Lecturer: Nigel Barker
Location: 10 Pulteney Street, Nexus Building (Rm 13.30)
Telephone: +61 404890174
Email: nigel.barker@adelaide.edu.au
Course Website:
www.myuni.adelaide.edu.au

1.3 COURSE TIMETABLE

This course is being presented in intensive mode with seminars, group discussions and lecturer/student consultations based on teh stage of the major group assignment. All activities will be recorded for the benefit of students that are studying remotely.

Day 1. Monday Week 1
    
Course overview and assessments.
·     
Background introduction to mentor and issue.
·     
Working effectively in groups / Surviving groups.
·     
Knowing your own strengths and weaknesses (do a self
SWOT).
·     
Gathering background info on mentors and preparation of interview questions.


Day 2. Tuesday Week 1
·     
AM.  INTERVIEW WITH MENTOR

Process plan creation

PM. Group meeting with lecturer


Day 3. Monday Week 2
·     
Industry specific class session.  

Group work and research.

Group meetings with lecturer  

    
Day 4. Tuesday Week 2

Research + Group meetings with lecturer


Day 5. Monday Week 3

Presentation skills workshop

Group meetings with lecturer


Day 6. Tuesday Week 3
·     
FINAL PRESENTATIONS TO MENTORS  ·     

Presentation of findings and final report to lecturer and mentors. Time to be confirmed. 

The full timetable of all activities for this course can be accessed from the Course Planner at https://access.adelaide.edu.au/courses/search.asp

On successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

1. Work effectively as a team member, showing leadership and cooperation as required to enhance group outcomes;
2. Develop an interview plan and use it to effectively interview individuals and collect relevant primary information;
3. Apply basic secondary data collection and evaluation;
4. Undertake strategic business analysis in order to develop appropriate problem solving strategies;
5. Communicate, clarify, and present to peer audiences in a professional setting; and
6. Produce a logical and coherent group Research Report that provides value to stakeholders.

Suggested reading:

Osterwalder, Alexander & Pigneur, Yves (2010) Business Model Generation, First Edition, Wiley, 

Wickham, L., Wilcock, J (2016), Management Consulting: Delivering an Effective Project, 5th Edition,
Harlow, UK: Pearson.

Earlier versions are not a problem.

Students have access to library and electronic databases and use of these and other sources of legitimate information, such as industry journals and other publications are recommended when appropriate.

All topic lectures and most discussions will be recorded for the benefit of those that can’t attend the sessions. A comprehensive reading list will also be available in addition to lecture slides (although this is not a ‘slide intensive’ course) etc. All resources will be available via the course MyUni site. All assessments are to be provided electronically and will be marked and returned electronically via the Turnitin portal on the MyUni site.

This course is delivered during 7 intensive days of teaching over the trimester period. During these 6-hour sessions (which of course will include lunch and short breaks) students will engage in lectures, tutorial discussions and applied problem solving via case studies. The focus of the course will be an interactive research project with one of our industry mentors and fellow group members. For students studying remotely, all lecture and tutorial sessions will be recorded as with interviews and debriefs with our industry mentors. However, it is expected that group members will maintain close contact between intensive sessions in order to complete the required tasks and maximise learning outcomes.

This information is provided as a guide to assist students in engaging appropriately with the course requirements. The University expects full-time students to commit approximately 9 hours for a threeunit course of private study outside of your regular classes. Students in this course are expected to attend sessions in this intensive delivery mode course if at all possible. Students studying remotely must review session recordings and stay in touch with the lecturer and their group members as required to maintain contact and group cohesion.

See Course Timetable

A description and explanation of each assessment is provided below. Please note, this course is not exempt from Assessment for Coursework Programs policy.

Assessment Task	Weighting	Due Date	Learning Outcome
Peer Assessment	10%	With final report
Meeting Minutes.	10%	2x Week 2, 3x Week 3
Mentor Interview Report	20%	Week 2
Reflective Journal	30%	Week 4
Research Report	30%	Week 3
Total	100%

NOTE: Specific dates and times will be specified on MyUni.

