral presentation
• Employ and carry out complex practical operations and techniques
• An appreciation of conformation in both saccharides and protein structure
• An ability to predict selectivity in organic reactions and suggest how it may be controlled
• Understanding the link between potential energy surfaces, reaction dynamics and kinetics
• Appreciation of the role of molecular structure and interactions in defining phase behaviour
• Ability to draw flow diagrams of industrial chemical processes
• Critically evaluate arguments, assumptions, abstract concepts and data (that may be incomplete), to make judgements, and to frame appropriate questions to achieve a solution - or identify a range of solutions - to a problem
• Able to take decisions in a responsible and professional manner
• Develop time management and efficiency skills
• Report writing skills
• Make appropriate use of information and communication technology resources
• The qualities and transferable skills necessary for employment requiring:
  • the exercise of initiative and personal responsibility
  • decision-making in complex and unpredictable contexts
• Analyse and explain electronic Spectra for some simple octahedral transition metal systems
• Explain how diffraction experiments are carried out for crystalline solids and how the results of these experiments are interpreted
• Analyse and interpret multi-nuclear NMR spectra for transition metal compounds

Teaching Information

Much teaching will be provided ‘on the job’ by members of staff at the company. Formal academic teaching will be entirely by distance learning using e-learning methods.

Assessment Information

Students will be assessed on their industrial placement through a final written report and oral presentation. This component will contribute 75% of the unit mark.

Students will also be assessed for the remote learning component by online assessment. This distance-learning component will account for 25% of the unit mark. Students must pass this distance learning component to receive credit for the unit.

Resources

If this unit has a Resource List, you will normally find a link to it in the Blackboard area for the unit. Sometimes there will be a separate link for each weekly topic.

If you are unable to access a list through Blackboard, you can also find it via the Resource Lists homepage. Search for the list by the unit name or code (e.g. CHEM30003).

How much time the unit requires
Each credit equates to 10 hours of total student input. For example a 20 credit unit will take you 200 hours of study to complete. Your total learning time is made up of contact time, directed learning tasks, independent learning and assessment activity.

See the Faculty workload statement relating to this unit for more information.

Assessment
The Board of Examiners will consider all cases where students have failed or not completed the assessments required for credit. The Board considers each student's outcomes across all the units which contribute to each year's programme of study. If you have self-certificated your absence from an assessment, you will normally be required to complete it the next time it runs (this is usually in the next assessment period).
The Board of Examiners will take into account any extenuating circumstances and operates within the Regulations and Code of Practice for Taught Programmes.