Research Project (CIVL7513)

The individually written Progress Report aims to assess the students' ability to formulate, manage and execute a research plan with advice from their supervisor.

The report document must include:

• Introduction – Describe the background of the research topic, the issues that need to be investigated and the importance of solving these issues.
• Literature review  – Critically review existing literature regarding this research topic, summarise what has been carried out previously, and identify the key aspects that can be improved in the subsequent studies. Based on the review, identify the key research questions, and list the research objectives of this study aiming to answer the research questions. 
• Research plan – Describe the detailed plans to carry out the project, use a Gantt chart to tabulate the time plan of the project.
• Work to Date  – Use texts, figures and tables to show the work completed since the start of the project.
• Health and safety (optional) – If the project is carried out in the field or the lab, list the risk assessment and inductions to be carried out.
• References – List the literature cited throughout the report.

 Use the Final Report template provided in Blackboard Learning resources to prepare the Progress Report.

The expected length of the Progress Report's Main Content, excluding tables of contents, references, and appendices, should be approximately 15 pages (for a four-unit two-semester Research Project course CIVL7514).

The marking rubrics for the Progress Report can be found here .

The Progress Report will be assessed by the students' supervisor.

This assessment task evaluates students' abilities, skills and knowledge without the aid of generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) or Machine Translation (MT). Students are advised that the use of AI or MT technologies to develop responses is strictly prohibited and may constitute student misconduct under the Student Code of Conduct.

Oral Presentation sessions will be organised in Week 12 Semester 2. 

Preparing presentation:

• A presentation template is provided in the Blackboard Learning resources. You are welcome to use your preferred template.
• A recommended structure of your presentation is:
• Background and literature review (5 minutes)
• Research gaps (2 minutes)
• Methodology (5 minutes)
• Results (5 minutes)
• Conclusion and Recommendation (3 minutes)
• Your presentation must be prepared using layman's language, as the reviewers may not be specialised in your research topic.
• The presentation font size (including the fonts in figures and tables) need to be greater than 18 to ensure everyone can see the contents of your slides clearly.
• Avoid pasting large blocks of text in the presentation slides. Show Figures and tables in the slides and explain them orally.
• Practice makes perfect. Rehearsing increases your confidence, ensures you are familiar with your material and allows you to polish your presentation skills.

Presentation Sessions:

• A schedule with the time and session arranged for your presentation will be released a month before the presentation date.
• For anyone internally enrolled, the presentation will be delivered in person. It is strongly encouraged student attend the full presentation session rather than just show up at the time of your presentation.
• For anyone enrolled externally, please join the provided Zoom session and mute yourself, until you are called by the session chair for presentation. You need to share your screen and switch on your camera during your presentation.
• 20 minutes is given for your presentation, followed by 10 minutes Q&A.
• The presentation will be recorded, and assessed by 3-5 academics either inside or outside the presented research topic.
• The session chair will give you a notice when 3 minutes are left for your presentation.  
• Keep eye contact with your audience during the presentation instead of reading out scripts on your screen.
• The Oral Presentation Rubruic can be found here .

This assessment task evaluates students' abilities, skills and knowledge without the aid of generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) or Machine Translation (MT). Students are advised that the use of AI or MT technologies to develop responses is strictly prohibited and may constitute student misconduct under the Student Code of Conduct.

An individual written Final Report describing the research in detail. The report document must include:

• Abstract  – Summarise the research background, gaps, methods, findings, conclusions, and implications using about 500 words. The abstract needs to be informative and concise so that readers can well understand your research without reading the whole report).
• Introduction – Describe the background of the research topic (e.g., industry sector/natural environments, use numbers to emphasise the significance of the industry/environment, how it is operated/functioning), then narrow down the identified issues of the research topic and the importance of solving the issue.
• Literature review – Use your own words (rather than copy their abstract) to review and comment on how the previous studies were carried out to address the identified issues, list the key research gaps of the past studies, and the hypothesis and the objectives of the study that can fill these gaps.
• Research methods – Introduce the research tools used in the study (e.g., fieldwork, lab experiment, mathematical modelling or database). Use your own words to describe the procedures of the study (e.g., experimental steps, pre and post-process data). List the solutions used to fix any issues found during the studies (e.g., water leaking, missing data).
• Results and discussion – Use tables and figures to detail the findings of your study, and use text to highlight the key information in the tables and figures. The discussion summarises all the findings presented by the tables and figures and compares the overall findings with previous studies.
• Conclusion – Summaries the background, gaps, method and findings. Note that the conclusion is not a repetition of the abstract as it emphasises more on the significance of the research background, the implications of your study, the limitations of this study, and the recommendation on how future studies should be conducted.
• References – list all of the references cited in the main content.
• Appendix (Optional) – Place computer codes, large tables or figures generated by your research. Most of the reviewers would not read your appendix unless your argument in the main contents is not clear.

While there are overlaps between the Progress Report and the Final Report, such as the Introduction and Literature Review, the Final Report is expected to address these sections in greater depth than the Progress Report.

A template of the Final Report and past example reports are provided in the Blackboard learning resources.  The suggested length of the Final Report's Main Content, excluding tables of contents, references, and appendices is around 30 pages for this four-unit two-semeser course (CIVL7513/CIVL7514).

This assessment task evaluates students' abilities, skills and knowledge without the aid of generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) or Machine Translation (MT). Students are advised that the use of AI or MT technologies to develop responses is strictly prohibited and may constitute student misconduct under the Student Code of Conduct.