04.05.2024

Hi I'm Daisy and welcome program which. is designed to help our students please. do the program and the idea is they. provide you with a good online and also. interact with also please do interact. with the electorate because our students. find a little wee and live online it is. important that you do in the back and. because we live in a mash from you as. you do from us and it's our constant. drive to try and continually improve. what we can offer the student to help. them so I hope you enjoy it thanks very. much for steadiness and we look forward. to seeing you on the course. you. okay hello a very warm welcome to part. of the University and an exciting step. you've made to join our innovative. partnership with diploma or MSC we now. have the partnership is growing. extensively over the last few years we. now have a whole suite of courses that.

We deliver a truly unique and innovative. program I have a great job at the. University in terms of I'm the. university link officer. so I oversee the whole portfolio of. courses we have in partnership with the. program at sea today is about giving you. an overview and a flavor just in my. presentation about some of the academic. elements the program structure how. elements and marked feedback. expectations both of you as a student. from us as a university and in terms of. what's involved with the program so we. might talk I'll out like sitting up all. of the answers but I'll give you an. overview of the course structure a. general overview the course structure. all our courses and the joy of our. courses follow this very defined pattern. and a formula that works in terms of our. online student population and the via.

The June you make as an online students. so I'm going to drill down slightly on. some of the module aims and objectives. how that works within the university and. how that guides your journey throughout. the course teaching methods the use of. cause it again not an extensive list of. the teaching methods but as an online. program with it with the structure we. have they were utilizing key teaching. methods within the program. okay how we'll use an important question. as a student how will you be assessed. and marked okay very important and the. levels of support you're in a double. situation as it were okay cuz you're. both a university student and you're. very well catered for and looked after. an additional level of support from the. team. diploma MSC and a dedicated student. support system but we have links through.

To all of our university support. processes that your first point of call. in terms of any questions regarding. process and support that's available it. comes through your online support. delivered by the team here learner okay. very very importantly in terms of you. being a student with us is their student. expectation okay so not only what you. get from the course but what we need. from you as a student to be engaged in. process and go through the course. together best possible outcome okay. you've all made a significant decision. to join this to further your careers. your learning your experience within. these areas the paper there's an. expectation on you in terms of what you. do amongst the course and how the best. ways models for you to proceed through. okay so what are the course is it the. course is as you've seen through.

Application stage questions you may have. had okay they're the level 7 so in UK. university terms it's a must is building. towards a level 7 qualification the. alternative which there is a master's. and beyond the first stage is a post. graduate diploma okay so the PG there is. a post graduate diploma it's one year to. run over a calendar year and it's. parttime so there's a challenge area. part of the student expectation is how. you're going to manage your time within. the program amongst your other busy. clinical professional workload about. okay but they're parttime are not a. fulltime student okay one calendar year. so universities operating across. academic years our courses for two entry. points September and March then it takes. 12 months to progress through. sequentially through the modules until. completion they should slightly outside.

Of a university traditional programs. have tender to the following summer you. take 12 months to progress through this. program okay 120 credits such as. university terminology again in terms of. what academically what you need to. achieve to be able to. you're pg dip okay so a master's in a. number of credits beyond that and I'll. explain when I give an overview of how. then becomes a master's so for the. majority of students on our programs. they ply are accepted they commit to the. post graduate diploma we're going to. achieve these hundred and twenty credits. in the defined course you've signed up. for how would you get 120 credits where. you complete six modules each module. takes six week weeks okay we're a. hundred percent the innovation of our. course delivery or a hundred percent. online delivery okay we credibly.

Successful of managing and delivering. our content on life and to take you. through that but Jun okay I'll explain. how that's managed in terms of size of. courses you come onto into them what is. termed shooter groups and relates you. okay so for the majority is the PG dip. okay over a calendar year okay to get a. hundred and twenty credits after. completion of of six modules important. to say our modules run in order. sequentially issue you've module one and. then progress of one jul 2014 to step. off take the qualification if that's. what you applied for at the start you do. that you achieve that of course your. university student we celebrate that. success and you're invited to it to. graduation so need to collect your your. post graduate diploma okay to define the. MSC component and there's further study. involved okay so some of you may sign up.

For an MSC just at the point of. application and process onto the course. there you've committed to taking the. post graduate diploma okay I'm getting. the credits of a post graduate diploma. 120 credits but then you're going to do. another calendar year study you require. further 60 credits to achieve an MSC. okay so there's. decision to make a point from. applications age in terms of your. process you can obtain the PG dip okay. take that qualifications to have a break. and then apply to do the other man at C. year or you can apply from the very. start to do the MMC yet but it's. important in terms of your expectation. what happens in terms of that protest. okay the FCA is uses a similar format. for one of the modules so you will do a. research methods based methodology. module in terms of preparation for a. professional project so the research.

Methods module follows a similar similar. format okay but related to the online. forums and discussions and elements of. assessment that's required the major. aspect of that that year on the MSC. though of course is the professional. project okay and it's clear at the start. around the professional project okay. that these Randi is important a rally. include primary data collection okay. your projects okay which may require. ethics and human participants okay are. rarely achievable in the timeframe you. have within that MSC yet however. clinical audit paint developing models. ok processes outcomes related to your. research to secondary based points on. already published literature okay are. the model we use across the variety and. the majority of our professional. products okay my time you progress you. that journey that professional project.

Which makes a significant number of. weeks of your MSC year okay is. selfdirected you have a personal tutor. still supervisor for that process okay. and is managed online incredibly. successful of house having publishable. research at the end of that period with. the online supervision you get with your. shooter and supervisor at that stage. okay. so overall within the PG tip mxc you're. a level 7 UK beyond the graduate a. postgraduate students studying there. so it's higher level academic skills. level seven skills such as evaluating. evidence producing models of care. developing deploying guidelines within. your professional project outlook all of. our modules across a PG dip and MFC we. have defined learning outcomes have aims. and objectives of the modules and. learning outcomes your guide to the OU. student expectation and most of Rogers.

At the end of the module. what are you expected to to be able to. do at the end of that module. academically professionally related in. terms of the skill sets developed across. those modules ok specific very specific. time got time to go through all every. single module aim overview of learning. outcome ok but you have a detailed. Student Handbook and all the information. posted amongst your learning platform. which detail specific module aims and. million outcomes how big is that is a. module. okay well that's using university. terminology for a twenty credit module. that is 200 hours of nominal width now. we're not expecting 200 hours okay of. all lightning engagement to each year. 200 hours it comes from a variety of. activities and not all of them okay all. 200 hours dedicated unlike many clearly. the module is delivered online but it's.

Important to save people see 200 hours. okay how they assess me about 200 hours. means it just means the University of. Southwest with you 20 credit module you. did 200 hours of not little work across. different areas of the modern they. timelines how that looks. appears in the last six weeks you have. six weeks of intensity of them of a. module the learning environment and then. you have a twoweek break and then the. next module stuff okay so over an eight. week period. okay you are cycled through one of the. module. ready to start the next module okay. expectation within those modules will. drill down on individual aspects okay. but there is a commitment okay I. highlighted the 200 hours but there is a. commitment in terms of your online. engagement it's only online to the. modality. so there is an element on you in terms.

Of your engagement that you take place. especially with one aspect which I'll. detail shortly. of that engagement across the module. okay so yes we expect regular online. activity at least three times per week. they across a variety of assessment. modalities yes regular reading. reflection preparation other times the. pain our reflection in daily practice. comes out we'll explain where that's. picked up off in terms of our assessment. strategy so in terms of module topics. well that's going to depend particularly. on on which course you use like that to. do okay so across the suite of courses. within at each of the six modules has a. very defined theme pertinent to the. course you've signed up to so on the. screen you can see an example from. Rheumatology okay and then within that. module each module will then have.

Specific module aims and learning. outcomes into the module topic okay so. here with in rheumatology you can see. that there are find areas related to. that particular aspect of module. delivery such as diagnosis and. management of inflammatory arthritis. drug therapeutics pertinent and to those. aspects of multidisciplinary treatment. it is very much going to depend on which. course you're wrong. okay which six modules may be better. it's very clear in terms of the. structure okay and that's your familiar. ization. amongst your online platform moodle in. terms of which modules and the orders of. the modules as i said the order of the. module isn't going to change because. when you've seen this structure which is. what a one two three four five you know. how. yeah learning and that journeys is going. to progress through the topics okay so.

Exactly how then do we take what we're. going to learn or Jordan to actually. doing the learning in terms of how does. that shape and how does that look for. you as a student okay support so there's. both theories of learning and not to to. load up this presentation with theories. of learners reports although this is. adult selfdirected Lee you will be. guided you will be structured you will. per tutta you will be supported in your. learning okay but a medium for this. postgraduate level 7 adult centered. learning okay within that there's a host. of variety of support and aspects and. actually peer to peer support that you. Primus outlook in terms of large. innovation of this building platform in. terms of the success of how this content. is delivered to you okay so this adult. centered focus is around your busy.

Professional clinical lives were close. and balances that you have to make as. you are a parttime student and you're. achieving the level seven higher level. postgraduate outcomes in terms of. completion of each of your your modules. as I said massive strength to the. program that is your peer to peer. support there are tasks involved where. you were allowing your peers the paper. your daily interactions amongst on the. platform okay that you will be doing is. your peer to peer support your. discussions and fellow learning that you. pick from your peers around you within. your aspects and that's related to it to. a tutor group and in terms of how that's. divided up as I'll explain surely okay. so there is a social environment as a. social learning aspect to it there's an. individual living aspect to it as peer.

To peer support and there's shooter. student supports all within the mix of. interaction that you get within one of. our our modules and that's across the. suite of programs and of course. that we run okay so how are you going to. be assessed what type of work that you. have to do across one of your your. modules on the PG dip and importantly. that's first element the first module on. the MSC well it follows as I said a set. pattern okay so here on the screen you. can see four of the areas in which you. will have to perform an activity or be. involved in activity and learning within. the jitter within that module so we have. an academic forum it makes it the. highest percentage of the overall. marking structure of percentage marks. you get I'll explain that in detail okay. coming up shortly group or individual.

Activity it depending on the module. depending on the type of activity it. falls into one of those four categories. again I'll do some more detail on that. reflective jail. 10% right here I'll direct you to a. separate presentation on the reflective. journal they support around that what. actually is involved methods of best. practice with in completing the. reflective journal okay. very importantly at the end of the six. weeks okay where you have a defined time. given to a period of completion after. each module is an end of module example. in that carries 30 percent of all we do. towards a grade so but the University. that's what we call the assessment. matrix okay how many out of all the. elements of assessment come together so. your module mark is based on your. performance across those four activities. okay so the academic form is a key.

Important aspect within this of this. online learning modality okay so the. academic forum is where you are. discussing with your peers of the tutor. support and involvement in terms of. aspects very much related to the module. you're doing which then is related to. the course that you'll do it so here we. have threaded discussion groups okay on. the Moodle site of any kind of. conversation going on. are they your assess in terms your. engagement. the discussion on the Moodle site within. there you can use elements of practice. that's going on media reports but it's. in terms of how you present that and. discuss that within the academic before. okay there will be two clinical case. scenarios okay specifics given it isn't. just a freeform you are it's very much. is structured threaded seeded by your. tutor your tutor isn't there's one.

Answer every question okay will be very. formulaic and descriptive in what there. are there is there are standards and. similarities of course to remain. consistency across modules across the. courses I hope your tutor is there to. facilitating guide and they're very much. experience in terms of both be online. learning form and the content you are. discussing okay so the tutors have been. assessed by the university in terms of. their capability caliber experience to. deliver within that topic in specific. subject area okay so here you may have. discussion of relevant literature for. the module personal experiences clinical. examples relevant to the module okay an. aspect of work within that discussion. that help you and support you achieve. module aims and objectives okay so it's. important within it yet this is an.

Academic forum there's a quality of. quite a presentation of writing most. importantly okay which I'll come back to. referencing and avoiding plagiarism so. it isn't a forum to copy and paste. material it is that you're presenting. academic level quality writing. presentation and engagement within that. forum okay okay so here we have group. and individual activities okay again. within that within the assessment matrix. or and what you have to do okay this is. a great way to demonstrate the variety. of skills and achievements within the. module so here we have especially was in. it if it's. group activity where there's going to be. a requirement on a coordination strength. with different members of the group. coming together to join at the end in. terms of presenting an overall piece of. work on behalf of the group every every.

Group member they must play an active. role within that of course you needed. one coordinator and control aspect to. that in terms of dividing up work. streams and aspects to bring together so. we look for for a group leader to be. nominated in the summer a torch it will. take you through the process of the best. way okay obviously as it has it causes. six modules where we can have. individuals be group leaders we can have. coab leaders to do within that but it. shows that are another element in terms. of how you coordinate activity amongst. material and what's required okay so it. may be a very particular task that it. needs to be coordinated and brought. together each module has the task. elements clearly defined within the. module page there may be at the end of. that you have to prepare an individual. document that is very much particular to.