Each assessment must be attempted, and an overall grade of at least 50% must be achieved to pass the course overall. Additionally, a poor peer review rating by fellow team members (lower than 5 out of 10 for all team related performance elements assessed) will result in a 5% reduction in a student’s overall grade.

1.   Peer assessment (Individual Assessment) 10%

Working in a group setting can, and usually is, challenging. This is true whether it is in a study or work context. However, the reality of life (especially our working life) is that we must just ‘get on with it’ and work productively with others to achieve common goals. Something that makes this easier is each person making a commitment to sharing work appropriately, allocate tasks according to strengths within the team and to making a strong effort to achieve success.

There are 5 criteria that each of your team members will assess each other group in their team against on a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is poor performance and 10 is virtually ‘perfect’ performance, the criteria are explained below:

1. Openness and flexibility
2. Trust and cooperation
3. Dutifulness
4. Dependability
5. Achievement of goals and tasks

These elements will be explained in more detail in lectures and through provided readings, although students are encouraged to seek additional insights via personal investigations and discussions.


2.   Minutes of team meetings (Group assessment) 10%

Students must supply the minutes of at least 5 team meetings; these will be included in with the final report. These must be more that an account of who attended and how long the meeting lasted. It is expected that from the first meeting decisions regarding what needs to be done, who will do it and when it will be completed for group review will be recorded. Then in subsequent meetings, progress against action items and deadlines will be reported and subsequent actions decided. There will also be information sharing discussions and teamwork towards overcoming obstacles and problems. Remember also that your lecturer (another mentor in the course) is always available to help and can be invited to meetings, or to provide advice/feedback prior or post a meeting. It is not expected that minutes will be pages long – bullet points and summaries of discussions are fine – just so long as it is clear what took place, was achieved and decided. You may minute more meetings but 5 will be assessed. Students that are studying remotely can take part via Skype or telephone or other forms of ‘online chat’ that are available.
 

3.   Mentor interview report (Individual Assessment) 20%

This is a report respective to the successful interview of mentors. It will be approximately 2000 words in length and will provide an overview of your findings from the interview and will include a list of interview questions that were asked by your team and your personal assessment (with examples) of the quality and quantity of the information that was received. It will also include a summary of what was learned from answers to questions posed by other groups and your views of the success of the interview overall. You should also include identification of information that you still need to acquire and where you may source this. It is expected that all groups will record the interviews and share this audio file for your reference. Of course the lecture will be recorded and provided on MyUni for the benefit of students studying remotely.


4. Reflective journal (Individual Assessment) 30%

This aspect of the overall assessment carries as much weight as the investigative report that you are also required to complete. A major focus of this course is to encourage individuals to reflect on the process of learning about a specific topic (and the reporting on that topic) and also to apply critical thinking to this process as well as their individual team experiences. This journal is more than a diary, and mere ‘descriptions’ of events or topics will not justify strong assessment marks. There are a number of readings that will be provided in addition to discussion and explanation in lectures.



5. Research report (Group Assessment) 30%

Each of the mentors will be presenting the class with a ‘problem’ specific to their area of interest. Each group will be assigned to either Ms Harvey’s task or Mr Croser’s and will be required to interview them and to use their information, plus a wide range of information sourced by the team to address the question and complete a report of not less than 7000 words (not including any appendices) that investigates the context of the question and provides some clear strategies and recommendations respective to it.

At our first meeting all students will be allocated to groups (including remote students) and will be assigned to a mentor. 

All assignments are to be submitted by the due date using the Turnitin facility on the course MyUni website. Assignments will be marked electronically and returned that way too. Please remember to keep a copy of all your work. Each assignment must also have an assignment cover sheet as its first page and title page after that.

Late Assignment Submission
Students are expected to submit their work by the due date to maintain a fair and equitable system. Extensions will generally only be given for medical or other serious reasons. All requests for extensions must be emailed to the lecturer in charge of the course before the due date. Each request will be assessed on its merits. A late assignment (without prior arrangement) will be penalised by a 5% mark reduction for each day that it is late.

Return of Assignments
Lecturers aim to marked and return assignments to student within two (2) weeks of the due date with written feedback.