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Team engineering

Team engineering aims to develop the essential professional engineering skill of working with others. There are two weekend residential schools: you’ll work as part of a small project team, formed at the first weekend residential school. Projects will encompass a broad sweep of engineering, requiring cooperative development of the knowledge and skills needed to analyse an engineering system and produce a revised specification for that system. You’ll work together in a team, meeting regularly online and using a shared virtual workspace, under guidance from your tutor. Your team’s results will be presented and assessed at the second residential weekend school and through submission of a written report.

Vocational relevance

This module will be the culmination of work towards your Master of Engineering (M04) or Postgraduate Diploma in Engineering (E22) – and is aimed at providing the academic base for professional recognition as a Chartered Engineer.

Qualifications

T885 is a compulsory module in our:

This module can also count towards M03 which is no longer available to new students.

Some postgraduate qualifications allow study to be chosen from other subject areas. These qualifications allow most postgraduate modules to count towards them. We advise you to refer to the relevant qualification descriptions for information on the circumstances in which this module can count towards these qualifications because from time to time the structure and requirements may change.

Module

Module code

T885

Credits

Study level

OU	Postgraduate
SCQF	11
FHEQ	7

Study method

Distance learning
Find out more in Why the OU?

Module cost

See Module registration

Entry requirements

Find out more about entry requirements.

Module details Entry requirements Module registration Study materials

What you will study

This module provides an opportunity for you to explore an engineering problem in depth, working as part of a small team. Your team will choose its problem from a number of options, each with a particular engineering focus but all involving a broad range of engineering skills – from design through structural and control engineering to sustainability.

You will attend two weekend residential schools that run over three days, from Friday to Sunday. At the first one, which takes place at the very start of the module, you will learn about functioning effectively as a team and get to know each other by confronting a variety of practical and intellectual challenges. You will join with fellow students to form a team of four or five. Your team will select its engineering problem from those on offer and refine it into a project.

After the first weekend, and working at a distance from the other team members, you will individually and jointly pursue agreed lines of enquiry on your engineering project. Your progress through the project is charted in your team wiki, in online video conference records of team meetings and in team and individual reports, submitted as tutor-marked assignments.

All the teams will report back at the second residential weekend some 20 weeks later. This will give you a chance to engage in discussions with other students and staff members before developing a plan for your final project report, which is your end-of-module assessment (EMA). This is submitted several weeks later.

This is a not a content-focused module. Instead, you and your team will be responsible for gathering together the information you need to pursue your project. You will be supplied with a project brief and with background material about group working and project management. You will have access to a full range of information resources through the internet and online or conventional libraries. You will keep in touch with your tutor and work collaboratively with your fellow team members through frequent , regular online meetings and your team wiki.

Teaching and assessment

Support from your tutor

You will be allocated to your tutor at the first compulsory residential weekend. Your tutor will be responsible for monitoring your progress on the module, marking and commenting on your written work and you can contact them for advice and guidance. Your tutor will also mediate an online forum for your tutor group and oversee collaborative team-working tasks which are an essential feature of the module.

Assessment

The assessment details can be found in the facts box above.

You will be expected to submit your tutor-marked assignments (TMAs) online through the eTMA system unless there are some difficulties which prevent you from doing so. In these circumstances, you must negotiate with your tutor to get their agreement to submit your assignment on paper.

Two of the assignments will be joint submissions from your team, and two are personal accounts of your achievements and your contribution to the work of your team. The end-of-module assignment, which must be submitted online, also consists of a group and individual project report.

Professional recognition

This is a compulsory module of the Master of Engineering (M04) and the Postgraduate Diploma in Engineering (E22) and provides the essential group-working skills required for graduates hoping to become Chartered Engineers.

Residential School

Satisfactory attendance at the first residential school is required. Non-attendance at the first weekend will result in you being withdrawn from this module and losing a proportion of fees paid, the remainder of which can be used as a discount towards the cost of the same or another module if used within 18 months of the start of T885.

Should you not be able to participate in the second residential weekend, it will be reflected in your assessment scores. You will lose a proportion of the continuous assessment marks for the module and the team's score for the team presentation may also be affected.

Residential weekends for the module starting in September are usually in September and February. For the module starting in January, the residential weekends are usually in January and June.

The cost of the residential weekends, including accommodation and meals but excluding travel, is included in the fee.

Course work includes

4 Tutor-marked assignments (TMAs)

End-of-module assessment

Embedded residential school

Future availability

The details given here are for the module that starts in September 2017. It starts twice a year – in September and January.

Regulations

As a student of The Open University, you should be aware of the content of the academic regulations which are available on our Essential Documents website.

Entry requirements

Registration is restricted to those who have satisfactorily completed 90 credits of approved postgraduate study and who have otherwise completed the requirements for the Master of Engineering (M04) or the Postgraduate Diploma in Engineering (E22).

