BIOM5712 Postgraduate Research Project Module Handbook 2024-25

BIOM5712 Assessment Details:

Postgraduate Research Project

This handbook is correct at the time of writing and may be subject to change. Throughout your studies, to ensure you have the most up to date information, you should always consult the online version of this handbook held on Learning Zone.

Module Overview

Welcome to the Research Project module. The aim of this module is for you to complete and submit an independent Master’s research dissertation. Undertaking a project of substantial length is a vital part of your academic training since specific and transferable skills are gained and nurtured which are deemed essential for post-degree endeavours.

Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of the module, students should be able to:

1. Demonstrate critical awareness of current problems and/or new insights, much of which are at, or informed by, the forefront of biomedical science to present a research topic through the production of a research proposal which, where necessary, involves gaining ethical approval.
2. Critically appraise the methods of collection and analysis of data, demonstrating a comprehensive understanding of applicable techniques.
3. Demonstrate self-direction, independence and originality in tackling and solving problems in the chosen research area, together with a practical understanding of how established techniques of research and enquiry are used to create and interpret knowledge in biomedical science.
4. Synthesise sustainable conclusions from the research in the chosen area of biomedical science and make recommendations for future research or practice innovations, developing new hypotheses or formulate solutions where appropriate.
5. Present the above by means of an oral presentation and a dissertation using correct scientific writing style and citation methods to a specialist audience.

Project Advertisement & Allocation

Projects will be advertised as a PDF document through the module Learning Zone shell. The projects will be described briefly as a short abstract and supervisors may offer more than one project depending on their capacity to host project students.

A project choice form will be made available on the module Learning Zone shell and you will be asked to select TEN choices in descending order of preference (i.e. first item = first choice).

You are asked not to discuss projects with potential supervisors until you have been formally allocated a project. Failure to adhere to this request may result in nullification of your project choices.

Whilst every effort will be made to match you with a project of your choice you are asked to be flexible with regards to your ultimate project allocation and there is no ‘first come first served’ allocation system in operation. The allocation process is designed to satisfy student interests as best as possible within the available project choice.

Where projects are chosen by more than one student in equivalent selection position, allocation will be based on overall course performance at that point in the course, with preference given to students with the highest marks.

Once you have been assigned a project supervisor, you may begin discussions of the work with your supervisor to assist preparation of the first assignment.

Multiple project types are endorsed by the IBMS:

• ‘Traditional’ laboratory-based’ projects.
• Big Data & Bioinformatics.
• Computer modelling or simulations.
• Systematic Review with quantitative data-analysis.
• Qualitative Research.
• Educational Development.

IMPORTANT

YOU MUST ENSURE YOUR WORK IS HYPOTHESIS TESTING INVOLVING BOTH THE GENERATION AND ANALYSIS OF DATA AND NOT A LITERATURE SURVEY. PLEASE DISCUSS THIS WITH YOUR SUPERVISOR AND ENSURE YOUR PROJECT MEETS THIS REQUIREMENT.

RESEARCH ETHICS

Your project may need approval from the faculty ethics committee. Your supervisor can advise whether this is necessary and if so, ethical approval must be gained before commencement of any work. Irrespective of any final need for ethical approval, a preliminary ethics assessment MUST be submitted by every project student without exception. 
Research Ethics Screening

You are strongly advised to work with your supervisor to complete an ethics submission if this is required for your research project.

Relevant forms can be found at: 

De Montfort University/research/ethics-and-governance/faculty-specific-procedures/health-and-life-sciences-ethics-procedures.aspx.

Teaching Activities

The majority of your time on the module will be spent doing project work in a laboratory or elsewhere. Besides a module introduction seminar, additional resources related to research ethics are provided in the module shell on Learning Zone.

Exact dates for starting and ending your data collection should be discussed with your supervisor, starting no earlier than 9th June 2025 and finishing no later than 15th August 2025.