The module you've been doing relevance. to the group work we also draw upon. elements of your own group practice okay. so depending upon the course and the. individual module okay they have arrived. examples of work that could fall into. that category you may be producing. guidelines you may be coordinated and. all that pollution or was it there's. more struggle educational work or a. group literature review okay so it is. going to depend on the exact mortar we. were doing the element there but the. leadership component okay. just demonstrates that additional. aspects of the work that okay I mean in. terms of sharing that leadership role as. you progress through the modules. okay the reflective Jim again this is. much more detail in a separate. presentation but an element of your. assessments are module on the. okay that again will the first module of.

The MSC is a reflective journal aspect. okay when you are personally recording. your learning journey across the module. is that's taken place okay so it's very. much encouraged and developed as the. module progresses so it's not a complete. reflection when the module is finished. there's a deadline at the end of a. module just like the other of assessment. points that this needs to be completed. by so it's a it's a continual reflection. and observation okay in comments and. suggestions in terms of your learning. journey challenges with a structure that. you've adapted to other new areas of. learning that you've been put into in. terms of half of the modules below again. you will be guided by your tutor who. will have a look at journal entries and. aspects and guide you along as that. process it goes it's important that you.

You spent some time looking at that. sample presentation relates a reflective. journal okay so has the reflective. journal amongst that has that met your. own learning means what were your. learning needs. again that the models of completed not. reflective journal covered elsewhere did. you learn these change of the module. progressed did you or did you adapt to. scenario and realize you of you occur in. other areas okay but it's very important. a key aspect that I look for within what. you do groups is is there a reflection. to their professional practice because. this is part time you have that clinical. professional aspect that you can relate. from your practice to the module or from. the module to the practice most versa. but are you putting in elements from. your practice with into your discussion. or likewise as an area of the discussion.

Triggered some activity within your own. professional practice that's a high. level reflection amongst the the. educational aspect and the practice. aspect that's going on okay and there's. a variety of examples hopefully you will. get as you build through the modules. where you've been applying. vicepresident across. the module to practice on practice c'mon. true okay end of module test how like. that look. okay well it's it's similar across all. of our courses and modules I've in the. end of module task consists of 30. multiplechoice questions relating. specifically to the module you completed. okay to you you have to complete it. within a within an hour okay there. within the module page there's a. defining section for the with. instructions related to the module test. so an example how like that look within. the within the module okay well here we.

Have from from previous tests that we've. utilized how that might look okay a key. question of stem as it's called a. question and the variety potential as. I'm sure majority of us through our. previous undergraduate and other. postgraduate training elements have done. multiple choice questions before there. is only one the most single best answer. that you can pick from that you have to. work through it is directly related to. the module material that's gone before. this the end of the module that you've. covered within there okay so here we. have specific question there related to. pulmonary arterial hypertension okay so. I usually find this item in the. respiratory aspect there okay it's just. easy questions are very defined time. limit to complete that test how do we. mark you okay this is important for the.

Online aspect of there that it's clear. in terms of how you're going to be. assessed within there okay so we have a. module marking grid and I make a. reference you can draw to how how the. tutors are going to assess you within. that module marking grid and actually in. York. which you can access via the site key. here okay within that within your your. discussion online discussion is delivery. promptness some relevance expression and. engagement with the community let's go. back to in terms of relevance expression. okay and how you've delivered it in. terms of it's an academic writing aspect. issue it is assessed in terms of quality. of the the presentation okay so for. example you wouldn't writing in text. speak okay in terms of how are you. making in truth in there that the whole. structure and presentation of it should.

Be presented at how you would present an. active have a piece of work but may. prompt this out of well qualified. shortly as well okay so here we have. some examples of discussions in response. to a thread where the following question. with us okay so within one of the. discussions okay this question arise. what do you think about the debate. relates into tight glycemic control in. people with prior cardiovascular disease. okay so primaries will be within the. diabetes course. okay well that just as a question itself. there's a variety of areas where you can. go in terms of how you respond to that. okay here's a response that isn't going. to be created very high in fact might be. a fail okay in answer to a question yeah. it was great okay how would it be marked. well according to the marking grid okay. promise but this is you know the time it.

Takes for individuals to respond to and. that that question that's been posed ok. solicit defined elements okay it's clear. within your course habit into the. expectation on you to respond sir now. this was I'll say yeah it was great was. actually very prompt so three out of. four for that however again at your back. to my first point okay it's an academic. still an academic piece of work that's. presented okay in yahoo's great fails. across a number of those elements of how. to be incest pay the delivery was. exceptionally poor zero out for okay. expression zero out to fall in terms of. academic quality presentation. okay community relates to how that. seeded further the debate has that feed. seeded further discussion within the. online you peer to peer group clearly a. hazard okay so may include statement. yang is great so they're they're not.

Discussion ends okay so that's a fail. within that I've got relevance they've. responded to the specific question maybe. clearly you know there could be a lot. more rather than work things in other. spots okay so that's them not so bit. that's the example of a fail an example. of a top mark excellent okay you can see. that completely different well detail. well structured okay was a prompt. response Ave is clearly they're relevant. to the content of the question a more. important you can see at the end there. has anyone else any experience with the. use of a particular drug or indeed filed. a yellow card put into them to the. discussion once being worth so they're. like lady has seeded further debate. thing is expecting further response and. discussion amongst that. okay so across those elements of a. marking grid that your tutors have and.

Are assessing you on okay you can see to. to stock being stark contrast to. responses ok across the spectrum of fail. or accident responses okay so it's. important to note that is not to fall. into a comfortable environment of just. firing off of a response because your. online they just just reading something. on the screen in the fired up it's an. academic discussion okay let's look at. that model processes variety of areas in. terms of quality and content and. relevance and promptness and delivery if. you post that you're you're responding. to. overall for the discussion okay you will. have a school given to that based on. those elements we just looked at okay. again very important before you start. with going into module one that you you. could look at that mark and gratefulness. to Hamburg of course you can discuss the.

Tutor as well that you're the individual. tutor for that module yeah expectations. around if you're not sure absolutely. that's basically make the post and. you're not sure that's what you want. shooters therefore to provide some. guidance in terms of the type of post. you've made there is a bit of experience. at the VATS of course you feel it but. from your very first post of being maybe. a little bit I know exactly what to put. how to put it how to structure okay but. it must you will gain experience over. very much over the first week of posting. and then by module four or five okay. then you can absolutely you know very. much used to the expectation around what. those posts should be related to the. case but really important that you. familiarize yourself with the marking. grid in terms of right away across from.

Promptness pay to rather than content. delivery okay very important okay and. again Senate a number of time will say. one last time it's an academic piece of. work okay so this beware slide very much. should be everpresent specimens. starting off okay on this journey of. posting online with inform and. discussion okay that you must be careful. and must follow good academic practice. okay so absolutely without question you. do not cut and paste material from other. sources okay your posts are detected. we're going by plagiarism software so. the tutor appear the team at learner to. to support learner support okay can see. a school for your posts within that so. if it's a fact salute be a factor your. tutor will guide you if there's very. much. then becomes a little stronger than. guidance okay in terms of what's. happening with your posts if there's a.

High similarity index it will cutting. and pasting from external sources okay I. can't say enough absolutely must avoid. that if it gets to an excessive level. okay you've had a warning and you. continue to cut and paste. okay you're falling within the. university category of plagiarism which. is the primary Africa terrific offense. within your program okay so please. please avoid cutting and pasting and. using other people's work without. suitable and appropriate referencing to. support and show the tutor and other. readers where you've got those that. article than the information from okay. so tutors are experienced not only is. the pleasure. suffer from the room experience they can. see if there are a number of signposts. that this word has been taken from. external sources such as change certain. changes in writing style okay anyway you.

Can recognize the article okay I've had. it before that people have to plagiarize. an article the tutors have written. themselves okay so I definitely would. not we devise not doing that okay. especially that's only that's an easy. one scientists to see okay and just get. to grips with viewers the university. uses the Harvard referencing system ago. this is an all fouryear referencing. system but within that also is the. plagiarism within university not only do. you have the reference you you can't use. extended okay so it says here excessive. length within attacks you can't just use. verbatim word for word sections of work. taking for other people and still. reference and say but it's not. plagiarism because I referenced it okay. well you need you all being assessed on. your academic work not what someone else.

Has written and you just referenced it. okay so that's a critical principle. point in a full of me as University link. officers are really quite like you know. the academic standards of expectation. okay so depending on other types of. assessment modalities are for within. your module okay there are there a. number of other areas that are look. if it's a group assignment okay there's. a the overall quality again it's an. academic piece of work that you've gonna. be marked on the overall quality of the. report report plus a multiplier to. reflect your individual contribution. okay all the way from group leader okay. to the social note. okay the social loop for the person that. just bundled along and got carried along. by the group. okay so across that there's a multiplier. effect to write present your. contribution to that piece of work in.

There it's important to have a. discussion you know with your tutor if. you're concerned about others. contribution to an area usually that. would be via the group leader. communicating with the tutor concerns. that you tell is constantly look at my. view and into the platform and seeing. the interactions in what is taking place. within that module so they will likely. be aware across a spectrum of. contributions to work individual of. silence okay well there's very much. specific on what the individual. assignment is but it's against overall. quality and it could be specific. elements that come together to give what. that final mark is given with what we. have a fantastic suite of types of. individual assignment depending on the. course but module and you've signed up. to do how is the reflective portfolio. marked again refer yourself to that.

Individual presentation among the. details are reflective portfolio okay. marked very much in a similar way to. assignments but with a reference soon. performance indicators specific to the. reflective portfolio this such as. purpose okay was there an or is there. evidence reflective thinking or clear. conclusion the processing the more we. used of reflective practice within their. paces so an element you're gonna be. assessed on so if you have little. experience within the reflective. portfolio that's an area. the presentation that the information is. provided to you okay and then get a feel. of what's going to be required within. that perf active portfolio again top tip. from me okay is done you're not even. this to the end. it says reflective okay but you're. continually reflecting as the process. continues so overall how across a module.

How does all that come together in the. the marks you get okay well the elements. of assessment a mock types of a hundred. and then weighted accordingly as I. detailed early across those four key. areas a pair way you'll get with the the. weight of contribution of those areas to. your overall mark okay so the module. mark is a composite they join together. of your contribution or performance. across those areas at the University. this is a little diplomacy visit. positive the university's University. regulations play here a past level in. the University of South Wales the pays. is equal to or greater than 40 percent. so you pass an element of a satin if you. hit that threshold forty percent okay. because we're in postgraduate level. seven we use Mary Pat merit distinction. terminology so a merit okay it's sixty.

To sixty ninety percent as you do a. composite mark for a module and a. distinction is anything at or above 70. percent okay so four modules new graded. pass very distinction. we have caused by rectus and the. university has of course needs of course. directors very much are in charge of. that their course is the academic. clinical nature purpose role perforce of. their courses within Luna linked in with. Luna. of course leader of the university is. very much academically processor but. these are picking up any query you. causes don't passing them back back to. this so your course director is key in. terms of the set the suite of of. programs we run with Luna ok because. their overall that is looking at the the. tutors have been tutoring on their. modules we're looking at the marks and. overseeing how that process is taking.

Place ok Martin feedback ok me too again. within the university take place within. a 20 working day there's a lot of work. in it so in the UK okay something is to. the arm included in a working day. getting that's coming that's at. University of South Wales ok you will. get a release of interim results they. following that period following. completion of the module review so you. must provide a review module at the. evaluation and you will get your interim. results again academic process. University process important to note. that they are interim your marks are. only final after they process at the. University which is a key part of my. role linking with a link officer here in. terms of we have defined university. examination wards that process your. marks within that ok and it's after at. that point that your marks are.

Officially the marks you achieve within. there I only really get to a point of. when you're told you passed the course. or not Possible's or there's other other. elements but important marks are interim. to leave it ratified by the University. okay what support will you get okay. a whole host I said right a very start. okay you get the doubledouble one okay. you're a lunar diplomacy shoe and your. usw student it's a partnership so you. have a dedicated support team that have. to say OnPoint you that's your first. point of call it's sometimes you have. students directly contacting the. University okay it's a university of a. significant thousands thousand dollars. of students okay you could get lost in. the universities especially as an. international shoe just phoning into the. university not sure which department you.

