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Introduction to communication skills required by practicing professional engineers.
This course is very unlike your other courses. It is a programme that we use to ensure you have competency in engineering communication. Our objective is to ensure that you have a good level of communication skills and that you have demonstrated an ability to use independent study to improve your skills.All Second Year Civil and Natural Resources Engineering students are automatically enrolled in ENCN201 (Communications Portfolio 1). This is a compulsory degree requirement and a pre-requisite for ENCN301 (Communications Portfolio 2) and ENCN375, which are pre-requisites for several compulsory Fourth Year courses including the final year project. ENCN201 is a full year programme and cannot be completed within one semester. Students must pass ENCN201 before enrolling in any Fourth Year courses. In addition, students must pass ENCN301 prior to going on exchange. Students who fail ENCN201 or ENCN301 become a year behind in their studies.Repeating Students: Students retaking ENCN201 must complete the full year (i.e., a student retaking ENCN201 cannot pass mid-year and then enrol in ENCN301; final grades will be released only at the end of the year). Therefore, ENCN201 and ENCN301 cannot be completed in the same year.
Apply the skills learnt, from reading & applying the Communications Portfolio Guide (CPG) 3rd edition, and attending lectures, workshops & tutorials, to all course work.Apply skills learnt in ENCN201 to ENCN301 and beyond.Improve on communication skills, with an emphasis on clear and concise writing.Gain a better appreciation of the role of writing in the engineering profession.Give effective oral presentations.
Entry to first professional year of CNRE.
Kim Parrent
Tonny De Vries (E431) is the Director of the course
Assessment will be as follows (actual due dates will be confirmed in Term 1 via Learn and all assignments are due 5:00 pm unless otherwise stated): note that date and assessment type may be subject to change due to changes in supporting course assignments and/or COVID related issues):Assessments - Semester 1Writing test Assignment 1 – lab report S1Assignment 2 – Oral zoom Presentation S1/Term 1Assignment 3 – Short report S1/Term 2Assignment 4 – 3D sketch S2/Term 4Resubmission of Assessment (dates may change due to COVID):Assessment - Semester 2Assignment 1 – lab report S2/Term 3Assignment 2 – Oral zoom Presentation S2/Term 3Assignment 3 – Short report S2/Term 3Assignment 4 – 3D sketch S2/Term 4Please contact the course co-ordinator, in advance, if you have genuine difficulties meeting submission dates. All submissions are electronic submissions made via Learn. All assignments are compulsory. Resubmissions are required if the first attempt fails. There is only one chance to resubmit each item. Students will receive, in addition to marking feedback, a score out of 10 per report. This will allow for extra support/guidance for those who receive less than 5/10 for any report. Students who receive less than 5/10 will be given extra tutoring on specific writing issues from the course coordinator. These scores will help with the Overall Communication Score (OCS) out of 10 at the end of the year.To pass this course, students must submit all items required for ENCN201W (a non-submission will result in an overall Fail for the course) and Pass all four submissions by the end of 2022. That is, a student must pass both written reports (lab & reasoning reports) and the two other items (oral presentation & sketch). All failed items must also be resubmitted at the required time. Students must also receive an overall communication score of 5/10 (50%) for the course to gain a pass. Those who fail to submit any one or more of the four assessments, fail to pass an item by the end of the course, fail to resubmit any failed item, and/or receive less than 50%, will fail ENCN201A and have to retake the course in 2023.
Parrent, Kim Louise et al; Communications portfolio guide ; 3rd edition; Department of Civil and Natural Resources Engineering, 2018 (Copies can be purchased from the University bookshop).
A course handbook 2022 and other supplementary material will be made available online via Learn. Students must check into the course Learn site regularly and keep up-to-date with course notices and material. Learn attendance/activity may be monitored in some cases to ensure a student is participating in the course during the year.
WorkloadSome 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, students submit a designated report that is part of another course’s assessment. However, students are advised that the levels of writing and presentation standards for Communications 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 Communications Portfolio we advise students to bring all their reports up to a high standard, using the CPG (3rd edition), in conjunction with the Communications Portfolio report template, so that they do not have to rewrite reports to submit for Communications 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. 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.There are set tutorials that support the teaching of ENCN201.Tutorials: a compulsory 60-minute Tutorial (Tutorial A) to go over the ‘short report’ assignment.In addition to the set tutorial: 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.
For further information see Civil and Natural Resources Engineering .