BIOM5712 ASSESSMENT DETAILS

COURSEWORK 1: RESEARCH PLAN/PROPOSAL (summative)

This document, to be completed early in the project, is a short piece of writing (800 words ± 10%) that will give your outline of the research plan for your project as you understand it.  When producing the research plan/proposal, you are asked to think critically about the project area, supporting literature, hypothesis, experimental approach/methodology and context in the subject/future potential. Any ethical issues must be discussed and even if there are no ethical issues, you should explain why. The project abstract provided by the supervisor would normally form the basis of this item of work as project supervisors are offering projects in a research area(s) they feel competent to offer support and that fits in with their overall research interests, thus the scope of the project could necessarily be constrained by this.
The research plan/proposal is summative and accounts for 10% of your overall module mark.

Submission is via Turnitin by midday (12pm, noon, middle of the day) on Monday 23/06/25.

This assessment will be marked exclusively by your supervisor, internally moderated and we will endeavour to return your grades and feedback by 15 working days at the latest after the submission date.

COURSEWORK 2: DISSERTATION (summative)

You are strongly advised to start preparing your dissertation and editing it from the start of the project.

The dissertation is a 10,000 ± 10%-word document detailing the background to the project, materials and methods used, presentation and analysis of laboratory data and a discussion explaining the results and placing them in the context of the existing scientific literature in the project area. This is a must pass assessment with a minimum pass mark of 50%.

Additionally, this element of the module marks contains the supervisor’s assessment of your Record Keeping (Laboratory Notebook) and Laboratory Performance (comprised of an assessment of the following: practical competence; initiative, independence and originality; commitment; organisation and planning).

This dissertation is summative and accounts for 70% of your overall module mark.

Submission is via Turnitin by midday (12pm, noon, middle of the day) on Monday 03/09/25.

A complete version of the Dissertation, as a Microsoft Word document only (accounting for any limitation on file size) should be submitted. This is an independent piece of work that should be written in your own words. Submission via Turnitin will allow you to check for plagiarism and correct this prior to marking. You should allow up to 24 hours for Turnitin to check the document and generate an originality report before final submission.

Your supervisor will act as first marker and a second marker from the module teaching team will be nominated. This means that the second marker will have sight of the first marker’s marks when making their evaluation. An agreed mark will be decided by discussion between the two markers, which will usually be the average of the two marks if the marks differ by 5% or less. If marks differ by 5% or more a discussion between the two markers will arrive at an agreed mark and failure to agree will involve marking by a third marker. The agreed mark as a result of this third marking will be the average between the third mark and the closest first or second mark. With second marking in place, formal moderation will not be conducted, however the external examiner will be involved in marks ratification.

Laboratory Notebook

You must keep a bound hardback laboratory notebook, filled in daily and written in pen. The notebook must be available to supervisors when requested, and contain the following: Plans, thoughts, ideas related to your project; daily records/discussion of experiments; experimental data (raw data and processed results) with observations and discussion; summaries of meetings with your supervisor. Submission within 24 hours of submission of the dissertation. There are 2 ways to submit your laboratory notebook. Submit the notebook to the Course Collection Zone in the Student Advice Centre (CCZ in SAC; Lower ground floor, Edith Murphy Building) by 4 pm the day after the dissertation submission deadline (SAC closes at 4 pm daily.) When completing the paperwork in the CCZ make sure that the notebook is for the attention of your supervisor. Alternatively, electronic laboratory notebooks should be made available to your supervisor, by email or other electronic transfer.
This submission will be marked exclusively by your supervisor and will form part of the marks for the dissertation.

COURSEWORK 3: ORAL PRESENTATION (summative)

This is a 15-minute oral presentation on your research project. The presentation should contain a description of project background including aims and objectives, methods, results/discussion. There will be an approximately 5-minute question and answer session after your talk. You will do presentations individually, but will be timetabled with your classmates into small presentation marking groups with two members of staff marking.

This presentation is summative and accounts for 20% of your overall Module mark.

Submission is via Turnitin by midday (12pm, noon, middle of the day) on Monday 08/09/25.

The Powerpoint file should be submitted via Turnitin. Slides uploaded via Turnitin by the deadline will be the slides used for the presentation, no further editing of slides will be permitted after submission. The time and date for your presentations and further instructions regarding the presentations will be provided via the module shell on Learning Zone closer to the project slides submission deadline.
Two members of the module teaching team will form the marking team for the presentations, your marking team will exclude staff involved in your supervision.

The live presentation will take place 10th September 2025 (a presentation timetable will become available in due course.)