Need to speak to okay directly we ate. with the the support team here okay and. I'll pick up they then link you into the. appropriate support from so that. University if it's needed. okay but you must your first point or. must be to the supporting I'm at Luna. MSC okay. a whole host of information on the. website okay your academic tutor as I. said they're there to guide you an. academic process okay you will do if. required you absolutely will be. supported by the University Student. Support Services it's just that that. will be very very efficiently. streamlined to the correct support. department at the University you need if. you DA's via diplomas support team. okay the library support so they're. there for okay to support that you're an. online student in terms of accesses. specific resources and as I said you.

Haven't got as important to note because. feedback comes come to me from the. library is up you haven't got a. dedicated personal library okay. so libraries covering don't areas within. University and because you fall within a. particular faculty online support as. well so sometimes within areas. consider this a personal library support. member I think will support you apps and. to their fullest support but they're not. your own personal libraries where they. will support you okay Beth it is a plea. to remember that you're one of many. thousands of students right yeah yeah. questions that you may be usually doing. a support team for that and we can. filter specifics and back to the. University of required and you know if. there's anything about accessing a. particular journal absolutely that. question can be picked up and supported.

By library support most importantly. within the form of here's your own peer. support you all starting off at the same. time a massive strength of the program. its diversity of background fashion. experience clinical experience ok. utilize that support. okay the tutor group I mentioned is that. if we have a very large pool on any. course but you can imagine it's a very. large course they've had a significant. number of students coming in okay well. that course gets broken down into. smaller of a peer peer groups and that. may have an individual tutor so that's. it shooter group so sometimes on a pulse. you may have three four to two groups. but if it's a very large course okay so. you'll be going through with a. particular group of peers around you. well depending on the size of your. course there may be two or three other.

Tutor groups going through okay all the. different shooters we the key aspect is. as I already mentioned in our. presentation we've worked tirelessly in. terms of consistency so there are no. differences in terms of the experience. you get the pen knowledge tutored. reviewing okay it's a video very much is. a consistent approach in terms of the. activities of support you get amongst. those shooter support okay so in terms. of being a university South Wales. student okay there are seven before us W. rules regulations okay that number you. fall within the rules and regulations. paper now and all of the support. processes you get okay so like if you. have a student complaint for example the. last one on the list there okay you. would prefer that completing the first. to the team here through supporting here. at the Luna okay and then if required.

Then that goes through to the University. or follows the standard process for a. student complaint. okay so that's one end of the extreme. another end of this dream. if there is an extenuating circumstance. cases so life has thrown up challenges. and gotta make there is a genuine. extenuating circumstances why you cannot. complete a certain aspect of work but. certain that might. okay then there are extenuating. circumstances procedure again the team. here they're fantastic no the usw. process and what's required what. documentation what you'll have to do so. they'll take you through those initial. stages and then it will come through to. myself and some of courses at university. I mean will action that accordingly okay. second point on that list they're. written prove such as my presentation. okay. always boys academic integrity the cases.

You fall within the university's. plagiarism policy rules and regulations. and the outcomes if you are deemed to a. plagiarized more work so familiarize. yourself with the requirements that are. on you then okay how did you get your. results okay well there is a hyperlink. okay that's present down on the screen. okay with as it progresses through our. University process and system and then. you've gone through a university. academic board okay then results are. released on that slight there that you. can access neither that I think. hyperlink okay so and again remember the. timing okay feedback is giving you. within 20 working days the team at live. and tell you dates in terms of academic. board following which grades are. released extending in circumstances I've. just touched upon it is slightly more. details probably the one we got a lot.

Because we have a significant number of. students and things happen and things. happen and we need. utilize when you utilize the extend me. from circumstances procedure okay. as I said it's designed to absolutely do. that support you give you additional. time okay to manage your workload. because something has happened that you. could not complete it we may need to. apply for it okay but it's designed to. help students who in one end of the. extreme can't continue with their. studies or help students who need. extensions the pieces of work okay so. I'll cover across those importantly it's. not designed to help with increased work. words okay so an extending circumstance. isn't just that you have it was very. busy at work what we can you've missed. certain aspects amongst a discussion. forum okay but if there's a significant.

Event again the team can talk you. through what would be a significant. event if I have any questions about it. muscle I get up early and they can guide. you in terms of submitting and asking. for extension within the extenuating. circumstances procedure okay. so examples they're quite significant. bereavement severe illness severely of. course you can't do you work you need an. extension and guide you through the. extenuating circumstances procedure you. don't be offended you will be asked for. evidence okay that's just to ratify that. is change that can be if you're suddenly. hospitalized for example again we don't. expect you to come at once you know that. can be taken care of after the event in. terms you be able to document you know. that there was a significant aspect it. includes members of your family. okay Spanky that's better you have.

Dependents you're a carer of course you. can't continue to do you wouldn't meet. deadlines if something significant has. happened okay so my plea again is not. you have to come straight to the. University so launch that that process. okay the team here at. no but you know there's something's. going on and then they can support you. in terms of that that process okay. ultimately if events have caught up with. you and you just can't continue for. whatever reason okay we have a. suspension of studies procedure okay. details are within your student handbook. okay you're allowed once to suspend once. for up to a year okay now again may be. that the event is just too great for you. to come back quickly from that belief. you can suspend you apply for that. okay Student Support Team the advice. shop is that if you like the support.

Team based at the university liaison. will take place okay application to. suspend studies and will ultimately come. to me then at the university to just to. sign off but you absolutely can you not. expected if the events severe enough. simply just come back within a few weeks. you can suspend for a period of time. okay importantly the last point there. okay that is it. when you intend to come back okay well. how long is it going to take in terms of. that suspension of studies what we. expect from you and what we hope you. will do it's important aspect to finish. my presentation or okay absolutely you. must enjoy the course you've made as I. said at the start a significant. commitment time financial keep balancing. it with home and with commitments okay. enjoyment concert factor that were the. course you're doing the reason why you.

Wanted to do it in the first place the. motivation to succeed you enjoying. that's gonna drive your own journey okay. be at this stage realistic they made. thoughts about a drawing application. phase but being realistic about the. personal commitment required it's gonna. take a commitment the very part of. dedication from you to across especially. across the six weeks of intensity when. the modules running and to be fully. engaged with that module okay for their. issues something happens use this. all processes in place okay most. importantly don't just drop off the. radar okay you will be contacted we can. see when you're online we can see your. actives you can see your engagement. okay just contact the support team here. to start the discussion of okay but they. get a tip over the last five six years. don't just try and disappear.

Okay get speaking about that that's that. side the other that is if you're. enjoying it yeah go for it. maximize that enjoyment but if. maximizing observation okay and you will. succeed. within that's program you will succeed. okay we are vast experience in taking. hundreds of students through the less. online learning experience other tips. develop personal development plan okay. this dovetails nicely into your. reflective element use it to get the. most out of the course why are you doing. the course what you want at the end of. the course what's your future. aspirational what's your goals. where you going what's your direction of. travel your own personal development. plan okay there's my point there about. talking communicating okay how's your. emails our log into the website contact. you tutor contact student support.

There's a whole host of digital media. ways you can contact me but there's also. phone okay they still available for you. to phone in okay email social media. what's up whatever you need to do to. contact the team if you have. difficulties very very important as. really as possible notify the team here. within the student support mostly from. me okay really hope you enjoy the course. can't wait to see you progress new. course most articles thank you very much. you. hmm hi my name is Katherine wallet and. I'm the Student Support Manager of. diploma MSC and I'm going to give you a. tour of Moodle which is the online. learning platform that you're going to. be using while studying with this ok so. first of all you're gonna receive an. email which format which is from. ourselves and this will have your Moodle. login details ok this will have a.

Username and a password now if you can. take that username and as you can see. you're going to press login you're going. to use the link which takes you to our. site you're going to press login and. you're going to go to where it is. current student which is on the. righthand side you're going to put your. username in like I've done and then. you're gonna put in your password and. then you're gonna press sign in ok so. that is gonna take you to this page. which is the dashboard alright so if you. just have a little look around it will. show you what you're enrolled in ok for. instance we have your module we have the. instructions and resources and we have a. learner library we have reading. resources in a social forum however I. will show you these in more detail now. but if you just look to the righthand. side and you can see your student.

Support team and that is myself at the. top and then is Robyn Emma Megan and. ocean and what you're able to do is. actual schedule a call with us so if you. click on schedule a call it will take. you to our appointment system now what. this means is that you can book and. anytime to talk to us you can book a. time that's convenient for you you can. do half an hour slots you can always. book more time than that but it means. that we are able to go through anything. with you whether it's enrollment Moodle. understanding the course anything at all. the student support are here too and. provide that service for you so please. do book an appointment if you have any. questions at all just above that you can. always go to the FAQ an you student. handbook to look if your question can be. answered but do feel free to contact us.

As well. okay so firstly as you can see right. here it says last course access for me. but you will see your module 1 now this. is for Dermatology I'm using this as an. example however and of course the. content will be different for all. courses so I'd like you to go into. module 1 and here you will see and the. title of the first module and it gives. you a bit further information about the. aim of the module just up here you have. your student handbook which if we go in. here and I would advise you to read this. thoroughly before beginning the course. you're enrolled and nearly a week before. the beginning of the course and this. gives you time to go to Moodle to read. all the documentation is available to. you and to really understand and feel. confident before beginning the course it. gives you the time to then contact us.

And ask any questions and hopefully. you'll be fully prepared for Monday ok. but please do read your student handbook. as you can see there's lots of. information that is vital and of course. as you will not be a student with the. University of South Wales we abide by. all of their policies all of their. procedures so it's imperative that you. understand everything and it will be. much easier for you ok so I'm going to. come back here to the module homepage. now if you go a bit further down you can. see that there is the instructions and. resources page now I'm going to click in. here so the instructions and resources. this page you will be enrolled and for. the entire year you all this information. is available to you all year round and. and it's to help you with that each. module and opens up the day before it.

Begins so you'll have much more one. you'll have a two week break then you go. into module two and they will open up. for you as the next module begins. however you will always have access to. the instructions and resources page ok. you have term dates so it has the module. dates your submission dates. what's really important here is to how. you were greeted part so you have. marking guidance and this is exactly. what the tutor will be using to mark you. so it is essential for students really. to have an understanding of exactly what. the tutors are looking for and how. you're going to be marked and this means. that you'll be able to get the highest. marks that you can get and if you do. need any further understanding of this. you can always contact us or you can go. to your tutor just to make sure that you. do fully understand it so as you can see.

That is for the academic forum however. there is a marking and guidance for each. component that you do throughout each. module so further down now we have the. library resources and this is the. learner library now I'm going to go. through that with you in a bit more. detail and soon however I am just going. to go down here to the howto guides now. you will have a module activity for each. module this will differ between each. module this can be an essay this can be. a poster it might be a group project and. it will differ for each module and so. we've given you the guidelines for. anything that will come up within the. module so if I just open up the essay. guidelines for example you have. everything from the length to the format. the layout the general pointers and this. should be all the information that you.

Will need however if you do need. anything anything else you can always. come to student support or you can. always give to your tutor as well to ask. questions so as I've mentioned you have. the instructions in resources page this. has how you're graded the library howto. guides and then on the right hand side. it just gives you the link again to your. student handbook here's the FAQ the. university guide to Harvard referencing. and then again it has the appointment. schedule so whenever you're on a. different page you can always just. quickly book an appointment with us if. you need to so I'm just going to click. on the FAQ is here on the righthand. side and do they're heading useful links. and it's quite important that you do. take a look at these because this. housing information from you know how do. how do I find my group how do I use.

Turnitin how do i access the library and. when you've got a lot of information and. you've read the student handbook. sometimes there's simple questions that. we forget the answer to so please do. come here and if you click on the. question it will show you four instances. how do I contact student support team. you've got the email address you've got. our phone number and you've got our. student appointment schedule so it's. everything that you could need but if. you do need anything else and if you do. think that there isn't a question in the. FAQ is please do let us know so that we. can add it for other students to see. also right so I'm going to go out of the. instructions and resources page so now. I've just come out of the instructions. and resources page and you'll see that. the next link is the frequently asked.

Questions and that's what I've just. shown you as well so a lot of bit. further down on the module one home page. you see a video from Professor Steve. Davis who is a director of courses he. gives you a welcome message and a little. bit more understanding about what's. required of you and during the course if. you scroll down here we have the module. resources now if you click on here it's. the reading resource and this is the. resource that will help you throughout. the whole course even though we're on. module 1 at the moment or there's all. the information here to help you type. module 1 2 3 4 5 & 6 if you're on the. full Postgraduate Diploma so if we. scroll down you could see you've got the. course core material and then you've got. the module specific material here so if. we open this up it will give you module.

1 here and this is for further reading. and if you click on the arrow there it. will open up the document for you so. please do make yourself aware of. everything that's available to you here. but of course just for module 1 during. module 1. so just come back out now I'm back out. on module 1 homepage again now the first. thing that you are required to do as. well as of course making yourself and. familiarizing yourself with Moodle one. of the most important things that you. have to do at the beginning is to enroll. yourself with the University of South. Wales and this is very very important. this means that your results will go. through an award board and will be. processed and you will be able to. graduate so we do require that students. do it within the first the first 4 weeks. you must do it however to do it.

