Course memo Autumn 2023-50030
Version 1 – 08/25/2023, 8:31:03 PM
Period 1 (Start date 28 Aug 2023, English)
English
ABE/Philosophy
Headings denoted with an asterisk ( * ) is retrieved from the course syllabus version Autumn 2022
The following is an incomplete list of topics covered in the course.
Engineering design
The course consists of lectures, online assignments, seminars, a project part, and a digital exam.
After having completed the course, the student should, with regards to the theory and methodology of science be able to:
· Identify definitions and descriptions of concepts, theories and problem areas, as well as identify the correct applications of these concept and theories.
· Account for concepts, theories and general problems areas, as well as apply concepts and theories to specific cases.
· Critically discuss the definitions and applications of concepts and theories as they apply to specific cases of scientific research.
These learning outcomes are examined orally via seminars, and in writing via online assignments and a digital exam.
After having completed the course, the student should also be able to (applies to students that do not take the master’s programme medical engineering (TMLEM):
· Summarise and present research reports or scientific articles in a way that makes them accessible to a non-expert audience.
· Account for standard structural and qualitative criteria for scientific writing and apply these to research reports or scientific articles.
· Identify and critically discuss specific theoretical and methodological problems in research reports or scientific articles.
These learning outcomes are examined in writing via a project part.
Students from the master’s programme medical engineering (TMLEM) should be able to:
· Account for and apply the most common theories and methods of applied ethics and account for their relevance for medical technology.
· Carry out independent moral reflections concerning practical problems in the ethics of medical technology.
These learning outcomes are examined orally and in writing via a project part.
Below follows an outline of the course learning activities. Detailed descriptions of the learning activities are found in later sections in this course memo.
This course includes eleven lectures. Lecture 1 is held on campus and lectures 2-11 are available as videos via Canvas and can be viewed at any time during the course. The placement of video lectures in the TimeEdit course schedule is a planning suggestion for when you might view them.
Each of the video lectures has an associated lecture quiz with a deadline. If you complete lecture quizzes with passing score upon the deadline, you receive course bonus points for the exam (see section on Schedule and see Canvas for quiz deadlines). For more information on bonus points, see section on Bonus point system below.
Flipped classroom sessions function as an opportunity for receiving clarification from the lecturer on lecture contents. The flipped classroom sessions are intended for addressing questions on course topics that students find unclear, challenging or otherwise interesting.
There are two flipped classroom sessions on campus, each based on two video lectures. Flipped classroom 1 focuses on the lectures on scientific inferences (lecture 2), and on observation and measurement (lecture 3). Flipped classroom 2 focuses on the lectures on experiments (lecture 4) and on models (lecture 5).
Each flipped classroom session has an associated discussion board. Before each flipped classroom session, you post a question for the lecturer on the board related to the relevant video lectures, and you upvote questions posted by other students that you would like the lecturer to address during the session. See section on Schedule and see Canvas for further instructions and deadlines.
The lecturer selects a set of questions from the discussion board and devotes the flipped classroom sessions to answering these questions. During the sessions, you will also be invited to participate on voluntary exercise activities.
If you complete the flipped classroom activities, you receive course bonus points for the exam. For more information on bonus points, see section on Bonus point system below.
It is possible to attend flipped classroom sessions without having posted on the discussion board and without participating on exercises in the classroom, but this will yield no bonus points.
The flipped classroom sessions are taken together with students from other, similar courses.
Completing video lecture quizzes with a passing score, as well as participating on the flipped classroom activities, gives course bonus points for the exam. Bonus point activities are voluntary, optional activities intended at incentivising students to engage with the course contents continuously throughout the course.
Each video lecture has an associated video lecture quiz, comprised of 15 questions. If you complete a quiz with a 14 point score or higher, All video lecture quizzes have deadlines (See section on Schedule and see Canvas for deadlines). There is no limit on number of attempts up until the quiz deadlines.
Course bonus points can also be awarded for the two flipped classrooms. Attending the flipped classroom session and carrying out tasks as per instructed by the lecturer results in 0.5 course bonus points per each of the two flipped classrooms.
In order to make the number of bonus points fit the exam format, course bonus points are scaled in the following way before the exam (C = course bonus points, E = exam bonus points): E = C * 5/6, rounded up to the closest .5-value. Example: 4.5 course bonus points will be scaled as 4.5 * 5/6 = 3.75, then rounded up to 4 exam points. You can maximally obtain 5 exam bonus points.
