The School of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences at UNSW

General Honours Information

Objectives of Honours

• To expand the student's knowledge in selected areas of biotechnology and biomolecular sciences and to encourage critical appraisal of research literature.
• To develop the student's level of competence in:
  - application of a wide range of contemporary techniques in the field
  - general principles and techniques required in specialised research areas within biotechnology and biomolecular sciences
• To foster interest in some of the broader issues implicit in science and technology

These objectives are achieved by:

• introductory skills workshop, tutorials and seminars     
• Honours project of an experimental nature, carried out under the supervision of an academic staff member      
• discipline-specific activity

Components of the Honours program

Orientation week

The orientation comprises a series of tutorials and seminars held during the first week of the Honours program. During this time, students will be fully occupied with workshop activities and will be discouraged from attempting research work.

Literature review

The literature review is an important component of the continuous assessment for all Honours projects. It comprises a major assignment of approximately 3,000 words (not more than 4,000 words) on the topic of each student's project, selected in consultation with the project supervisor. The aims of this review are for students to become familiar with the UNSW library and all its resources, and to develop a critical approach in assessing published literature in the area relevant to their research project. Some basic references may be supplied, but students will be expected to search for and survey the relevant literature. A third important aim is for the student to develop appropriate academic writing skills. Supervisors will therefore read and comment on drafts of the literature review, and provide feedback. This will take the form of a summary paragraph and a grade will be awarded ranging from A, B, C, D to E.

Research plan seminar program

This is a 10-minute seminar that is held in March (August for mid-year entry). Other students, staff, and your Assessment Committee (supervisor and two other members of staff) will attend. In consultation with your supervisor, you will develop and present a plan of your research for the year: Why? How? When? Your supervisor will provide a critique of your research plan in a written summary that will subsequently be provided to you in April (October for mid-year entry).

Seminars

Each student will present two main seminars during their Honours year. The first will occur in March (August for mid-year entry). The purpose of this first seminar is for the student to introduce their research plan to the School, and to their peers. The second seminar is where the student presents the final research report; this will occur in October (April for mid-year entry).

Final research seminar program

As noted above, each student will present a seminar on the outcomes of their research towards the end of their project in October (April for mid-year entry). This component is worth 5% of the final mark so an appropriate amount of time should be spent preparing for it. In consultation with your supervisor, prepare a 15-20 minute PowerPoint presentation. Be sure to allow enough time beforehand to organise a practice run of a draft presentation and rehearse presenting it. Next, in consultation with your supervisor, re-draft a final version of your presentation and again, practice presenting it. This process is likely to take at least two weeks (but please keep in mind that different people work at different rates).

Research Project

This is the major part of the Honours year (accounting for 75%-95%* of the final mark). Close consultation with supervisors is essential. A written practice thesis is due for lodgement in August (February for mid-year entry). The student's final report will then be submitted as a thesis in October (May for mid-year entry).

*The thesis is worth 75% of the final mark for BIOT4053 students; the thesis is worth 95% of the total mark for students in programs BIOC 4103, 4318, 4428, BIOT 4073, MICR 4013, & MICR4033.

Coursework Component (Applies to BIOT4053 only)

Students must complete Professional Issues in Biotechnology (BIOT3091) and Commercial Biotechnology (BIOT3071). Each course accounts for 10% of the final mark.

Biotechnology 4-Year Professional Degree (3052)

Students enrolled in the 3052 program are awarded a specialised degree in biotechnology. The Honours component of BIOT4053 is only available to students who have completed all of the components of years 1 to 3 of the 3052 program. BIOT4053 is unique compared to the other Honours streams offered by BABS as it includes both research and coursework components. The courses offered extend the students' skills in professional and commercial aspects of biotechnology. It is recognised within the university and beyond that students completing the professional degree program have these additional skills.

Assessment criteria for Honours

Literature review

In their assessment, supervisors will be looking not only for evidence of thorough scrutiny of the relevant literature, but also for appropriate presentation. Attention should be paid to such things as: linking the author's observations cited and the conclusion drawn with the type of experiment performed; avoiding undue conciseness on the one hand or verbosity on the other; accuracy, grammar, logical flow of ideas;  discrimination between conflicting points of view; and so on. Figures and tables may be appropriate inclusions. Large extracts of reviews should not be included verbatim. Your review should be a discriminating perusal of what is known, rather than a tedious recounting (without personal appraisal) of simply what has been done by others. You will be awarded a grade of A,B,C,D or E and a critique summary will be written by your supervisor.

Practice thesis

The learning goal for this assignment is to teach students to extract data from laboratory notebooks and prepare a scientific document. The report should be 2,000 words or fewer. The text should include a brief introduction and three or four figures and/or tables must be included.