Straightaway is very important because. it gives you access to the university. resources including their library so as. you can see on the page and this is an. example this is my account so you will. see the number seven as an example. however when you go onto this page you. will have your University student number. this is an eight digit number and it's. unique to yourself and throughout your. entire studying study time with the. University of South Wales this will be. your student number if you bring up. student support and even if you contact. the University you'll be required to. give this number so please make sure you. do and you do have it written down. somewhere else as well please and all. you need to do is click the button to. say start enrollment and you'll be taken. through there will be a page where you.

Just put in your user number your date. of birth and then you will start the. process if you do have any problems at. all as it says just below here please do. contact our team and we will be able to. help you and even if that's putting you. in contact with the university or and. assisting you in any way we'll be able. to help you ok so the first thing you. need to do is enroll the University but. now I'm going to get on to what is. required of you during each module ok so. if we scroll down a little bit you can. see here this is the academic forum now. if you click in here this is worth 40%. of the module and this is where you'll. spend the majority of your time. throughout and the course so each module. is divided into six weeks. so we've desert we've divided the and. the module the academic forum into the. six weeks under six.

Weekly topics so each week you will come. in here so week one you will click on. the weekly topic and as you can see. there's an example here and so there's a. discussion started which will be started. by your tutor and all you need to do is. click on the title of the discussion and. it will show you this in red and then. you can just here with the blue button. you can press reply you can always start. a new discussion however the majority of. the time you're going to keep it within. the point that your tutor has started. the discussion points as mentioned you. will be able to reply to this message. and we can open up the menu bar and as. mentioned earlier under administration. while you're on this forum so for. instance now we're in the academic forum. you can subscribe to this forum you can. also just describe to this discussion as.

Well so it does completely depend on on. the level of detail that you want to. subscribe to but in Moodle if you don't. subscribe to these it will always. highlight when you have a new message so. either way you will be notified okay as. I've mentioned do contact student. support if you'd like any further. information on this. so I'm just going to come back out of. here so showing you the academic forum. and this is where you're going to spend. the majority of your time as mentioned. and if you just go further below you can. view the marking guidance which we spoke. about earlier and and but it's there for. you on the component just to go through. and familiarize yourself with again I'm. just going to come back out of here so. beneath the academic forum now you have. the reflective journal which is with 10%. of the module so each module you'll be.

Expected to reflect on what you learn. each week throughout the module so the. academic forum is split into six weeks. the same as a reflective journal you're. expected to reflect on each week on what. you've learnt and how you've implemented. that into your practice so if we go in. here you have lots of information here. so what is their effective journal what. do I have to do tips to get good marks. you then also got the video from dr.. Bruce Davis as well to give you an. further detail into what's expected of. you and then you will click on the. reflective journal just underneath here. and it's not open yet but when it is you. will see and the button add submission. you just add your week's submission of. what you want to reflect on and you save. the changes when you come back to it you. edit the submission there are.

Instructions in here and and then your. tutor will be able to leave you feedback. below and this should be weekly as well. as long as you're updating your. portfolio weekly your effective journal. sorry. so I'm going to come out of here and. then like on all components just at the. bottom you have the marking guidance. again for the reflective journal and. this shows you how to get the best marks. how to achieve them so I'm going to come. out of here again and we're back onto. the module one page now in each module. you're going to have a module activity. which is worth 20% I'm just going to. click in here this because the academic. forum you are updating us weekly and. while participating within your group in. your tutor weekly your reflective. journal that is to be updated weekly. and this submits as you update it update.

It sorry the module activity however. needs to be submitted at the end of the. module so we have as you can see here it. tells you when the assignment is due in. and it gives you a little countdown so. we just remind you that the work does. have to be submitted and it will let you. know when from the start of the module. so next Monday and it will be available. for you to view what the actual activity. is there are many different activities. it could be as I mentioned earlier an. essay it could be a group reports it can. be a poster so this will differ from. module to module so you will have the. instructions you may have have an. activity forum if it's a group of you. and you've got to collect all the data. together and you've got to and be able. to communicate with each other you will. have a draft submission as well you may.

Have a draft submission if it's going to. the tutor to be reviewed and then you. will have the activity submission area. which is as it says and you have to. submit it at the end of week six at the. end of the module and it lets you know. when it's doing and again at the bottom. of that it has the marking guidance that. again is to show you how to achieve the. best possible marks so I'm coming back. out again onto the module 1 homepage and. then. not least we have the end of module exam. which is worth 30 percent of the module. at the end of each module you will have. an exam is one hour it opens at the on. the first day of the last week of the. module this is this is the same every. single time and it's open for 10 days so. at the end of the module you have three. extra days to be able to submit your. work get everything in it and have three.

Days to be able to revise on everything. in the academic forum and then have time. to be able to complete the exam please. note that once you click on start. examination it will begin when it's open. of course and so you must be in a. setting where you have no distractions. where you have good internet connection. and please don't do it also on the. Moodle app or a smartphone or tablet. please make sure that you're on a laptop. just in case of anything and we do. advise students that if you do have any. problems whatsoever contact us straight. away with any evidence because we do. look into everything we can see all logs. and and it just helps us to be able to. help you if you do have any problems. while taking the exam okay so I'm gonna. come back out of here so I've been. showing you the module 1 homepage and.

Just to summarize you have the student. handbook here you have a link to the. instructions and resources frequently. asked questions you have the Duma toggle. for different subjects that will differ. of course but you have the reading. resource which shows you the content of. all the modules your first activity to. complete is to complete enrollment and. then just below that we have the. components that you are required to. complete during each module of the. course so although it will seem quite a. shock at first what you've got a. complete as soon as you master module. one its then the same format for all the. other modules so any questions that we. can help you with anything at all please. student support are here to make you. feel completely comfortable and make. sure that you understand everything. because module 1 is very.

Important because they do run the same. so as soon as you understand it it. becomes much more than after that okay. so I am going to take you now to the. learner library so if we go back to you. can find this by going to your dashboard. and then you will see learn a library. usw and if you click to access this will. take you to our library as you can see. you have first of all in the first box. guide to literature searching guide to. referencing guide plagiarism and poor. academic practice now if you open up. each of these it has further information. to help you with all of this if you open. up the referencing you go to more. details it will take you to further. documentation and then we have further. understanding here of what plagiarism is. and it really won't be tolerated by the. university so it's very and all students.

Need to understand exactly and what to. do and what not to do okay. and your tutors will be there to guide. you however is and it is up to students. to really read what is available to them. before the course begins and understand. that completely right so I'm going to. drop that back up now if you'd like to. access the University Library this will. take you to it please be aware that you. must have enrolled with University. before you're able to access this so you. must complete the enrollment and even. though that's on the module 1 homepage. it again is down here you have your. University student number and the. university enrollment button and that. will take you to it as soon as your. completed enrollment you will then be. able to access the library so you have. lots of documents here so this is the. library homepage if I click on here it.

Will take you to it. okay does many things here there's. there's a lot of information is. available to you but it's understanding. how to use it so then you have getting. started page distance learning resources. it can seem like quite a lot of. information at the beginning so there is. a 24/7 live chat with the librarians and. at the University and you can also book. an appointment similar to ourselves you. can also book an appointment with a. librarian to go through understanding. any of the resources that is available. to them get to you. sorry then we have some more resources. here from university extenuating. circumstances and and disability and. dyslexia service as well so as I've. mentioned which you are loved in when. you are involved with the university you. will be able to use the resources which. includes the library right okay so if we.

Scroll a little bit further down that. gives you access to the university. library which there are so many. resources available to you however we. also have given you here search. facilities in order to find online. articles so as you can see there's many. resources if I keep scrolling hmm there. are many places for you to and to search. and there's also a key here. so you can see if it's a book search. full text abstract and preregistration. as well okay so this is our linen. library with the University and on the. right hand side you can also see that. here's your student support team if you. ever need to go through anything we're. just there to book an appointment right. so the last thing that I'm going to take. you to is if we come back out to the. dashboard again which as I've mentioned. you can always click on the menu here we.

Go and you can click dashboard. and if I scroll down here I can see that. I am enrolled into a Social Forum okay. so now I come to the Social Forum so. here this place is important for you to. understand this is for any nonacademic. queries the the course director or. tutors are not enrolled in here it is. only student support and all the. students from your particular course so. that means that although there may be. say five or seven groups in the. dermatology course every single student. you'll all be able to speak to each. other in here and please also be aware. that there are about approximately 15. students in each group throughout the. module and this may change so it's. really good for you all to and to say. you're welcome to ensure there and get. to know each other because you eat. although you may not be in a group with.

Them for module 1 you may be in a group. and another point in the course and it. gives you a place to be able to and to. speak to each other and but if you do. have any urgent queries please don't ask. them in here please do contact us. straightaway because and you'll just get. a quicker response probably and so spell. it just gives call book an appointment. or and send an email to us if it's. anything urgent ok so you've got the. social forum there and as I've mentioned. you have your module one page you have. the learner library and you also have. the dashboard which is where you can. find everything so let me just go back. to click on your profile you'll go back. to dashboard. okay so just to summarize I'm just gonna. come back here and click on the. dashboard here we go so firstly at the. top of the page for instance as an.

Example here it has a message for our. students from module four and it's. letting them know as a reminder that. their mantra was going to begin on. Monday the same as when your your course. begins we put information there for. instance say that the exam is open say. that there's going to be about contain. student support and not available we. were all we will always send you out. emails however we'll always put this. information on here as well just as a. little reminder but what you can do is. just click the X and then that will and. that will disappear then so just to. summarize it will show you the last. course accessed which for me was the. social forum you can always click to. resume and go back in here so so showing. you a social forum which is for. nonacademic queries that is that. everyone in your subject so as an.

Example here we have dermatology every. single student in there and you can. speak to each other okay ask questions. to each other anything it can be. sociable then we have the instructions. and resources and this is you're. enrolled the entire year. this has documentation that you should. look at before beginning the course and. for during the course you then have the. reading resources and the library as. well which contains the learn library. and the University of South Wales and. and have a look at them before you begin. and then also we have the dermatology. course which of course is where you will. be spending the majority of your time on. the course and the first thing to do is. to involve with the university so please. remember to do that not on the. righthand side again just to reiterate. you have student support which you can.

Schedule a call with us underneath you. have the calendar here just to remind. you about submission deadlines although. this information is everywhere and it's. just extra here so it lets you know the. exam is opening that day you have to. submit certain components and then the. exam closes. let's you know upcoming events and then. also down here is just our social forum. as well for deployment MSc so that's it. from me and as I said students poor are. here to answer any queries at all and it. doesn't matter how small you may think. they are it's really really importantly. you do feel competent and comfortable. starting the course and if you do. understand everything so and we look. forward to speaking to you soon good. luck. in October of 2018 a past student who is. now one of our newest tutors came to. visit us in Cardiff we jumped at the.

Opportunity to meet with Joel and. introduce him to some of the people who. have shaped his journey along the way. it's been a very exciting couple of. hours so in number of hours I've been. driving around from one part of town to. another interacting with founding. director professor Steve Davis and. getting to meet some of my colleagues. from the Diploma course and also my. tutor dr. Dave data. diploma MSC has designed the program in. such a way that it really simulates what. an oncampus education is like just. without the physical aspect I believe it. empowers us academically and. professionally and gives us the. opportunity to improve quality of the. quality of our clinical practice in. general the social platform on the. Moodle platform really creates an. opportunity for those tutors and the. students to interact and get to know.

Each other. we also share our own personal. experiences. that makes it in as much as it's an all. an indication it also gives it a more. realistic feel and for me getting to. meet with the Diploma embassy staff and. a few of my teachers and colleagues has. consolidated that you know social. experience for me because you can have. the best online relationship but when. you meet a person it's very different. we're regards to being a tutor I found. that to be a really great honor for me. because either when I completed of. course I never for a second thought that. I would be qualified to teach other. people myself but I realize now that. having gone through the course probably. makes me an ideal candidate to share my. knowledge because I've been where they. are and I know how it can be especially. in the first few modules well for anyone.

Who is considering doing a post graduate. diploma with diploma MSC I would say. it's a very sensible decision for that. person the post graduate diploma has. given me an opportunity to apply most of. the learning from our mainstream medical. education with research and. evidencebased practice in my daily. practice in the clinics and on the world. through the great experience for me and. we're glad I had the opportunity. I'm dr. Shashi Panicker I'm a physician. from India I'm now a diabetes specialist. what happened was my interest in. diabetes increased when I saw that many. of my patients had diabetes and to help. them I wanted to do a specialized course. working on the Internet. was easy for me and the learning process. I think is probably even superior to an. in campus teaching process because it's. your online every day you don't miss any.