Exam bonus points are added to part 1 of the exam. For example, if part 1 has a maximum score of 15 points, then 3.5 exam bonus points plus 10 points on part 1 results in a total score of 13.5 points on part 1 of the exam. 4 exam bonus points plus 13 points on part 1 results in a total score of 15 points on part 1 of the exam.
For more information about the exam, see section on Examination and completion.
Bonus points collected during one and the same course period are valid for, and only for, the scheduled exam and the corresponding re-exam for that period.
The course includes a mandatory seminar series comprised of four seminars. Each seminar covers selected course contents from the video lectures and course readings, and following the first seminar, each subsequent seminar connects to the previous seminars. Seminars are intended as a collaborative learning activity where you practice critically discussing course contents and practice applying course contents to cases, with instruction and support from teaching staff. The overall topics covered during the seminar series are as follows:
Since completion of the seminar series yields course credits, the seminars feature mandatory activities: (1) preparing and passing a seminar quiz, and (2) actively participating on the seminar. Missing activities result in seminar incompletion and thus no seminar course credits.
Before each seminar, you read the assigned readings (reading instructions available on Canvas). Before attending each seminar, you must also pass a mandatory seminar preparation quiz (See section on Schedule and see Canvas for deadlines). There is no limit on number of quiz attempts up until the quiz deadline. You must complete the quiz with a passing score of 14 points before the deadline (indicated in Canvas as “Passed”).
The preparation quizzes are intended to ensure that all participants come prepared to the seminar for a more rewarding seminar learning experience. If you attend the seminar without completing the preparation quiz beforehand, you will not be marked as attending.
On the seminar, you will be working together with other students on exercises as per instructed by the teacher. The exercises are formulated in such a way as to promote critical reflection and discussion, as well as to practice application of course concepts to case scenarios.
You are expected to engage actively with the course contents and work on the exercises during the seminar. Passive attendance on the seminar will be marked as not attending. Active participation on the seminar does not mean that you are expected to demonstrate full proficiency of course contents. Rather, it means that you are expected to have properly engaged with the relevant course material beforehand and made an honest attempt at understanding it. Arisen questions and reflections can be addressed on the seminar.
For information on what to do if you have not completed a preparation quiz or actively attended on a seminar, see the section on Examination and completion.
Note that the TimeEdit course schedule shows multiple seminar slots for every seminar week. The different slots correspond to different seminar groups. You will join only one seminar group upon course start and your group takes only one seminar per seminar week. Instructions on how to join a seminar group as well as a seminar group schedule will be available on Canvas after the course starts and before the start of the seminar series.
Seminar 1 – Definitions, operationalizations and hypotheses.
Texts:
Topics relevant for the seminar:
Seminar 2 – Designing a scientific study.
Texts:
Topics relevant for the seminar:
Seminar 3: Interpretation, analysis and evidence.
Texts:
Topics relevant for the seminar:
Seminar 4: Risk and research ethics.
Texts:
Topics relevant for the seminar:
This course also includes a project part, which consists of four mandatory project part essay submissions and three peer-reviews of other students’ submissions. The first two submissions are done individually, and the last two (a preliminary version of the essay, and the final version) are done together with other students from your master programme. If there are too few students, you will submit an individually written project part essay.
In the project part you will work with a published scientific article from your field of study (which we provide). You will first make a popularized presentation of either a central method or a central concept of the scientific study described in the article, and peer review other students' texts. You will then do a methodological evaluation of the article and point out methodological strengths and methodological weaknesses of the text, and peer review other students' texts. You will then join forces and work in groups of 2-5 students and write a text where you popularize the content of the article for a general audience, as well as discuss all strengths and weaknesses of the article. You then individually peer review other students' submissions and use the feedback you get to revise your text into a final, fourth submission. More detailed information can be found on canvas. The work is divided into several tasks that are grouped into three different blocks; 1, 2 and 3. All tasks are intended at practicing either popularized presentation of scientific research or critical evaluation of methodological aspects of scientific research. Failing any task means failing the entire project part. If you fail the project part, you will have to do the project part anew in another period to complete the course.
In the first week of the course, you are to read a scientific article assigned to your master program and start working on the tasks (the articles can be found in the project part article list on the TaMoS course’s canvas page). Download the one that is named after your master program, e.g., TSCRM, or TFORM.
