University of Sydney Handbooks - 2020 Archive

Download full 2020 archivePage archived at: Tue, 27 Oct 2020

Sydney Research Seminars Descriptions

Semester 2 2020 unit of study availability

Some Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences units of study originally intended to run in Semester 2, 2020 are no longer available.

A full and up-to-date list of units of study available in Semester 2, 2020 from the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, can be found on this webpage.
 

Sydney Research Seminars

This table lists Sydney Research Seminars (SRS) units of study.
Units of study
SRSU3100 Reimagining the Future of Learning Innovation

Credit points: 6 Session: Semester 2 Classes: week 1, 2, 5-11 (2 hr seminar per week, week 2, 5-11 can be attended online via a web platform or face-to-face) week 3 and 12 (4 hr seminar per week, face-to-face) Assessment: contributions to discussions (50%), horizon scanning report (50%) Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day
Note: Department permission required for enrolment
This unit provides students with a unique opportunity to gain research experience and deep insight into the future of learning. Students will conduct research on emerging trends in this area together with experts from a wide range of disciplines. Through a series of online discussions and face-to-face seminars, students will expand their understanding of how innovations from diverse disciplinary fields-such as Information Technology, Psychology, Neuroscience, Architecture, Anthropology, and Economics-contribute to new ways of learning across formal and informal educational settings as well as organisational contexts. The work produced will contribute to the Centre for Research on Learning and Innovation's report on recent innovations and opportunities for improving teaching and learning titled 'Re-imagining the future of learning'.
SRSU3101 The Social Brain: Learning and Wellbeing

Credit points: 6 Session: Intensive July Classes: 2x2hr seminar/week, 2x2hr workshop/week for 3 weeks Assessment: workshop report (20%), group presentation (30%) and research proposal (50%) Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day
Note: Department permission required for enrolment
This unit, comprising seminars and practical workshops, provides students with a unique opportunity to bridge the disciplinary divides between social science and medical science, by collaboratively exploring how social and neurobiological factors comodulate (dynamically interweave) in processes of learning and wellbeing.
SRSU3102 Planetary Thinking

Credit points: 6 Session: Semester 2 Classes: 1 x seminar week before semester two begins, 2 x half-day workshops in week 5 and week 10 semester two. Assessment: seminar and workshop attendance and interaction, including seminar work 50%, final presentation 50% Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day
This unit is designed for third year students to explore the process of developing a research problem. Students will work with leading researchers from multiple disciplines to engage 'planetary thinking'. At the core of this new thinking is an approach to academic knowledge production that crosses disciplinary boundaries and takes into account the profound challenges facing humanity in times of 'planetary boundaries'. The first part of the course will introduce students to the idea of 'planetary thinking' through a critical engagement with methods and concepts from across disciplines. In the second part of the course, students will apply 'planetary thinking' to an individual project, tackling a concrete issue from within the students' respective disciplines. This will be done through guided research that will be presented in the student-led workshops in weeks 5 and 10. At the end of the course, students will be assessed on a presentation of their 'planetary' approach to a research problem which they should present in a form that reaches an audience beyond the academy. A special web platform will be provided for this purpose. Participation in this unit will require students to submit an application. Where appropriate, and with the approval of the relevant faculty, this unit may be counted as an elective for a major.
SRSU3103 Researching Social Issues in Southeast Asia

This unit of study is not available in 2020

Credit points: 6 Session: Semester 2 Classes: 3 x 2 hour seminars, online modules, readings and work, 4 hours pre-departure training session, 16 hours in-country field school experience. Assessment: 4 x online modules (10%), 1000 word annotated biography (15%), final presentation (25%), final paper (40%), participation (10%) Mode of delivery: Field experience
Note: Department permission required for enrolment
This unit is designed for third year students and provides an opportunity to explore the process of preparing, designing and undertaking interdisciplinary research. Students will work a leading researcher(s) to explore a particular social issue in Southeast Asia. Examples of issues include: disability and inclusion, political identity, migration, and urbanization. Based on inputs from seminars, readings and online modules, students will work in multidisciplinary groups to develop their own research question in relation to the social issue and then undertake research to complete a final paper that addresses this question. This experience will allow students to apply their disciplinary knowledge and critical thinking skills to a cutting edge research problem, as well as developing skills in research design, field work methodology, and their understanding of research ethics. A core component of this unit is a short-term research trip to Southeast Asia, supervised by a relevant faculty member. Students must be available to attend a pre-departure training session as well as two weeks in Southeast Asia over the Summer (following Semester 2). Participation in this unit will require students to submit an online application and required departmental permission. Students can find application details for this unit on the Sydney Southeast Asia Centre (SSEAC) website under the 'Field Schools and Exchanges' section [https://sydney. edu. au/sydney-southeast-asia-centre/education/field-schools-and-exchanges. html].
SRSU3601 Data Driven Discovery

Credit points: 6 Teacher/Coordinator: Sally Cripps Session: Semester 1 Classes: 2hrs seminar and 1 hr workshop/group work per week Assumed knowledge: Upper-level disciplinary knowledge Assessment: Identifying and carrying out relevant independent Research and Reading 10% Seminar interaction 20% Final presentation 20% Final paper 50% Mode of delivery: Block mode
Note: Department permission required for enrolment
This unit is designed for honours and 3rd year students to explore the use of data and data science techniques, in developing and structuring a complex research problem. Students will be part of a multi-disciplinary team that is a partnership between students who are domain specialists and those who are data scientists. Research problems will be chosen to span the space of data-driven discovery. These problems will have the following features (1) The complexity of the problem is always greater than the amount of available data (2) Data is varied in type and comes from heterogeneous sources (3) The problem has the potential for impact. Examples could include what factors predict youth disengagement, How effective was a policy in bringing about change, What lies underneath Australia and what implication does this have for resource discovery?, The obesity epidemic, Are humans more ethical than algorithms. The Centre of Translational Data Science has many such projects, students will be able to choose one of these problem, or to propose a problem of relevance and interest to them. Within these broad areas students will learn to develop a specific research problem, by building data-centric, predictive and testable models of the phenomenon. They will learn how to discover by being specific. Students will be required to outline how they might generalize the ideas in their specific problem to a larger class of problem, and so recognise that research problems in diverse domains, which differ widely in surface characteristics, can have similar structure. Participation in this unit will require students to submit an application. Where appropriate, and with the approval of the relevant faculty, this unit may be counted as a selective for a major.