Classes there is no distance there is no. travel there's no conveyance problem and. it's a very good way of learning as a. very busy person I think this is the. only alternative that would have worked. I could I couldn't possibly go into a. campus or to another country and spend. time there this while I'm practicing. while I'm doing my daily work I put in a. few hours every day and this worked out. very well I feel that the education. quality is very good in UK I feel that. the skills and knowledge that I have. learnt would help my patients because. this has been a practical on onthe-spot. learning which has helped me a lot. my name is pretty sure I'm a doctor. I'm working with enhance clinics in New. Delhi as a hair transplant surgeon last. year I added my course in PG Diploma in. dermatology the course that I did was of.

Very high quality I really liked that. you know we could work in our own pace. and as doctors we are very busy we work. around 8 12 hours on an average day and. sometimes more maybe 14 hours in a day. so it allows you to study on your own. time whether it's early mornings or late. nights I found that the quality of. teaching was exceptionally high because. all the teachers were from different. parts of the world and we were being. trained by specialists in each of the. specific fields I think it will benefit. my career definitely it makes you feel. confident as a practitioner. course was brilliant I found it really. enjoyable had Lord the knowledge coming. out at the end of fish found a really. interesting found really good to work. with. it was pair time I could work it in my. own time because I combined it with.

Working fulltime and been a full-time. mother to four children it's very. important to be able to do it online and. fits in with daily life if we give my. career satisfaction a big boost it. already has I have been promoted to a. clinical nurse manager since I started. the course and I'm hoping to advance on. to either clinical nurse specialist or. advanced nurse practitioner most. certainly I have a better insight into. all endocrinology issues and it has. given me a lot of confidence it's I've. studied the subject that I actually love. and hold dearly is my heart so to be. able to go into work and to know that I. know what I'm talking about to my. patients to my colleagues gives me a. real confidence boost and I get this. feedback also from my colleagues that I. work with. you. you. welcome to presentation about using my.

Resources at the University of South. Wales. my name is Lee Wallace and I'm one of. the faculty librarians at the University. I look after your courses so that means. I relate with your academics make sure. that we've got resources for you it also. means that I'm here to support you while. you're on the course so if you have any. questions after today you're welcome to. contact me my contact details are on the. flight the university has full physical. libraries and if you live close enough. to be able to use these or you need it. show ufw student card that is a live. record as well the opening hours of each. library is available on the website and. for those of you and I appreciate this. most of you who won't be able to use the. u.s. subu libraries in person there is a. scheme called ask on or access. skál access allows you to use of.

Facilities and borrow books from other. university libraries in the UK the. website address is www.samhsa.gov/dtac. distance learner and university south. wales on the home page is your list of. participating universities local to you. so do fill in the form and send its room. and you get a cards to use your local. library it is of course possible there. to be an active library user we're not. actually setting fruits in a physical. library as so many resources available. online and it's going to be the online. resources that I'm focusing on today. to use the online resources you will. need to set up a password if you haven't. already done this then go to the main. usw web page and click login you'll then. be prompted to set up a password using. the selfservice account administration. you can also use this to change your.

Password at any time and to log into all. of the library sources your username is. simply your 8 digit student number and. then the password that you have set up. reading this can be accessed in Moodle. some links those which are freely. available online can be accessed. directly from your reading list other. links those which are behind the table. of university resources and ones that we. subscribe to will take you in to find it. once your and find it you'll need to log. in the link is up here and once you're. logged in you'll see your name in the. top right hand corner and then you'll be. able to access the resource by clicking. on the link in an another page. while you're reading this are great for. the core resources you will be expected. to supplement this with your own reading. around the subject areas so what we're.

Gonna do now we're gonna have a little. look at the library website we're then. going to look at using find it to search. for a book this is the library website. it can be accessed by Moodle or just by. googling usw library the main box in the. middle of the page is find it and this. is where you'll find all of our. resources and I'll show you that in more. detail shortly first of all I'm just. gonna walk you through this page so on. the side here you've got a link to chat. if you have any questions relating to. library services or things are not. working when you're using them there's a. chat service available 24/7 click on the. link and type in the box to start a. conversation with myself or one of my. colleagues underneath that you've got. the book an appointment link so if you. want to make an appointment with me if.

You click there and go through to do. you've got a list of dates and times I'm. available if there's nothing there that. suits you just give me an email instead. and appointments can be booked in person. or via Skype or via email underneath. that we've got the end of that of. library services lots of useful. information in there if you've got. question relating to the library and in. the bottom of the page we have some. useful information about different. aspects of library services so we've got. a borrowing link here this tells you all. the information about returns and. Newell's requests so on and so forth so. you are NEP using the physical library. familiarize yourself the best. information first and you've got a range. of useful guides and then I provides a. link here you'll see guides to find it. such as specific guides really important.

You've got the you SW Harvard. referencing guide if you will be. expected to wrap your efforts your. assignments in us if you harvest and the. getting started guide for and all of the. basic stuff that I've gone through today. going through Bob which is our online TV. and radio service lots of useful. television content and available in the. UK information about different aspects. prime services and. mention here of that research so this. guy here how to research a Google. Scholar and lots of really helpful stuff. you've also got the contact information. here and under parttime at distance and. partners we have a guide to distance. students if you click on that you'll see. relevant information for those of you. based in the UK and those of you based. outside of the UK one thing just to. mention is the WiFi and we're part of a.

Global WiFi network service called ng. Road so it's a login to it it's your. student number at South Wales from AC. dot UK and then your normal University. password. it's a worldwide WiFi network so if you. do use universities over the globe you. should be able to pick up the edge your. own network. now I'm going to look at searching for. books in find it find it in the box in. the middle of the page allows you to. search UFO news connections. I put your keywords in here or click on. the link to find it to go directly and. once it finds it make sure that you sign. in using the link at the top of the page. you'll then see your name in that top. corner and what that means is you'll be. able to access everything that you. should be able to and also you'll be. able to use the full functionality or. find it type your search terms into the.

Box and you can choose at this point to. search everything which is absolutely. everything all of the books and all the. journals libraries which is the titles. of the books and the titles of the. journals or journal articles which is. the fulltext of all of the journal. articles because I'm looking for a book. I'm just going to refine my search for. libraries and you can see on this. lefthand side there are some refining. features here so you can refine it to a. particular library you can refine it by. date and more importantly if you're an. online student you can refine it to just. those books that are available. electronically we do try and buy all of. your core books electronically so. hopefully you'll be able to find many of. them within finder or by reading this. however unfortunately not everything is. available electronically so there may be.

Some books that we aren't able to get. hold of in which case you will be able. to source that you will need to source. them from elsewhere and this is I'm just. going to find it's a fulltext online. I'm going to choose this top one here. and if you follow the links there and. that will take you into the item record. on this page here you'll see some useful. stuff you see a permanent link so if you. are going to be needing to get back to. it you can also get a citation which I. mentioned early you will be exactly to. see referencing usw Harvard this is a. normal Harvard citation so you will need. to adapt it to us a view Harvard but it. hasn't got all the information that you. need to do a few years you have 30. Harvard referencing you can also email. it yourself and you can also add things. to your favorites by using the pin at.

The top and I'll go into more detail. about that shortly. to access the book there's a link here. click that that fix your way from find. it into the page a bit deeper provider. this one comes from to the Michael. Dawson era you don't need to worry about. that that's just where we bought it from. what you're looking for is an icon to. either download it or to read it online. or books will have one if not both of. those options if you read it online. you'll see opens a book exactly the same. as the print version go to the pages and. go to the contents you can search within. the book and get a little bit of context. you can write notes you can also cite a. copy and print up to ten percent or one. chapter so if you are going to be. referencing this in an assignment you. can just copy and paste there at nyun if. you try and be more than a chapter or.

Ten percent you'll get a copyright. warning message if you haven't used the. books before good idea just have a play. around with them get used to navigating. them get used to reading them onscreen. hopefully you'll find them as. straightforward as we do I'm now going. to look at using find it's to discover. journal articles before we look at. looking at journal articles I do want to. talk a little bit about search strategy. so before you start any assignment it's. a good idea to have a little think about. it what are you writing you writing and. report you're writing an essay how many. words is it because the more words the. more references you're going to need. also how much do you know about the. topic. if you don't know very much you might. want to read some of the coretex books. before you start searching for journal.

Articles to enable you to get effective. keywords. and your keywords are the most important. part of your search strategy the better. your keywords the back of your results. are going to be so break it down don't. turn to hold assignment titles into the. search engine pick out a handful of. keywords and then brainstorm any related. ones that you can think of. for example if you were looking at. teenagers you'd also want to use. adolescent and young person to bring. back relevant results think about. broader and narrower terms think about. different spellings and think about. different terminology just spend a few. minutes brainstorming your key words. before you start searching it will save. you a lot of time in the long run and. what we have on this slide is just a few. examples of things you might want to. consider.

Also consider your search foundries I'm. interested in a specific geographical. area a particular time period or each is. certain to keep it as current as. possible and which group of the. population are you that's announced. once you've got your keywords you want. to consider how you're going to search. this is a link to the library's research. guide which includes a page on searching. techniques the link is up here libguides. or south wales. AC dot UK forward slash research and. this includes things like boolean logic. so the and and the or and they're not. truncating words to find different. endings and searching for phrases and so. on and so forth have a good look at this. guide before your search start searching. then consider using these searching. techniques to enable you to search more. effectively and efficiently and have.

This at your side when you're doing your. searches. once we've considered our keywords and. our searching techniques then it's. hunted up for some journal articles and. find it you can refine your search to. articles here I would always click on. advanced search because that gives you a. few more options in terms of putting. your keywords in and then popping your. keywords so I'm going to look for. adolescent or teenager or child and I'm. going to look in the title field because. I want that to be cool to my article and. then I'm going to pop in. I'm going to do that as a phrase if you. look in the goto searching technique it. will explain that in there I'm also. gonna search I'm going to find that the. last five years because I want to keep. it nice and current and click search and. you'll get a list the results then we've.

Got 59 there are refining features down. this lefthand side so you can refine it. by subject you can refine it to specific. journal titles you can also refine it to. those opinions here a few different. functionality there for you and this is. I just want to elaborate a little bit on. the favorites so you'll notice that. every record has got a pin by it if you. click that pin it says it's your. favorites area your favorites can be. accessed at any point in time by. clicking the big pin at the top of the. page and you'll see here a list of. everything that I've got in my favorites. definitely worth anything with you use. just popping it in your favorites and. you know then that you will always be. able to get back to it when you've come. across the journal that you want to the. table if you click on the title that.

Will take you into the item record just. like with the books and you've got the. permanent link and you've got a citation. and just like with the electronic book. there is a link away from find it in to. the journal article this time instead of. book and a link so here we have the. whole journal article when you're in a. journal article if you control an app it. gives you a map or search box so you can. look for your keywords within the. article. and work out whether or not it's going. to be worth while you're reading it. you've of course got the abstract here. to have a little look at as well. find it as a resource discovery tool. searches all of our collections and it's. a great starting point for any. assignment across searches all of the. individual databases we subscribe to. this is things like cinahl MEDLINE.

Cochrane things that you will probably. have used before you may want to search. these individually in addition to find. it for a number of reasons firstly the. databases allow you to refine your. search more thoroughly secondly the. database is searched a discreet range of. subject specific resources these may. offer you a more manageable range the. fragment results then find it which. cross searches everything that. University has and thirdly it find it. only searches all tracks connections and. in the databases you'll find other. things not in our collections that are. relevant to your assignments. so access the databases first check that. you're logged in if you logged in click. find databases at the top of the screen. and from the exercise list you can. choose a subject that's relevant to you. so many for nursing what you'll see then.

If the core database is highlighted at. the top in yellow along with some more. general ones at the bottom each state's. race is for a short description and I'm. with them identify as so you should be. able to work out whether or not it's. relevant to your subject when you find. one that you think is useful in this. case I'm gonna have a look at Cinar. click on the title and that takes you. away from our webpage and into the. database itself if you haven't seen a. cinahl or a database before you'll. notice here a lot more search. functionality we move on and find it not. all of them databases will have all. these options they won't have some. additional options a lot of the. databases also have their own inbuilt. thesaurus so as soon as you start typing. it gives you suggestions for things that. you might want to be looking for I also.

