Course Assessment


The course will be taught over two weeks in Autumn 2011. Assessment for the course will consist of
three parts: a group project (30%), a longer essay (50%) and a mark for attendance and
participation (20%). Deadlines are 11th November for the first project, 13th January for the second
essay.



Group Project: Collaborative Wiki


You are required to produce a wiki website on a theme that you find interesting and that is
important to the learning outcomes of the module. The website should consist of at least 10 pages
and should be interesting, informative and well-referenced. You may include interactive content if
your web skills extend that far. Games would also be fun, so long as their content relates to the
learning outcomes and the content of the module.


To follow your own process of learning, and so that I can do that too, you will also be required to
submit a personal reflexive journal, which can include detail of your general learning experience,
but should focus particularly on the process of building the website. You can include detail of how
you chose the topic, allocated the tasks, conducted the research, and designed the site. Obviously,
it is a good idea to make clear your own personal contribution, although the marking will depend on
the quality of the website as well as the journal.


Examples of subjects that you might choose for your wiki:


1. Why energy matters more than money

2. Can markets save the planet?

3. Climate change: It’s the economy, stupid

4. Is there a gender aspect to the economics of sustainability?


The deadline for the submission of the journal and for the finalisation of the wiki will be Friday
11^th November 2011.


It is important that to achieve a good grade you produce original work, although you may also link
to other websites. As in any academic assessment, you will also need to provide sources for your
information—personal opinions will not be rewarded! Plagiarism will be heavily penalised, any work
not referenced will receive a poor grade.



Essay topic:


Next year Rio, Brazil will host the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development’s major
conference, a key theme of which will be the green economy. Imagine you are writing the submission
to this conference from your national government. What specific policy proposals would you
recommend to support the global transition to a green economy?


Word-count: 3,000 words

Deadline: 13th January 2011



Please make sure you do not miss the deadline. Work that arrives late will lose 5% of its mark for
each day that it is late. This means that even a perfect piece of work would be worth nothing at
all within 20 days!


I will mark each essay to a value of 100% and I will make the participation mark on the basis of
attendance and contributions in the sessions. I will weight all the components to arrive at a final
mark. The final numerical marks will be translated to grades in the following way:


A = 70 – 80%

B = 60 – 70%

C = 50– 60%

D = 40– 50%

E = less than 40%