Group work and individual work for students without a group
Everyone performs the tasks in Block 1 and 2 in the same way. However, block 3 is to be completed in a small group, typically with people from your master program. Therefore, you will join a Project Group on Canvas sometime during your work with Block 2. When it is time to do so, info about this will be sent out and you will be able to find the Project Groups in People on your left-hand menu in Canvas. Join a group with the program code found in the name of the article you are working with, e.g. TSCRM 1, or TFORM 2. If you know or realise that you are the only one working with a certain article, then join another group that works with an article you think you can work with. Cannot find an article you think you can work with? Or if you have any questions, please contact us (see Contact information). If there are very special reasons, or if I cannot help you find a group to work with, then you can join an individual group, which will be created and named Individual Group if the need arises. After everybody has joined a group, some members of groups with only one member, will be moved to another group. When the groups have stabilized, the option to change groups by yourself will be deactivated. If you want to change group after that, or if a group with the program code of your article is missing, or if it turns out you have an inactive member in your group, or if you have any questions concerning group membership, contact us. Note that in Block 3 there are different submission pages for students in a group, and for those who do individual work! And please, do not form your own groups, just contact us if your program code is missing.
Schedule and Deadlines
Here is the schedule and deadlines for the project part. If you ever wonder about the deadline of a Project Part assignment, just look at the deadline for the assignment found on the relevant assignments page on Canvas. The deadlines there trump any other information given in the introduction lecture, here, or the project-part schedule page on Canvas etc. The deadlines for the peer review tasks can always be found in the project part schedule below.
Block 1:
Deadline Task A – Course week 2
Deadline Task B – Course week 3
Block 2:
Deadline task A – Course week 4
Deadline task B – Course week 5
Block 3:
Deadline Task A - Group Work – Course week 6
Deadline Task B - Group Work – Course week 7
Deadline Task C Final Submission - Group Work – Course week 8
Deadline Task A - Individual assignment – Course week 6
Deadline Task B - Individual assignment – Course week 7
Deadline Task C Final Submission - Individual assignment – Course week 8
Plagiarism and References
All texts are automatically checked for plagiarism, and high plagiarism percentages are then also manually checked. If we after this suspect actual plagiarism, we are obliged to report this to the disciplinary committee. All sources should be stated using any standard referencing system (see the KTH library).
If suspected plagiarism is detected, a manual inspection will be performed. If a manual inspection indicates plagiarism, the assignment will not be corrected, and a report to the disciplinary committee will be filed. If two or more submissions are too similar to each other, none of them will be corrected and reports will be filed with regards to all students involved.
Given this, it is extremely important that you make sure that any text is written by you. This is your responsibility. We will make no exceptions for so called “accidental plagiarism”.
You are allowed to cite sources. Such citations should be put in quotation marks (“ “) and a reference to the original source (using any standard system) should be given immediately after the quote. As a simple rule, consider five words or more directly from a source, a citation. These citations will not be included in the assessment, and the content will not increase your grade. Just what you account for, or discuss about the citation, will be graded. A possible use for a citation might be when presenting, addressing, or discussing a particular statement, or claim that is made in your assigned article.
To avoid suspicion of plagiarism, a tip is to make notes when reading a text, and write your assignment by looking at your notes instead of the text. You are allowed to re-use material in Block 3, which you already submitted in Block 1 or Block 2, but since this will be automatically flagged as plagiarism, please indicate, preferably with footnotes what material is being re-used in your text, to make the manual plagiarism check easier.
When working with references in general, it is good to use footnotes, where you can indicate what the original sources are that you address or discuss, and also for writing useful comments. This could for example be when addressing some paragraph and page of your assigned article, or referring to some TaMoS course material (say, if you are accounting for, or making some evaluation using a TaMoS concept). This will (again) help you to avoid suspicion of plagiarism, and also help us to quicker and easier understand and check if needed, where the original sources are for what you address and write in your text. You do not have to overdo it, and have references everywhere, but please be sure to have them where they might be needed.
The exercise sessions are extra opportunities to practice on the course content. They are held on campus and shared with other course codes. They are voluntary and have no associated submissions. The format is tested for the first time this semester. More information will follow on Canvas.
Expected workload is calculated based on number of course credits per period.
7.5 ECTS one period: 20 h /week
The course schedule is available in TimeEdit via www.kth.se/schema. To find your schedule, log in and choose "Course" in the drop-down menu and search for your course code. Here you can also see what type of course activity it is. For example if it is a Digital Pre-Recorded Video Lecture, or Digital on Zoom. If the course activity has a room name or code (e.g. F1 or L43) then it is on Campus. Note that this schedule does not include submission deadlines, nor seminar group schedule. The TimeEdit course schedule displays all seminar slots. The seminar group schedule with one slot per group will be determined after student group sign-up upon course start. Instructions for sign-up and group schedule will be available on Canvas.