Suggest alternative keywords and I'm. just going to refine my search to title. and click search you can refine your. search by date so we're going to refine. it to the last five years and you see. here you can also refine it so all the. things we discussed earlier but also you. can refine its academic journals you'll. notice from the database words and finds. that everything had a link some of these. I've got a full text link so it's 20. year have and others haven't and if. there isn't a link doesn't mean we. haven't got it that just means we. haven't got it within a skin our. subscription the next thing you would. need to do is check find it either by. clicking the check fine if a full text. link or if there isn't one of those. available just copy the title and paste. that into the search box on find it and. if we search find it for this journal.

Article we'll find out then whether or. not we've got it through one of our. other collections and we have. if we did have it through different. provider there would be a link here if. there isn't one available there is the. link to the British side we request for. either new five for free British Library. requests per academic year so anything. that you want that we haven't got just. click on the link fill in the form and. send it through to digital delivery and. we'll have a copy email to you within a. couple of days five for free after that. is three pounds of pot just something to. note quickly though before you do do. that it's always worthwhile just copying. the title and pop it in to Google. Scholar lots of content is indexed from. Google Scholar and you do find things. like research gates university archives.

Charity archive so sometimes you can. find things on Google Scholar that you. can't find and find it. so I just mentioned Google Scholar. Google Scholar is a good supplement to. you'll find it in database searches and. the indexes University and charity. repositories as well as many other sites. and you can set it up to work with find. it by using library links if you go into. the scholar settings and library links. and then just highlight the box that. says find get at University of South. Wales and failure then any searching. that you do in Google Scholar if we've. got the article through finds it they'll. be linked to it you see here it's also. finding links from other places so these. are things that are not on find it where. the article is freed a available to you. the other nice thing that Google Scholar.

Does it gives you citations so any. article that you find you can have a. look and see it's been cited by any. newer articles and then if you click on. that link it tells you what those. articles are definitely worry about. having a look often they can then find. other stuff that's useful and also you. can check and see if an article that's a. little bit older it's still being cited. currently. finally thanks very much for listening I. know I've covered a lot of information. in the short space of time but the. content will be available in Moodle for. you to rewatch and consult when you're. searching on your own and please don't. hesitate to get in touch with the. library or me good luck on your course. okay now we're going to look at the. reflective journal you'll remember that. each module has four elements of.

Assessment and the reflective journal is. one of those elements and you'll also. should be getting the message now that. the assessment here is threaded through. the whole course so I just want to talk. a little bit about reflective practice. and how you do that in a reflective. journal you may say look I've been. qualified for 15 20 years I'm quite. experienced but what we're doing in. reflective practice is saying that just. because you're experienced doesn't mean. to say that you've got it nailed it. might be that since you qualified 15. years ago research has found a better. way of doing things it might be that you. could do the same thing quicker or. better there may be new technology that. you could use or it might be something. internal maybe you you're burnt out and. you're fed up with people and your. attitude could do with a bit of.

Improvement well maybe you could. understand your clients or your patients. and that might affect the way you. interact so there are lots of reasons. why reflection is a good practice for. professionals you may say I'm not really. into this touchyfeely soft modern. mumbojumbo stuff but what I would say. is this is not new all right. Confucius many years ago said that we. may learn wisdom by reflection which is. the noblest way of learning or you can. learn it by imitation no see one do one. teach one or by experience which is the. bitterest and we want to try to prevent. you having bitter experience but to use. this whole process both the learning on. the course and in your practice. to improve your practice. so the next two slides provides some. definitions of reflection it's one of. those in things in professional practice.

And for many healthcare professionals. they have to reflect on their practice. as part of their revalidation of their. professional qualification I'm not going. to read everything that's on the screen. you can read it yourself but reflection. is basically thinking about what you do. the impact your actions have on other. people and of course all these slides. are going to be on the Moodle website. anyway so you can look at them at your. leisure. so in reflection you're looking at a. situation and you're thinking about it. the doyen of reflective practice is a. guy called Donald Shawn and I don't know. how many of you aware but this. reflective practice idea was first tried. out in airline pilots where they had. near misses and they got the airline. pilots to think about how they could do. things differently and and and it was.

Translated into teaching and health care. and so that's where the concept has come. from so reflection is a way that you can. turn your experience into meaningful. learning. it's important because it makes you or. it gives you the opportunity to examine. issues related to your course it may. enable you to look at a clinical. incident or something that's happened in. your professional practice so it's. partly professional but there is a. personal element to it it makes you. explore some of the ways in which you. react to certain situations and some of. those will be culturally bound for all. of us none of us exists in a vacuum we. all have different religious backgrounds. different cultural backgrounds different. educational backgrounds and all of those. have made us the person that we are some. of the issues that we've developed that.

We've confronted in practice have. affected the way our future practice. happens. so what does that mean in terms of the. course the reflective journal is 10% of. each module mark okay and the reflective. journal is something that we want you to. contribute to throughout the whole of. the course so we will be expecting you. to write in the journal every week but. we want you to do it in a structured way. to structure your thinking so that you. get something more out of it one of the. differences between the reflective. journal and the academic forum where. you're going to be discussing scenarios. or cases is that in the journal you're. going to write personally so whereas in. academic writing we would expect you to. say Smith and Jones said this this. papers suggests that in your reflective. journal you'll say this is what happened.

To me today and this is how I felt about. it now I know that for some of you. that's a bit intimidating but that's. what we want you to do it might be that. you refer to objective elements it might. be that you say and start in this module. and this is an area I feel confident in. or this is a module this is a module. that a subject area I don't know much. about and therefore I feel more fearful. so you're describing what you're talking. about. but you're also talking about how you. feel about it because that's going to. influence the way you approach it. some of the reasons why we want you to. do this is for you to look into yourself. to think about your own beliefs and your. own values where does that come from to. understand your own strengths and. weaknesses maybe to acknowledge some of. your fears to not acknowledge some of.

The ways you react in certain situations. and to challenge some of the assumptions. on which you base your actions think. about whether there are ways in which. you could act better and identify areas. for possible improvement what happens. when you're faced with an aggressive. patient and has some of us back into a. corner and back down some of us come out. fighting. why do you react the way that you do. think about how you do react think about. a scenario you've had in practice where. a patient has been difficult with you or. you've had a difficult consultation what. makes it difficult why was it difficult. for you. how did you tackle it what could you do. better how do you react in a stressful. situation. and that's what we're asking you to do. in this journal so you'll see now that. there isn't actually a right and a wrong.

In this this is about your personal. journey we ask you to do this in a. structured way because it will help you. because you might kind of freeze. anything I don't know what to do and the. sorts of things that we're asking you to. reflect on are the learning that you're. doing on the course. perhaps your personal perhaps something. in your personal situation which is. related to the learning that you're. doing or in your clinical or practice. experience that is related to the. learning that you are doing so we're. going to give you now three possible. structures to help you with your. thinking and there's no right or there's. no wrong but what we would say is choose. one and see which one you're going to. use so that the the tutors understand. what you're doing this might vary. depending on your professional. background if you're a medic you might.

Be familiar with a critical incident. report and therefore you might feel more. comfortable with this so what you would. do is describe what's happened patient. collapsed in front of me explain why it. was significant to you how did you feel. about it what were your concerns at the. time what impact did it have on you as a. person. I'd presume that this will be in the. context of the learning that you're. doing at the time in the module and. maybe what did you learn from it what. could what could you have done. differently did you realize that there. was a gap in your knowledge if that's. true you might go away do the reading. and then provide the references for the. reading that you've done so this is. enhance my learning when the patient. collapsed in front of me the next time I. will do this or this this worked well.

Why did it go well what did I do that. was good but that's equally valid. for those of you that are nurses I've. got a feeling there's a transition here. no no yeah this is Gabe's reflective. cycle the nurses amongst you will be. familiar with this again it's describing. what has happened how you felt about it. what was good and bad about the. experience what sense can you make of. the situation what else could you have. done and what action plan what would you. do differently if it happened again a. student kindly gave us permission to put. their posting up I'll leave that there. for you to read but it's somebody who's. used Gibbs reflective model I'm not. saying it's perfect but it was seen as. quite a good example. we do tend to find that the different. professional groups have different. strengths and weaknesses in the.

Different assessment things I this is a. generality and I don't wish to. stereotype anybody but on the whole the. nurses are more familiar with reflective. practice the doctors are better at the. multiple choice questions at the end and. you know we all bring strengths and. weaknesses to this course you'll all. feel more confident in some areas than. others. but that's partly why we make it the. combination of marks at the end of the. module that's the important thing and. again it goes on I suspect that you will. relate to some of this as the course. goes on. so it might be that you're asked to be a. leader for a group activity and you. might want to reflect on that how you. feel about that do you feel intimidated. or do you feel empowered what's it like. getting people who are some of your. group or overenthusiastic some of those.

Laggards and you can't get them to. engage those are some of the struggles. that you might have that you might want. to reflect on it will give you a feeling. for what it's like being a team leader. what it's like to take a leadership role. also might give you some sympathy for. the tutors as well and finally a third. alternative this is Boston's framework. very similar really in their structure. first of all there's a description of. something and then your reflection on it. so what now what what happened what am I. going to make of this what can I do to. make the situation better. so three possible alternatives for you. however I'm being realistic here life. kicks in whenever you want to do. something you think I've got always got. other things to do I'm too tired and so. what we're saying is that it would be.

Sensible for you to set aside time to do. this how do you make reflection happen. when you haven't got to sit down at a. particular time think about this at the. start of your course now choose a. suitable time choose what what model. what structure you're going to use for. your reflection and justice be honest. about that. some suggestions to get you going. why don't you reflect on today make that. your first journal entry how do you feel. about the start of this course do you. feel excited do you feel terrified yeah. do you feel a mixture of both of those. things neither a right or wrong but. there you've been honest about the way. you're feeling this journal is going to. be seen by you and your tutor this is. not shared with everybody else you'll be. relieved to know so you can be more. honest about the way you're feeling you.

Might want at the start of the module to. look at what you're trying to achieve in. the module and see how how you're. feeling about that but as I say it might. be that something comes out in practice. that you want to think about so if. you're thinking about today you can. describe what the day was like phew I. got lost on the way here and I was so. stressed by the time I get here I. couldn't think about anything how you. felt about it oh how exciting to meet. the maybe the student support team who. I've emailed but haven't seen in the. flesh what was good and bad about the. experience not sure that I want to read. some of that but important for us to. know the good and the bad but since you. beginning to make it are your anxiety. levels reduced by the end of today or. are they worse. what could you have done differently.

Could you prepare differently could you. learn differently and and how can you. learn to do something different next. time I just put this in here it'll be on. the website this is the criteria that. the tutors look at when they're looking. at your reflective journal it's only. guidance and there isn't it's not scored. with particularly but it just gives you. an idea of what the tutors are looking. for in terms of getting maximising your. marks. so thinking about today I think I've. covered some of those did you set. yourself goals for today how do you feel. now. how do you rate your current levels of. awareness energy motivation how are you. approaching the course have you been. sent on the course by your manager or do. you feel that this is your dream come. true to do this course. what personal insights you gain today.

Not just what have you learnt what have. you learned about yourself then actually. you might really take to online learning. or that you know you need to make. contact with other people so that you. can feel engaged and how are you feeling. at the end of the day. so just a reminder that we're not. looking for right or wrong answers but. for selfawareness we're not expecting. for your thoughts to stay this setting. concrete we expect them to change as you. go through the course as you become. perhaps as you relax into the getting. familiar with the hoops that you have to. jump through you might be that you can. concentrate more on the content and so. you're using the journal then to chart. your changes so we'd expect it to change. as the course goes on so I'm just going. to leave you at the end of this session. now with a verse from a Michael Jackson.

Song and use the course to examine your. own personal and professional practice. and I what I would say is the more you. put into it the more you'll get out of. it and I really hope you're going to. enjoy the journey thank you very much. you. hello everybody and good morning or good. afternoon or good evening whatever time. it is of the day wherever you are in the. world perhaps I should start by. introducing myself as you can see from. my slide. my name is Simon Williams I'm currently. a lecturer at the University of Wales. Trinity st. David when I work two days a. week I also work for the entire embed in. the University Health Board in their. weight management service in a research. and evaluation role and as you can see. from the third line beneath my name I'm. also a course tutor on the post graduate. diploma and MSC in obesity and weight.

Management so as you can see from my. introductory slide what I'd like to talk. to you all about basically is used in. the evidence base to try and achieve. excellence within the course that you've. chosen to follow now I know that some of. my colleagues dr. new and dr. Ruth Davis. I've spoken to you previously about. various aspects of the course so I fully. hope that my presentation will. complement the work that Ruth and. Carlton with you previously and give you. some further guidance with regard to as. they say achieving excellence within. within your chosen course so the aims of. the course the aims of the course is. that you've chosen to follow I guess. have a number of aims one is to enhance. your skills as clinicians and. practitioners but I think from my. perspective one of the very important. skills that you need to develop and will.

