Teaching, learning and assessment methods
You will have the opportunity to acquire all of the above skills which will be taught, learned and assessed concurrently in the course of studying the degree. You will be expected to show an increasingly independent and sophisticated approach as the skills and techniques of advanced study become more familiar, culminating in your dissertation, which will be a substantial and largely independent piece of work.
The modules will be presented and taught entirely online. Teaching will be coordinated by your tutor, who will advise you, comment on and mark your assignments, generally provide feedback and help you to acquire the skills of advanced independent study. Communication will be via the interactive VLE environment using conferencing software and forum sessions, as well as telephone and IT contact.
Learning will be via teaching blocks, which will concentrate on providing the tools for independent study, suggesting lines of investigation, and methods of analysis and providing bibliographical assistance. Your acquisition of the appropriate skills, knowledge, etc. will be tested regularly in the assessments.
Assessment
You will regularly be required to submit work (tutor-marked assignments) in the form of essays and shorter analyses; for the foundation module you will write three assignments and in addition be required to submit an end of module assessment; the subject and dissertation module consists of four assignments and a dissertation of 12,000 words.
The assessment exercises are carefully designed to reflect the learning curve of the degree, taken as a whole.