ENCN301-25W (C) Whole Year 2025

Communication Skills Portfolio 2


Details:
Start Date: Monday, 17 February 2025
End Date: Sunday, 9 November 2025
Withdrawal Dates
Last Day to withdraw from this course:
  • Without financial penalty (full fee refund): Sunday, 16 March 2025
  • Without academic penalty (including no fee refund): Sunday, 24 August 2025

Description

Development of communication skills required by practicing professional engineers. Sketches, oral presentation, and various types of written reports.

ENCN301 requires a student to build up a communication portfolio consisting of different types of reports and presentations. The items that make up the portfolio are already part of other courses, and will also be submitted to be marked for ENCN301 to assess a student’s ability to be effective communicators.

5. Kia rite - Recommended and Required Preparation

Course prerequisites: ENCN201.

Students must pass ENCN301 before enrolling in some 4th-year professional year courses. Also, students must pass ENCN301 before going on exchange. Students who fail ENCN301 become a year behind in their studies.

Learning Outcomes

Improve communication skills, with an emphasis on clear and concise writing. (Washington Accord WA10) (UC EIE2)

Develop an awareness of professional communication standards in the engineering profession. (Washington Accord WA10) (UC EIE2)

Deliver effective written communication to a high standard. (Washington Accord WA10) (UC EIE2)

Apply skills learnt in ENCN301 to 4th-year courses and into professional practice. To gain an understanding of the need to maintain and continue to develop soft skills after graduation. (Washington Accord WA10) (UC EIE2)

Prerequisites

Timetable 2025

Students must attend one activity from each section.

Lecture A
Activity Day Time Location Weeks
01 Monday 12:00 - 13:00 E8 Lecture Theatre
17 Feb - 23 Feb
Lecture B
Activity Day Time Location Weeks
01 Wednesday 12:00 - 13:00 C3 Lecture Theatre
17 Feb - 23 Feb
Workshop A
Activity Day Time Location Weeks
01 Monday 10:00 - 11:00 Civil - Mech E212 Civil Computer Lab
14 Jul - 20 Jul
02 Monday 16:00 - 17:00 Civil - Mech E212 Civil Computer Lab
14 Jul - 20 Jul
03 Tuesday 09:00 - 10:00 Civil - Mech E212 Civil Computer Lab
14 Jul - 20 Jul
04 Tuesday 13:00 - 14:00 Civil - Mech E212 Civil Computer Lab
14 Jul - 20 Jul
05 Wednesday 08:00 - 09:00 Civil - Mech E212 Civil Computer Lab
14 Jul - 20 Jul
06 Wednesday 14:00 - 15:00 Civil - Mech E212 Civil Computer Lab
14 Jul - 20 Jul
07 Friday 09:00 - 10:00 Civil - Mech E212 Civil Computer Lab
14 Jul - 20 Jul
08 Friday 15:00 - 16:00 Civil - Mech E212 Civil Computer Lab
14 Jul - 20 Jul
09 Thursday 08:00 - 09:00 Rata 216 CAD Lab
14 Jul - 20 Jul
10 Thursday 17:00 - 18:00 Civil - Mech E212 Civil Computer Lab
14 Jul - 20 Jul

Timetable Note

There are no set tutorials for ENCN301. However, support is available for any student via contact with the course coordinator. All students who fail an item and need to resubmit must sign up for a one-on-one compulsory help session, this may be in-person or via Zoom, to assist with resubmission with the course coordinator before resubmitting. Full details on how to arrange this will be given early in Term 1. Help is also available to students before the first submission of both the calc-rich and client reports.

TEACHING / DELIVERY METHODS

ENCN301 requires a student to build up a communication portfolio consisting of different types of reports and presentations. The items that make up the portfolio are already part of other courses, and will also be submitted to be marked for ENCN301 to assess a student’s ability to be effective communicators. For full details on the Communication Portfolio items and marking schedule, please refer to the course handbook.