Be developed as part of studying the. Postgraduate Diploma and potentially. subsequently the MSC is the ability to. make the best use of the available. research and evidence to support the. elements of work that you have to submit. as part of your course and that's really. what I want to talk to you about. so to help to do that during this. presentation I'll provide some examples. of what I think is required to achieve. excellence in the discussion forum and. in the reports that you have to submit. and also then to make you aware of some. of the potential pitfalls and bad. practice that can occur on how to avoid. them well I suppose I should say really. that the slides I put together in the. content of this talk a largely based. around my experience of tutoring for. diploma MSC over the years that I've. been doing this I must have read.

Thousands of posts in the discussion. forum and as you can imagine some of. those posts are truly excellent and make. very good use of the evidence base and. some of them certainly could be improved. so as I say this is largely based on my. experience of being a tutor and. hopefully you'll find the guidance. helpful I think by now you would have. been told and you would realize that. there are a number of elements to the. course at your studying there are weekly. case studies and multiplechoice. questions. there's the reflective journal which dr.. Davis has spoken to you about and. there's also the group report the. individual report and the weekly. discussion forum and I think it's these. three elements the group report the. individual report and the weekly. discussion forum where myself other. tutors will really look to see that.

You've made good use of the best. available evidence that there is to. construct your answers and to construct. your arguments so I would say what you. need to do is engage with the relevant. and the contemporary literature and by. that I mean going beyond just read in. that literature and actually engage in. in some critical appraisal of the. literature and understanding the type of. evidence that you're using. so I thought the way I would do this. would is by using an example in the. context of the weekly discussion forum. so again as you by now I'm sure you're. aware each week a new discussion topic. is started by the tutor in the weekly. discussion forum and the students you're. required to make articulate and. evidencebased posts hopefully at least. twice a week sometimes people will make. more posts than that I guess depending.

On other pressures and stresses of work. at the time so one of the modules that I. tutored and one of the modules i've. tilted for a number of years is module 2. on the obesity and weight management. diploma and a typical topic or way in. which i might start the discussion in. the discussion forum is to start with a. question as simple as please discuss the. association between obesity and. mortality so I think as students what. you need to do at that point is to stop. and to consider what evidence are you go. into use in the discussion forum to. address this question. as I'm sure you know their evidence. comes in many different forms we can. pick up daily newspapers and read about. scientific research and the findings of. scientific research and some of that. some of those newspaper articles I guess. are based on based on research and.

Therefore are somewhat evidencebased. the Internet of course is a very rich. source of information magazines. expert opinion we all have opinions some. of us have more expertise than others. I'm sure you'll work with colleagues. were regarded as experts and you listen. to their opinions and these opinions may. be solidly based in evidence or they may. not of course we have access to. textbooks which hopefully are based on. evidence we have evidencebased digests. but of course at the top of the list. you'll see scientific publications and. by that of course we mean peerreviewed. journal articles and authoritative. reports such as reports coming from the. World Health Organization or the. National Institute for Health and Care. excellence and I would put it to you. that these at the top at the top of this. list the scientific publications.

Particularly in highly ranked. peerreviewed journals is where we. should be searching for our evidence to. support and substantiate the arguments. that we make both in the group report in. your independent reports the individual. reports and also in the discussion forum. so let's just pause for a while and. consider the different types of studies. and study designs that are used in. medicine and of course not just in. medicine but in social sciences and in. psychology and in many other disciplines. as well and there are a number of ways. in which we can classify research in. different types of studies and I've. chosen you to keep it relatively simple. and straightforward and I've divided. study designs. research into what we describe as. primary research and secondary research. by primary research were essentially.

Talking about observational studies. which include things like ecological. studies crosssectional surveys case. control studies and prospective and. retrospective cohort studies these are. studies where the authors the. investigators of this research have. collected primary data analyzed that. data. arrived at some kind of interpretation. and drawn some conclusions when you're. reading study designs what sorry when. you read in these observational studies. then of course the methodology should. tell you what type of study it is you're. reading each so even if you can't. immediately recognize whether it's a. case control study or crosssectional. survey or an ecological study there. should be some reference to the type of. study design used in the methodology the. other kind of primary studies that you. will undoubtedly make use of are.

Experimental and quasiexperimental. research designs so typically these are. controlled and non controlled trials. studies that aim to investigate the. effect of interventions and some of. these studies will include randomization. and some of them won't have. randomization and the second broad group. of studies which I talked quite a bit. about in this brief presentation is. secondary studies or and by secondary. studies we're really referring to. reviews reviews which synthesize and. summarize evidence sometimes these. reviews are narrative reviews and. sometimes they are systematic reviews. but the key point I want to make at this. here is that when you are engaging in. the discussion forum when you are. in group your group report when you are. preparing your individual report it's. important to know and understand what.

Type of study and what type of evidence. you are using in terms of secondary. research or sometimes people refer to. this desk research I guess for obvious. reasons this is the kind of research. that doesn't require investigators and. researchers to actively collect data but. to make use of previously published. research or data which already exists. and there are a number of different. types of literature reviews I've. mentioned too already. the narrative literature review and the. systematic literature review but we also. will encounter literature reviews. referred to as metaanalysis scoping. reviews umbrella reviews and expert. reports and should you choose to go on. to study the MSC once you've finished. your diploma then the research. methodologies module will go into much. greater detail about secondary research.

And the different types of reviews and. how to conduct a systematic review with. or without metaanalysis and I've. included a website reference for you on. this slide which I hope you'll find. useful which will provide you with. information about different types of. reviews and how to critically analyze. and interpret the findings of these. reviews I'm sure that many of you will. have come across the pyramid which is on. the lefthand side of the screen as I. look at it it's referred to as the. pyramid of evidence or sometimes the. hierarchy of evidence and you'll see. that at the bottom of that pyramid we. have in this case case series just above. that we have crosssectional studies. then we have cased controls. that is we have retrospective cohort. studies then we have prospective studies. and sit in at the top of that pyramid is.

The RCT the randomized control trial. unless I say I'm sure that many of you. would have come across these terms. before and will already appreciate that. these types of studies are used to. address different kinds of questions and. they provide us with different levels of. evidence so if we look at the table on. the righthand side of the slide this is. taken from the National Institute for. Health and Care excellence and this is a. grading system and you see that at the. top of that grading system level of. evidence one plus plus our high quality. metaanalyses systematic reviews of. randomized control trials or randomized. control trials with a very low risk of. bias and just beneath that one star we. have well conducted meta analyses. systematic reviews of our CTS or RCTs. with a low risk of bias so there's not a.

Great deal of difference between the one. star and the one star star other than. something to do with the quality in the. risk of bias in the studies that have. been considered these are regarded as. the highest levels of evidence so we can. at this stage go one step further with. our pyramid and include at the very top. above RCT systematic reviews and. metaanalyses but it's also important I. guess to look to the bottom of the table. and to see what kind of evidence is. regarded as two star three or four star. and we see case control studies or. cohort studies with a high risk of. confounding and bias we see non. analytical studies for example case. reports and case series and we see. expert opinion and formal consensus. so the point again I wish to kind of. reiterate if you like is that when you. are presented with questions in the.

Discussion forum when you are attempting. to answer your assessments whether it be. the case report or the individual report. it's important to understand the type of. study that you're using to address the. question to construct your arguments. where that study sits in the hierarchy. of evidence what level of evidence it. presents so it's worthwhile becoming. familiar with grading systems such as. the one you can see on the slide because. there are other grading systems which is. similar but not exactly the same and. understand the level of evidence that. you're using okay so let's return to the. topic of discussion which I started the. presentation with imagine that we are at. the beginning of a week in the case in. the in the discussion forum and the. tutor has presented the question to the. group please discuss the association.

Between obesity and mortality and I said. at this point I think it's a good idea. to start to think about what type of. evidence are you going to use so as I. mentioned newspapers often report. especially newspapers in the United. Kingdom like The Daily Express often. report headlines like this obesity is. linked to 11 cancers and this represents. I suppose some form of evidence you'd. like to think that that headline is. backed up by evidence but should you use. this article from The Daily Express to. inform your report or to use it to. construct an argument in the discussion. forum I would suggest definitely not we. can certainly look for and find much. much better sources of evidence than. daily newspapers and one of the reasons. that of course we should avoid using. news. papers is exemplified in the study which.

Is presented on the right hand side of. this slide which reports. misrepresentation of the findings of. randomized control trials in press. releases in news coverage and it says in. the conclusion spin was identified in. about half of press releases of media. coverage and the main factor associated. with spin in the press releases was the. presence of spin in the article abstract. conclusion so essentially what this is. saying is that I guess the process which. takes place is that often university. marketing and press departments will. send a press releases based on the. research of some of the academics. working in those institutions those. press releases are read by journalists. science journalists and newspapers and. they will report the findings of that. study in the newspapers based on what. they read in the press release but we.

Cannot be a hundred percent confident. that the press release is accurately. reporting the the the research and of. course what the press release is. unlikely to do is comment on the. weaknesses and the limitations of the. research so moving along if you like to. other forms of evidence perhaps better. than newspapers but again I would. suggest maybe not the best form of. evidence we can find all kinds of. reports on the internet such as this one. on the NHS website in the United Kingdom. which reports that obesity is now a. leading cause of death especially in men. again I would suggest not a particularly. good source of information a good source. of evidence to use and to cite to. reference in your reports but on the. other hand you could include it in a. discussion forum with some critical. analysis. this now looks much more promising we.

Have an article published in the. European Heart Journal so a fairly. highly ranked peerreviewed journal. specializing in cardiology the title of. the review article seems highly relevant. it's talking about body habitus and the. risk of coronary heart disease in men. there are multiple authors from. different universities and organizations. in the United Kingdom so could we use. this in our discussion forum I guess we. could but I would say we can do better. if we look at the date of this. particular article it's 1997 so it's at. least you know it's more than 20 years. old now so we can certainly look for. more contemporary evidence to support. our to support the work the arguments. that we construct in I also know that if. you were to read this article it lacks. any major critical analysis so it's. largely a descriptive review article so.

There are much better forms of evidence. that we can utilize now we move on to an. individual to a primary study rather. than an evidence synthesis this is a. paper published as you can see in the. journal Circulation just less than a. decade ago in the year 2000 again a. highly ranked Journal peerreviewed we. can put trust and faith in what we read. hopefully in this journal the title is. certainly relevant to look at the impact. of body mass index as well as metabolic. syndrome on the risk of cardiovascular. disease and death but it's very. specifically about middleaged men so if. we think back to the question that we're. addressing what is the association. between obesity and mortality this is. certainly relevant but it only forms. part of the picture it's specifically. about middleaged men and finally we. move on to this article this is a 2016.

Systematic review with doseresponse. metaanalysis which is reporting the. findings of 230 cohort studies with more. than 3.7 4 million deaths among 30 point. 3 million participants it's published in. a British Medical Journal and if we. think back a few moments ago to the. presentation of the hierarchy of. evidence you'll recall at systematic. reviews and metaanalysis sit clearly at. the top of the evidence hierarchy it's. contemporary it's 2016 and also very. importantly because it's a systematic. review it includes a clear and. transparent methodology and you can see. part of the methodology outlined on the. righthand side of the slide the. methodology reports the search strategy. and inclusion criteria it includes study. selection how the authors extracted data. and what author I'm sorry and what data. the authors extracted and some of the.

Statistical methods used so this means. we can engage in meaningful critical. analysis we can look at the methods that. we used and we can drop tried our best. to draw conclusions about the quality of. this systematic review so just because. it's a systematic review on it sits at. the top of the hierarchy of evidence we. shouldn't automatically assume that it's. high quality it's for us as academics as. students as researchers as scholars to. read this research paper to use tools. which are available to us to make our. own conclusions about whether or not. this is high quality. the evidence just because it's a. systematic review it doesn't mean we. shouldn't engage with the literature and. attempt critical analysis so to come. back to the question what is the. association between obesity and. mortality then I would certainly expect.

To see in any discussion or in any. report addressing that question this. kind of evidence used in constructing. answers and arguments we can't take it. one step further I'm not sure how many. people are aware of this who have come. across this idea this concept I. mentioned a moment ago the importance of. critically analyzing systematic reviews. and not just accepting them as a. systematic review that they are top of. the hierarchy of evidence but there are. methods available to us to critically. analyze to systematically review. systematic reviews. so to summarize with some key messages I. would suggest to you that you should be. aware of the hierarchy of evidence and. that some research designs and studies. are stronger than others but as I've. just been saying don't take the. hierarchy of evidence too literally you.