Your course shares seminars with other courses on theory and methodology of science. If you have scheduling issues, there may be other sessions that you could attend. Contact your course coordinator if you wish to attend another seminar slot.
Overall information on essay/project part submission deadlines, seminar preparation quiz deadlines, video lecture quiz deadlines, and deadlines for posting questions before flipped classroom sessions can be found in this document. The exact dates and times for submission deadlines are available on Canvas.
Seminar preparation quizzes open Monday the week before each respective seminar. You must pass the quiz before attending your scheduled seminar. Seminar group schedule is determined after course start and made available on Canvas. See general course schedule in TimeEdit for all seminar slots.
All video lecture quizzes open on the Monday the week before the scheduling of a given lecture and close on the Friday the week after the scheduling of the lecture.
Deadline for posting and upvoting questions on the discussion boards are:
Flipped classroom session 1: 2 workdays before the scheduled session.
Flipped classroom session 2: 3 workdays before the scheduled session.
All material is avaiable through the course platform.
The main text for the course is:
In addition, there are three supplemental texts:
Finally, there is one additional optional text, mainly targeting the same topics as the main course text:
In addition to above mentioned readings, you may be asked to read short texts in preparation for some seminars. All course readings will be available in pdf file format on Canvas together with associated reading instructions. The readings cannot be bought as physical books, but you are welcome to print them.
Students at KTH with a permanent disability can get support during studies from Funka:
In course evaluations for previous periods, students wanted to pass on the following advice.
A, B, C, D, E, FX, F
Based on recommendation from KTH’s coordinator for disabilities, the examiner will decide how to adapt an examination for students with documented disability.
The examiner may apply another examination format when re-examining individual students.
TENA is examined via a digital exam.
The section below is not retrieved from the course syllabus:
Fullfilled seminar requirements, project requirements and written exam.
There is an opportunity to raise an approved grade via renewed examination at the re-exam or a later exam date. Re-exams are marked as such in the schedule at www.kth.se/schema. Apply by e-mail to fatemeht@kth.se. Include your personal number and course code, as well as the date when you wish to take the re-exam.
If you are unable to attend a seminar at a particular time and day, you might be able to join another seminar group during the same seminar week. Consult with your course coordinator before changing seminar group. If you fail or are unable to attend one or more of the seminars, you can sign up for a compensation seminar, offered once more towards the end of the course. See course schedule in TimeEdit for scheduling of the compensation seminars. Alternatively, you may re-register and attend remaining seminars during an ensuing course period, conditional on that the seminar is offered in that period. If you complete the seminar module over the course of more than one period, please inform the course coordinator that you have passed all seminars.
If you miss or fail the exam, you may take the corresponding re-exam. It may also be possible to take the exam during another period. Note however that any bonus points collected during a course period are only valid for the exam and re-exam for that period. If you wish to take the exam after the designated exam or re-exam, check which periods the course is offered in and see corresponding examination dates. Note that you must register on the course and sign up for the exam in order to take the exam.
Exam results will be communicated to students within 15 workdays following the day of the exam. This might not be met if there is a need to validate a submission or there is suspicion of cheating.
All texts are automatically checked for plagiarism, and high plagiarism indication scores are then manually checked. If, after this, there arises suspicion of plagiarism, we are obliged to report this to the disciplinary committee.
In particular, it is not allowed to:
All sources should be stated using any standard referencing system (see the KTH library). Citations should be marked with citation marks – " " – and the source should be provided. As a simple rule, consider five words or more from a source a citation. To avoid plagiarism charges, a tip is to make notes when reading a text and write your assignment by looking at your notes instead of the text.
It is not allowed to have someone else write the text or parts thereof for you (ghost writing), nor to have it automatically generated (if this is not in accordance with explicit instructions of a particular course task).
No information inserted
Please e-mail the course coordinator for both administrative and content questions. Contact through e-mail is preferred, please do not use the Canvas messaging system. You may communicate in either Swedish or English. Please state your course code, since the course coordinator handles several courses.
28 Aug 2023
English
Please e-mail the course coordinator for both administrative and content questions. Contact through e-mail is preferred, please do not use the Canvas messaging system. You may communicate in either Swedish or English. Please state your course code, since the course coordinator handles several courses.