PRE-SUBMISSION FEEDBACK

Dissertation: A draft of your dissertation, which should contain as a minimum introduction, materials and methods and results in as complete a form as you can at that point in the module can be submitted for general feedback from your supervisor via Turnitin by Wednesday 20/08/25.  Written feedback will be sent to you on a form. 
Presentation Slides: Optional feedback (email Powerpoint file to supervisor) no later than 01/09/25.

Turnaround of feedback should be such that you have 48 hours prior to the submission date to address any recommendations from your supervisor. You will be responsible for providing material for review in a timely manner.
The ‘Assessments’ item on Learning Zone contains more advice, details and marking schemes for each of the assessments.
Postgraduate mark descriptors

The exam and coursework are marked according to a guide called the “DMU generic postgraduate mark descriptors”, these can be viewed on page 12 of this document: 

BIOM5712 Reading Resource List

At this level, you are expected to be working from peer-reviewed journal articles and devoting much of your time to self-directed study.

Feedback

You should expect to receive your grades and requisite feedback on your assessed coursework no later than fifteen working days after the submission deadline. Where this encompasses holidays, this timeframe will be extended accordingly.
Once the work has been marked and feedback is available, you will be notified by a Learning Zone announcement. Feedback forms will be available electronically as attachments to marks in MyGrades in the module Learning Zone shell.
If, for whatever reason, you have not received your marks or appropriate feedback, please contact the Module leader for advice and guidance.
Referencing

A reference is the detailed bibliographic description of the item from which you gained your information. In simple terms, this means the details of the items that you have used, e.g. author, title, date of publication. References are briefly cited within the text, and then given in full at the end of your work in a reference list.

References are used to:

• Enable the reader to locate the sources you have used;
• Help support your arguments and provide your work with credibility;
• Show the scope and breadth of your research;
• Acknowledge the source of an argument or idea. Failure to do so could result in a charge of plagiarism.
• The new updated default style for DMU is Harvard (Cite them Right). 
• A video has been created and has been uploaded to the Library’s YouTube Channel and is available here: https://youtu.be/yLA60JC12TU
• Online guidance is provided for the Harvard (Cite Them Right) referencing style using the Cite Them Right Online Tool. 
  Cite Them Right Online helps you learn the principles of referencing and the concepts of good academic practice and why this is important. The tool also provides guidance on how to reference over 150 source types, all with examples.
• You can use this link to library dmu to access the guidance that you will need. 

Academic Offences and Bad Academic Practice 

Academic offenses and bad academic practice include but are not limited to plagiarism, cheating, contract cheating, exam cheating, collusion, copying work and reuse of your own work, poor referencing or the passing off of somebody else's ideas as your own (as defined in Chapter 4 of the General Regulations and Procedures Affecting Students). For modules containing a research element, please note that the conduct of research without an ethics review (if applicable) will be treated as an academic offence.
If you are in any doubt about what constitutes an academic offence or bad academic practice, you must check with your personal tutor.
If you are suspected of committing an academic offence you will be called to a meeting with an Academic Practice Officer (APO). APOs are based within in each faculty and it is their role to advise on how to prevent bad academic practice and academic offences and to deal with serious cases.

For further information please see the below webpages:

• Academic offences webpage 
• Bad academic practice webpage 
• The current Academic Practice Officer (APO) for your faculty who you may contact for any advice on this matter is: 
  Ali Tempest.

Bad academic practice includes lack of referencing, poor referencing or the passing off of somebody else's ideas as your own.

Correct referencing is required in order to avoid bad academic practice. 

You must not copy text, diagrams or figures from ANY source – printed texts, online sources, or from colleagues. This is plagiarism and the University rules surrounding this are very strict.

Should you be caught, the minimum penalty is the loss of all marks from that assignment, though for major plagiarism or copying at a level that may be considered as theft, you would be excluded from the University.

Turnitin (via Learning Zone) is a text-matching tool used for plagiarism detection. The aim of using this software is to deter plagiarism, rather than to detect it and punish you. For coursework submissions on this Module you will be provided with specific Turnitin Assignment links in the Assessment area of the Learning Zone shell for this Module, and you will be notified via an announcement when it is live. You will then need to upload an electronic version of your work (e.g. as a Microsoft Word document) by the submission date. Turnitin will then compare your submitted work with that of your fellow students and against billions of items in its database culled from the internet, journals and other sources.

