Subject Code/Name: SCI2015 - Scientific Practice and CommunicationWorkload:- 1*2 hour lecture (which is advertised as 2 one hour lectures, but more on that later)
- 1*2 hour workshop
Assessment:- Research Project (50%) (broken up into 5 parts): proposal (5%), annotated bibliography (5%), draft (0%), poster presentation (10%), literature review (30%)
- Interview with a Scientist (0%)
- Peer Review (5%)
- Journal Club (5%)
- Blog (10%)
- Examination (30%)
Recorded Lectures: Yes, with screen capture
Past exams available: No, but there are some online quizzes which seem similar enough.
Textbook Recommendation: There's a couple of recommended books which, after a quick look through, contain essentially no similarities whatsoever to the lecture content.
Lecturer(s):- Roslyn Gleadow (SCI2010 Lecturer)
- Melissa Honeydew (SCI2015 Tutor)
Year & Semester of completion: 2015 Semester 1.
Rating: 2 out of 5
Your Mark/Grade: 83 HD
Comments: There is no way to put this nicely - I hated this unit. There are a lot of things in it that, IMHO, just don't hold up, and need refinements. Not to say that the content isn't
valid, it just needs a look through by some other scientists. I will note that most of my issues with this unit are extremely micromanaging, but there is one massive one, which you need to be aware of before you take this unit:
It is run by the school of biological sciences. In fact, let me write it again:
SCI2015 (and SCI2010), the
only core science unit, is run by the school of biological sciences. I don't mean this in a sense of "the unit has to go somewhere, so that's where it goes". I mean this in a sense of almost all examples relate to biology (with *some*, and I mean very few because I saw 1 maths example, 0 physics, 1 geoscience, maybe 2 chemistry [both of which I don't remember, but I swear they were there...], and 1 psychology, from other disciplines), the lecturer is from the school of biological sciences, all of the tutors are from the school of biological sciences, and also I basically did not understand any of the analogies because they assumed I knew what biology is (note: the last time I formally studied biology was in year 7). On top of this, according to their pseudoscience model, things like maths, theoretical physics and all things quantum (including atomic models) aren't science, and the only ethical issue we'll ever see is when it relates to animals or humans. This is really the *BIGGEST* downfall of the unit.
Otherwise, the unit can be re-classified as "common sense for scientists". You'll most likely learn something new throughout the unit, but if you've done a fair bit of science (as opposed to just "I liked this in high school, let's see where I can go with it", which is certainly a valid path) expect to be able to count the new things on one hand.
The unit can be broken into three themes, which you study alongside the SCI2010 cohort, so feel free to check one of those reviews for that part. The first theme is scientific practice/communication - how do we "do" science, and how should this be communicated? Including the review process of sciencetific writing. The second theme is pseudoscience - what is science, what isn't science and what makes this science good or bad? Not much to it, really. The final theme is ethics, which is just about what kind of testing is ethical and what kind of testing isn't. Importantly, Ros likes to say that each lecture is separate (despite being in one 2 hour block), however the one time I had to miss a lecture (due to having a mid-sem at the same time), the lecture afterwards constantly referenced the lecture beforehand. So, beware of that.
Also new to this year, every fourth week, the SCI2010 cohort had an online test, and the SCI2015 cohort got to hear from scientists in what they do now. Week 4 we heard from a climate scientist at Monash talk about global warming, week 8 we heard from a geneticist (I think... could've been any profession >.>
, also from Monash, about dengue fever. Next week (as I'm writing this in week 11), though, we will be hearing from someone who works at Catalyst. So, there are a few non-Monash picks among the mix (having said that, I got something great from both of the other presenters).
Now, for the part that makes this unit special - the "advanced".
Essentially, the only real difference between the two, is the assessment. The material in both units is dry, but the assessments in SCI2015 is 50x better. The first assignment, the lit review, is common to both. But, in SCI2015, you get to pick your topic (whereas the topics in SCI2010 are chosen from a batch of last semester's SCI2015 group), and spend more time on it (and it's understandably worth more as a result). This is a really good thing, because our lit review is a little more broken up mark-wise, but also the only part of the unit worth doing. My advice: don't pick a maths or physics project, because no one will understand it since most science students hate physics/maths (quite upsettedly...), but also because your tutor probably won't understand it. (granted, Mel actually is the most amazing tutor ever, and made an extra effort to make those who picked maths/physics topics more welcome in the group) As an example, I love statistics and would've done my lit review on Markov processes in a second, but chose to do metal-organic frameworks (chemistry topic) because I knew it was the only way for anyone to understand me.
Topics aside, the lit review can be broken down into 5 parts - the first is the proposal, where you present your broad topic to the class. Your annotated bibliography, which you narrow down your topic, write an introduction about it, and comment on 4 articles you'll later include in your review. Your draft, which should be close to the completed product. The draft isn't marked, but is used for assignment 3, so you have to submit it. Your poster, which you once again present to the class, but this is after you've done quite a bit of research, so your now presenting the results of your research as opposed to introducing it to everyone. And then, finally, the actual lit review.
The rest of your assignments are - of course - much smaller. The second is an "interview with a scientist". Basically, find a scientist, ask them what they do for a living, then tell your workshop about them. They can work anywhere, they just need to be currently in research - my group interviewed one of the pharmaceutical researchers at Parkville campus, another group interviewed a PhD graduate who is now teaching at a high school (but looking to enter academia).
The third assignment is a "peer review" - this time, you'll write a peer review based on the lit review draft given by one of your peers. You'll also get the feedback from whoever got your draft, which you can then incorporate in your review, so it's a very good system. Your draft won't be marked, but you are assessed on who good your peer review is.
The fourth assignment is "journal club" - basically, you find an article, and then present its findings to the class. You should pick one that's both fun for you, understandable by everyone else, but also funny in its own way. For example, I picked the "mean time until absorption for the asymmetric gambler's ruin problem with ties allowed". It sounds really "blegh", but it's an article that takes a simple game (which I did play with my class), and figures out how long, on average, you'll play the game until it stops. It's super fun for me, really playing with some cool stochastic processes, understandable by everyone (which says A LOT considering it's a maths paper), particularly when I found links to how it can be used to model cancer cells, but also funny in its own way (I mean, c'mon, it's an article about gambling.)
The fifth assignment, the one you'll keep forgetting is there until you do it, is the blog. In the blog, you have to make posts about the lecture content, and expand on it. I made posts about what ethics means for a computer scientist (based, obviously, on the lack of non-living-things ethics presented in lectures), the parallel postulate (a maths problem, based on a comment in lectures about how you always need two premises before making a theory [in this case, FIVE premises were needed before any comment could be made]), why MatPat from game theory is the best scientist (relating to communication and pseudoscience, exploring how "non-conventional" science doesn't mean "psuedoscience") and similar topics. It's also made a good outlet, my year has discovered, to really point out the pitfalls in some of the content in the unit (the first post and comments on the last post pointing out some of the inconsistencies in the unit).
The final verdict?
If you've never done any science before, but want to know how science works, SCI2010 is a good unit, but this one isn't for you.
If you know anything about science and don't have to do this unit, avoid it like the plague.
If you *have* to do this or SCI2010 (aka, are studying science), pick this unit - both suck, but this one has a much better assessment structure, and your main point of contact (the tutor, aka Mel) is absolutely fantastic.