The focus should be on the presentation and discussion of your data. Assessors will expect figures, tables and text to be presented professionally and at the standard of an acceptable scientific journal. Assessors will expect students to present examples of results, NOT all results.

This report will be graded A,B,C,D or E by your Assessment Committee. To arrive at this grade, the members of your Assessment Committee will meet with you for one hour to discuss your practice thesis. Although the practice thesis forms the basis of this portion of the continuous assessment, the Assessment Committee will review and provide feedback on overall progress to date. To aid this discussion, please bring the following to the meeting; (1) a dot point summary of all of your results to date, and (2) your lab notebooks. This meeting will also introduce the student to the format used for the final oral interview. The practice thesis grade will be submitted to the BABS Student Office.

Note that the grade from the practice thesis should not be used to predict the final outcome of the thesis. The practice thesis is a training activity and it is not meant to contain all results obtained to date. In most cases, new results will be added to the final thesis, which can alter the previous interpretation of incomplete data.

The practice thesis serves as a major component of the student's training for writing the final thesis. Detailed feedback concerning the expectations for preparation of the final thesis needs to be provided at this time.

Final thesis

The final written report should follow the format for a Masters or PhD thesis, but it will be shorter. There must be a title page, a table of contents, a list of figures and tables, and an abstract. These all must precede the main body of text. The main body must be comprised of sections, including an Introduction, Methods and Materials, Results, and Discussion.

Figures, tables, references and abbreviations should follow the general form of a scientific paper written for the Journal of Biological Chemistry, Journal of Bacteriology, or the Journal of Immunology. It is difficult to give concise guidelines concerning the length of each section of an individual thesis because projects vary in complexity and scope.

Unlike traditional Masters or PhD theses, the Introduction should NOT be a lengthy literature review. Rather, the key background citations should be discussed to define the problem being examined and place it in the context of published work in the area. The Introduction should end with a brief statement of the aims and hypothesis of the current work. The length and content of Methods and Materials, and the Results sections should be consistent with a thesis format.

There are a number of past Honours theses available for perusal in the School. Please remember that in some cases word limits may not have applied to prior theses. On the rare occasions that material needed for a complete understanding or evaluation of the work does not fit well into the thesis, it may be included as an Appendix, although this should not usually be necessary.

Terms and concepts used without definition should be those that would be understood by a trained scientist working on any topic within BABS. If use of a term is very specialised, some explanation will be necessary.

Interview

Students will be interviewed by the Assessment Committee to evaluate the extent of their knowledge and to confirm that the student possesses the full contents of their thesis. Performance in the interview will be assessed and incorporated into the final mark.

Assistance in writing thesis

Supervisors may give help without limit at all stages prior to the student starting the writing of the thesis. The level of help will depend on the student's requests and the supervisor's initiative. Supervisors or their designate are allowed to read theses drafts and to make comments on writing style and format.

Honours grading

Most students consider their Honours grade to be crucial for furthering their career and/or postgraduate study. To some extent this is true, but students often put unwarranted emphasis on the outcomes of their Honours year. Following is a short guide to expectations for outcomes from an Honours year.

The grades awarded in Honours are:

Hons. Class I (85 or higher); Hons. Class II division 1, (75-84); Hons. Class II division 2 (65-74); Hons. Class III (50-64).

As a guide to your expectations for Honours, consider your overall WAM and your third-year average for Science subjects. If your third year average is at a credit level and you have maintained this level of performance throughout your three years of study, it would be reasonable to expect to achieve a distinction level in Honours (75-84) provided that you work hard and maintain a high standard in all aspects of your work.

The expectation for this level of achievement is derived from the nature of our program and the type of students who attempt the Honours year. The program is meant to provide a forum in which keen students can receive individual hands-on training in scientific research. Most students are motivated to perform at a higher level than previous years of study; however, there is absolutely no guarantee that this will occur. Achievement requires hard work and dedicated study on the part of the student. Some students may excel to higher levels than expected, and others may not.

Students who complete all aspects of the course on time, write a thesis that is acceptable, and can successfully defend their thesis in the final oral interview may expect to attain an Honours level 2.1. If the thesis is flawless, and there is evidence of critical analysis/creative thinking in the thesis, and the student demonstrates a broad understanding of the field of research, then the student may attain an Honours First Class.

It should be noted that Honours level 2.1 is recognised as a great achievement. All supervisors have students who have been awarded this level in previous years. Many have careers in science and some have gone on to postgraduate degrees.

Please remember that someone will get the highest grade and someone will get the lowest grade. All students who try hard are valued highly by their supervisor and the School, and this fact will be communicated to potential employers if requested.