After you have reserved a place on this module, we will check that you fulfil the entry requirements and your reservation may be cancelled if you do not. We aim to confirm about your place on the module within two weeks.

Your spoken and written English must be of an adequate standard for postgraduate study. If English is not your first language, we recommend that you will need a minimum overall score of 6 and minimum score of 5.5 in each of the four components: reading, writing, speaking and listening under the International English Language Testing System (IELTS). Please see the IELTS website for details.

If you have any doubt about the suitability of the module, please speak to an adviser.

Outside the UK

The module is suitable for a European-wide audience, but you must attend the UK-based residential schools.

Register

Start	End	England fee	Register
15 Sep 2017	Jun 2018	£1944.00	Registration closes 17/08/17 (places subject to availability) Register
19 Jan 2018	Oct 2018	£1944.00	Registration closes 14/12/17 (places subject to availability) Register
This module is expected to start for the last time in September 2020.

Future availability

The details given here are for the module that starts in September 2017. It starts twice a year – in September and January.

Additional costs

Study costs

There may be extra costs on top of the tuition fee, such as a laptop, travel to tutorials, set books and internet access.

Residential school

This module contains two compulsory residential schools. You will be responsible for the cost of travel to the venue.

Ways to pay

We know there’s a lot to think about when choosing to study, not least how much it’s going to cost and how you can pay.

That’s why we keep our fees as low as possible and offer a range of flexible payment and funding options. To find out more see Fees and funding.

Study materials

What's included

Study material is available online from the module website. In addition, some printed materials and an audio CD pack will be delivered to you.

You will need

You will be using your computer regularly and extensively to work in real time with your team, at times to be negotiated with your fellow team members.

If you expect to use a computer from within a corporate network secured by a firewall, you should contact your IT department to make sure you will be able to use appropriate communications software. If you believe that this may be problem, you should get some more information from the module team before registering.

For computing at home, it is strongly recommended that you have a broadband connection.

You will required to purchase any specialised software needed to pursue your chosen project.

Computing requirements

You will need a device with internet access to study this module as a web browser is used to access learning materials and activities. Any other computer-based activities you will need to carry out, such as word processing, using spreadsheets, taking part in online forums, and submitting files to the university for assessment, are specified in the module materials. If any additional software is needed for these tasks it will either be provided or is freely available. You may need administrative privileges to install the software.

Suitable devices are:

A Windows desktop or laptop running Windows 7 or later operating system
A Macintosh desktop or laptop running OS X 10.8 or later operating system.

Some software will not run on Linux, iOS or Android devices.

A netbook, tablet, smartphone or Linux computer that supports one of the browsers listed below may be suitable. However, these devices may not be suitable for some activities. If you intend to use one of these devices please ensure you have access to a suitable desktop or laptop device that uses the Windows or OS X operating system in case you are unable to carry out all activities on your mobile device.

Recent versions of the following browsers are suitable for carrying out web-based activities:

Safari
Chrome
Firefox
Edge

Or Internet Explorer 9 and above.

Using a browser upgraded to the latest version will maximise security when accessing the internet.

Using company or library computers may prevent you accessing some internet materials or installing additional software.

To be able to talk and listen in our online discussions you will need both a microphone and speakers/headphones.

Devices with small screens may make it difficult to view the material provided and carry out the activities. However, a device that has a resolution of at least 1024 pixels horizontally and also at least 768 pixels vertically should be adequate.

See our Skills for OU study website for further information about computing skills for study and educational deals for buying Microsoft Office software.

If you have a disability

Written transcripts of any audio components and Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) versions of printed material are available. Some Adobe PDF components may not be available or fully accessible using a screen reader. Alternative formats of the study materials may be available in the future.

You may find Day 2 of the residential school tiring, when sessions begin at 09:00 and end at approximately 21:00. There is a 15-minute break in the morning and afternoon, 45 minutes for lunch and an hour for dinner.

If you have particular study requirements please tell us as soon as possible, as some of our support services may take several weeks to arrange. Find out more about our services for disabled students.

Team engineering

Vocational relevance

Qualifications

Module

What you will study

Teaching and assessment

Support from your tutor

Assessment

Professional recognition

Residential School

Course work includes

Future availability

Regulations

Entry requirements

Outside the UK

Register

Future availability

Additional costs

Study costs

Residential school

Ways to pay

Study materials

What's included

You will need

Computing requirements

If you have a disability

The Open University

OU Community

OU Students Community

Support

Study

Policy

What you will study

Teaching and assessment

Support from your tutor

Assessment

Professional recognition

Residential School

Course work includes

Future availability

Regulations

Entry requirements

Outside the UK

Register

Future availability

Additional costs

Study costs

Residential school

Ways to pay

Study materials

What's included

You will need

Computing requirements

If you have a disability

Where do you live?