It is extremely important that all coursework be checked for originality using Turnitin prior to submission. You will be given the opportunity to resubmit a revised version (prior to the deadline) if you feel your Turnitin originality score is too high. We urge you to make use of this facility! To view your originality report, click on the originality report percentage under ‘Contents’. Note that other students will not be able to see or view your report.

Turnitin uses a simple “traffic lights” system to gauge your originality. If your percentage is green (usually below 25%), then your work is deemed of sufficient originality to pass the plagiarism test. Scores between 25-50% appear yellow – if your score falls within this area, we strongly recommend you revisit your work and rewrite the offending areas. If you fail to do so, you risk being referred to the Academic Practice Officer for conducting bad academic practice (see link below). Scores above 50% could result in referral to the Academic Practice Officer for committing an academic offence (see link below). Bad academic practice and academic offences are very serious issues and will stay on your academic record, and could make it difficult for you to pursue further study after you graduate. 

REFER TO THE MSc. ADVANCED BIOMEDICAL SCIENCE PROGRAMME SHELL ON LEARNING ZONE. UNDER ‘PROGRAMME RESOURCES’ YOU WILL FIND MORE INFORMATION, GUIDANCE AND ADVICE ON THIS TOPIC.

Using the VLE

Learning Zone is the virtual learning environment (VLE) containing the following module information  

1. Introduction to the module, the module information and announcements 
2. Staff contact information
3. Lecture and/or supporting materials
4. Lecture recordings (Panopto)
5. Coursework marks

Additional Module Information

LABORATORY SAFETY

Safety is of paramount importance whilst undertaking practical work.

Therefore: 

1.  You must be aware of and operate within the general rules governing laboratory safety. In particular students will:
(i)not bring any items of food or drink with them into laboratories
(ii)behave in a mature and responsible manner, with due consideration of their own health and safety and that of other laboratory users
(iii)be considerate of laboratory equipment and facilities
(iv)report accidents, spills and breakages to a member of staff

2.Laboratory coats must always be correctly fastened and disposable gloves should be worn where appropriate

3.Eye protection must always be worn in the laboratory during practical work

4.Disposable gloves are not to be worn outside of the laboratory to prohibit contamination of door handles etc.

5.Ensure you have completed appropriate health and safety training before you start laboratory work.

NOTE: Failure to obey instructions will result in the student being asked to leave the laboratory with the additional outcome that no dissertation will be accepted and the module will be failed.

You MUST notify your supervisor of any acute or chronic health condition (e.g. pregnancy, immunocompromised) that you think may put you at risk of working in a laboratory environment. 

If in doubt discuss with your supervisor or the module lead.

Using the Student Staff Communication Pathway

• Use the Student Staff Communication pathway to find the correct person to send your email to. 
• Check that you have read through the available information such as Programme handbook, University regulations, Assignment guidance etc. as these may provide you with an answer without needing to contact anybody.
• Full time staff will respond to emails within 5 working days typically during 9-5 office hours. Please note that part time staff will not check emails when not at work. 
• Staff will use the ‘out of office’ assistant on their emails when not at the university. Part time staff will also indicate their days of work. 
• If you have waited a longer than 5 days for a response it is advised that you resend the message with a polite note asking for a response. Please also send the message to the next person on the Student Staff Communication Pathway. 

Writing an Effective Email 

• Always use your DMU email account to contact staff
• When writing an email use the subject field to indicate clearly the content of your message. If your email is urgent then please make this clear in the subject line to help staff prioritise a response.
• Include your full name and either in the subject line or somewhere in the message content.
• Use a professional, formal and polite style to open your message and throughout. For example start with ‘Dear….. ‘.
• Be concise and to the point preferably stating the action that you would like. A concise and well written email will also be easier for staff to deal with. 
• Use correct spelling, grammar and punctuation. This includes using capitals where appropriate and avoiding text language. It is advisable to always spell check and proof read a message before sending. 
• If you need some help and advice on how to write or word a professional email then please ask for help from your personal tutor. 
• Use ‘read receipt’ function - for important messages this will confirm that the message has been sent/read. 
• Aim to reply to emails in a timely manner, particularly if you have been asked to provide information.
• A good example of an email to a member of staff