Course Coordinator / Lecturer

Kim Parrent

Course Administrator

Tonny de Vries

Assessment

Assessment will be as follows (please note that these assignments and due dates are subject to change due to changes in supporting courses and/or COVID; however, students will be notified of any changes via the Learn course page. Ultimately, however, it is the student’s responsibility to keep up-to-date with any new course information):

Assessment
Assignment 1 – Calc-rich Report  S1/Term 2
Assignment 3 – Client Report S2/Term 3

Resubmission of Assessment (if required):

Assessment
Assignment 1 – Calc-rich Report 2 S2/Term 3
Assignment 3 - Client Report 2 S2/Term 4      

Please contact the course co-ordinator in advance, if you have genuine difficulties meeting submission dates.  All submissions are electronic submissions via Learn.

All assignments are compulsory.

 Resubmissions are required if the first attempt fails. There is only one chance to resubmit each item.

 To pass this course, students must submit all items required for ENCN301 (a non-submission will result in an overall Fail for the course) and this includes any failed item from the previous year in ENCN201. Also, students must receive an overall communication score of 5/10. (50%)

Additional Course Outline Information

Assessment and grading system

Important: students who are not taking any of the supporting courses and, therefore, will not have the appropriate submission(s) for ENCN301, must contact the course coordinator by the end of Week 3, Term 1 to arrange an alternative submission(s) (see information below).

Notes: To pass this course, students must submit and pass all items required for ENCN301 (a non-submission will result in an overall Fail for the course). Also, students must receive an overall communication score of 5/10 (50%).

Submissions are electronic only and uploaded onto Learn into the appropriate drop boxes. All submissions must be named using the correct file name format: ‘SubmissionType-Userid-FamilyName (e.g., Client-klp33-Parrent). For resubmissions add -resub (1) to the end of the name. (e.g., Client-klp33-Parrent-resub.1).

It is expected that students alert the course coordinator if they are unable to submit a report on time or are not doing the course on which the report is based. It may be possible that a student can submit a different report if they are not enrolled in the appropriate courses. However, failure to submit a report without prior notification and approval will lead to a student failing ENCN301 and graduation being delayed as a result.

All students are required to keep a copy of all reports submitted to Portfolio and uploaded to Learn. Students must also download and keep a copy of all marking sheets returned to them throughout the year (keep a hard copy or download to flashdrive/computer). Please do not rely on access to Learn for submissions or results in case of a system failure. Remember to keep a Word copy, and not a PDF copy, to allow for editing of your work. Failure to keep a suitable copy of your work could result in having to rewrite the report in full.

Workload

Some students will need very little time to meet our objectives and pass; other students will need many hours and use many more of our resources and methods of support. To minimise the workload for this programme, whenever possible, students submit a designated report that is part of another course’s assessment. Note: due to various supporting course content it may not always be possible to submit the same report to ENCN301 and a modified assignment, requiring more effort, may be required for ENCN301. However, students are advised that the levels of writing and presentation standards for Portfolio are higher than other courses. It is required that students have read and followed the CPG (3rd edition) before submission. To reduce the time spent on Portfolio, we advise students to bring all their reports up to a high standard, using the CPG (3rd edition), in conjunction with the Portfolio template, so that they do not have to rewrite reports to submit for Portfolio.

Students should spend time carefully proofreading their reports before submitting them. There is a template for the reports available on Learn. Students are required to use this. Failure to use the template will result in the report not being marked. This template can be easily adapted for other reports, saving students time. To cut down on failure due to presentation issues, it is required that all students use this template, adapted for the appropriate report when preparing their reports for submission.

Course Communication

The course coordinator for ENCN301 is Dr Kim Parrent. Engineering oversight is provided by Dr Tonny de Vries. Students must address issues with their work as soon as possible. If there are specific issues or problems with a student’s writing ability or confusion over marking criteria, please advise the course coordinator when the problem arises, not at the end of the year. It is often too late to address problems at the end of the course. Please add “ENCN301” within the email subject line. Note that you are required to use your UC email account (e.g., Uclive). Emails from private email accounts (e.g., Gmail etc.,) will not be read/answered.

For further information see Civil and Natural Resources Engineering .

All ENCN301 Occurrences

  • ENCN301-25W (C) Whole Year 2025