Should attempt some level of critical. analysis and engagement with this with. the literature with the studies you're. using and my final key message is at. this part at least of the presentation. is to stop and to reflect and consider. what question are you being asked what. is the strongest evidence that you can. find and use to support your argument. okay so a chance now to explore what. I've been talking about in a little bit. more depth and I'm going to use some. examples taken from the discussion forum. and it might be a good idea if you're. watching this as a recording that you. can stop think and start to write down. the answer to the question how effective. is largely tied for the treatment of. obesity what evidence would you use to. support your answer what information. would you include the question on the.

Face of it seems very straightforward. it's short it's precise how effective is. largely tied for the treatment of. obesity what information would you. include what evidence would you use to. support your answer I think my opinion. my advice would be in address in this. particular question you would be correct. to look at randomized control trials or. systematic reviews of randomized control. trials that are directly addressing this. question we know that they're available. we should also be looking to use I guess. that most of the time the most. contemporary the most upto-date. evidence that we can find but what about. this word effective how do we determine. whether or not la regla tide is. effective for the treatment of obesity. and how effective it is. so in constructing your answer whether. it be in the case discussion forum or.

Maybe in a report the kind of. information I personally would expect to. see would be things like the age the sex. the ethnicity of the participants taking. part in the randomized control trial. the degree of obesity whether these. exist in comorbidity the number of. patients who've been treated the number. of people in the control group on how. patients are allocated where they're. allocated on a oneto-one basis or. whether the ratio of number treated to. number of control patients is different. of course we're interested in. effectiveness so we would like to know. what is the average of the typical. change in the primary and secondary. outcomes of the study so the primary. outcome is likely to be in a study like. this lost in body weight or loss of body. weight but the study is also likely to. have secondary outcomes changes in blood.

Lipid changes in blood pressure and so. on so we'd like to know in address in. this question what is the average change. in the primary and secondary outcomes. but as well as reporting the average. change we'd like to know what is the. variation around that change to those. people who experience a reduction in. body weight all experience much the same. reduction in body weight always the. reduction in body weight does it vary. quite considerably something else which. I guess is very important to report so. that we have a full understanding a full. answer to this particular question is. related to the precision of the. estimates of the change and this is. generally reported as the 95 percent. confidence interval NNT. stands for somebody will know I'm sure a. number needed to treat how many patients. are needed to be treated do we need to.

Treat with a regular tried in order to. get an effective outcome we also would. like to know something about the. unintended consequences of treatment. side effects adverse events and very. importantly of course something about. the strengths and weaknesses of the. study the summary and the con and a. summary in a conclusion and of course. very importantly if whenever we are. using literature to construct answers. and arguments we should always always. always reference. work thoroughly and the university. recommends the use of the Harvard. referencing system and when you do that. another tip if you like is you should. consider whether your site in a single. primary study or whether you are citing. a review article because of course a. review article is a summary of multiple. studies rather than a single primary.

Study so I hope that makes some sense to. you and I just tried to summarize as. best I can. bearing in mind what I'm trying to. achieve with this particular talk and. that's about achieving excellence in. posts within the group forum discussion. and also in submitted written reports. about how to fully answer this. particular question how effective is the. regular tied for the treatment of. obesity and of course I'm using a. particular example but the same. principles would hold true for other. questions are the similar questions that. are about the effectiveness of. particular treatments another example. what is the risk of type 2 diabetes in. people who have obesity again very. direct and very specific and clear. question what evidence would you use to. support your answer and what information. would you include.

In my opinion because this question is. asking about the risk of type 2 diabetes. in people who have obesity then we. should be looking for prospective cohort. studies or systematic reviews of. prospective cohort studies because these. studies in our hierarchy of evidence. will give us the the best strongest. level of evidence for directly. addressing this particular question. again the issue of use in the most. contemporary upto-date research of. course is important and the kind of. information I might expect to see. reported in a post in the discussion. forum in a report includes things like. the age of the participants in the study. their sex their ethnicity their degree. of obesity again whether they have. comorbidity this time we're not talking. about the number of participants in the. study who are treated or not treated but.

We're talking about the number of. participants who are exposed or who were. not exposed and the exposure in this. case is obesity so we're asking what is. the risk of type 2 diabetes in people. with obesity compared to the risk of. type 2 diabetes in people who do not. have obesity I it would be nice to see. something about the number of. participants who were followed up in the. prospective cohort study something about. the average length to follow up because. this tells us something about how you. know this is telling us directly about. how long patients have been followed or. participants I should say in this study. rather than patients person timer. followup the number of participants who. drop out and lost to follow up. confounding is a big weakness in many. cohort studies so we also need to know. how of the investigators in this study.

Controlled confounding and the measures. of effect in a cohort study such as this. would include things like the relative. risk the odds ratio or the hazard ratio. whenever we report relative risks odds. ratios or hazard ratios we should also. report that precision or their 95%. confidence interval again demonstrate in. some critical analysis identifying any. particular strengths or weaknesses you. see in this study and providing a. summary or conclusion so two different. questions both in the context of obesity. but one is about the effectiveness of. treatment the other one is about the. risk of a particular outcome in relation. to a particular exposure as I said in. this case obesity to address those two. questions requires looking at different. types of studies and I've included a. third example again from the field of.

Diabetes slightly different question. this time how accurate is fasting plasma. glucose for identifying individuals with. elevated glycated hemoglobin what. evidence would you use to support your. answer what information would you. include so for this I would suggest the. ideal kinds of studies to be looking at. are screening studies or systematic. reviews of screening studies and the. kind of information that I would expect. to see reported the gain would include. something about the participant. characteristics their age their sex. their ethnicity and the results of this. study are likely to be reported in terms. of the sensitivity the specificity and. the positive and negative predictive. values associated with use in fasting. plasma glucose to identify individuals. with elevated hba1c s so three different. questions.

Each requiring evidencebased answers. and the evidence that you would use to. provide and support your answers comes. from different types of studies that's. the key point that I wish to make okay. some further words of caution and some. additional guidance just to make you. aware of a few things that you may not. be aware of and certainly from past. experiences I've certainly encountered. students who are not aware of some of. these issues I've been speaking about. the need to use evidence and. highquality evidence and where we find. highquality evidence and we tend to. think that highquality evidence is. presented to us in the form of. peerreviewed papers in scientific. journals which is true but we also need. to be aware of predatory journals and. publishers and this is just a snapshot a. screengrab if you like from Wikipedia.

Which explains what we mean by predatory. journals and predatory publishing put. simply just because a research paper is. published in a journal and it looks. genuine it looks legitimate it you have. to be aware of the large number nowadays. of predatory journals that are available. via the Internet there's no easy way of. identifying predatory journals but it's. certainly worth while being aware of. them and there are guidelines available. on the internet which allow you which. help you to try and identify predatory. journals of course if you're utilizing. journals such as The Lancet the New. England Journal of Medicine the British. Medical Journal highly regarded highly. respected journals in the fields of. medicine that many of you will work then. that's fine. but I think it is important to be aware. to say that sometimes especially using.

Internet and internet search engines we. can quite easily stumble upon scientific. research papers articles as I say which. look genuine but they may not be of the. quality that we would want to use. another small piece of advice and an. advice that I've certainly been given on. many occasions and that's to avoid just. reading the abstract and or the. conclusion of a research paper it's very. tempting to do this of course we're all. timepressured we all are very busy. people we are trying to study and engage. in academic research as well as doing. our day jobs and it's very very easy. very tempting sometimes to just read. abstracts and conclusions now of course. this is fine if you are pushed for time. and you just need to quickly get an. appreciation of what a particular. research paper is saying but you need to.

Be very careful about use it if you've. only read the abstract and or the. conclusion of a paper that you would. include that in any piece of written. work of course what you really must do. is read the entire research paper. understand why you reading it appreciate. what type of research it is and try and. engage in some critical analysis one. final point and I think it's a very. important point that I'd like to make to. you and I'll do that with the help of. the next three slides is to suggest you. to say to you that you should always. look for and consider alternative. evidence and opinions under say I think. the best way for me to illustrate this. point is to use an example so on the. slide in front of you you see. a research paper published in the. journal food and nutrition sciences and. it's about a highly controversial area.

One of us that will an area in science. that many of us will be familiar with. and it's about dietary population. dietary guidelines and whether or not. you know people in population should be. eating more saturated fat less saturated. fat and whether the guidelines are. correct if you like on this paper argues. that the some of the dietary guidelines. that have been applied in the United. Kingdom the USA and other countries are. based upon the results and findings of. the seven countries study which as it. says in the abstract and I've underlined. it for you was seminal work behind the. 1984 nutritional guidelines okay. so if you are not careful you could. quite easily read this particular paper. it's a peerreviewed paper in a. scientific journal in which the authors. of this paper express an opinion based. on their review of the literature if you.

Like and their their opinion of the. seven country studies and this on its. strengths and weaknesses and the same. group of researchers have published a. systematic review and the metaanalysis. as we've been hearing you know top of. the hierarchy of evidence high quality. research one star in some gradient. systems it's published in open heart. it's peer reviewed and similar. conclusions are drawn criticizing if you. like the formulation of dietary. recommendations on the basis that they. were not supported by evidence from. randomized control trials however the. story doesn't end there as I say you. could if you're not careful make a. mistake by only referring to the. previous study or the previous article. published in food nutrition sciences and. reading and utilizing this particular. article in open heart I see you would.

Only be getting part of the story. because if you were to follow up some of. the correspondence published in open. heart and I've given the link to the. website on the particular slide and also. a link to another website Science Media. Center you will find that this. particular systematic review and. metaanalysis attracted a lot of. attention both in the media and also a. large number of letters and subsequent. commentary and correspondence that was. published to say by the science media. center and in the journal itself and if. you read that correspondence it gives an. alternative opinion and just to follow. up and finish that particular story if. you like it also resulted in the. production of this particular report by. authors in the United States which is a. 54 page rebuttal and support of the work. of answer keys in the seven country.

Study so I'm not taking one side or the. other in this particular argument it's a. highly controversial area that attracts. an awful lot of attention both in the. scientific literature and in the popular. press the point I'm simply making. is that as I said on the earlier slide. it's very important to always look for. and to consider alternative evidence and. opinions so to move along now to talk. about something related to what we've. been discussing but slightly different. I've been making the point that it's not. sufficient often to just simply read and. certainly it's it's not sufficient to. read an abstract and a conclusion but. what we should all aim to become our. critical readers and thinkers ok. noncritical reading if you're a. noncritical reader you're satisfied. with recognizing what a particular text.

Says and simply restate in the key. remarks so this might be something that. we encounter you know in written reports. that are submitted for assessment and in. the group discussion forum where. students almost report the batum word. for word what researchers have reported. in there particularly in their. particular research papers in other. words there's no attempt to engage in. any kind of meaningful critical analysis. non critical readers accept what they. read is fact if you become a critical. reader you're aiming to go beyond accept. in an restating to be a critical reader. involves careful active reflective and. analytical reading of course it takes. more time it's more of a challenge but. we should all aim to become critical. readers and thinkers not just those. people not just people who accept what's. written in front of us.

Critical thinking involves evaluating. information and ideas before deciding. what to accept and believe and I think. you know speaking personally. I would much rather see attempts in the. discussion forum to engage in some. critical reading critical thinking. critical analysis to provide some. commentary about strengths and. weaknesses of research that you use to. inform your posts rather than non. critical reading and simply the. regurgitation if you like of information. that we find written in research papers. so how do you become a critical reader. be clear about why you were reading the. research paper we are all time limited. we all have many other things going on. in our lives and our personal lives in. our work lives so it's important to be. selective with what we read and to be. clear about the reasons we read in a.

Particular research paper when you read. your research papers identify any. possible sources of bias by considering. the author's affiliations and funding. sources it's almost one of the first. things that we should do when we read a. research paper is consider who are the. authors where do they work what are. their affiliations is there any evidence. in this research paper that the findings. could be influenced if you like by the. funding source read research papers with. skepticism look out for weaknesses and. limitations look for alternative. interpretations of the work and. unsubstantiated claims in the discussion. section there is guidelines I should say. there are guidelines available to us to. help us to become more critical readers. when we consider when we read our. research papers and here's a simple list.

If you like some questions to ask. yourself when you read a research paper. I'm not going to read. every single line to you but there is so. there are guidelines available to help. us to become more critical in our. reading and to become better at critical. analysis here is a list not an exclusive. list there are many other resources. available but a good starting point. here are some useful resources for. critical appraisal and evidencebased. medicine and I would just like to finish. this particular part of the talk by. addressing this question because I've. been talking about the need to utilize. not just evidence but to try and utilize. the best available evidence when you're. constructing your arguments your work. how do you find the best evidence well. one thing you I guess shouldn't do but. it's very tempting to do it and that's.

Just to type a keyword into Google. ideally what we should do is think about. developing a so we should develop a. search strategy identifying key dates. key words the relevant databases that we. need to use to identify the types of. research and the high quality research. that we want to use in our work so there. are a range of electronic sources of. evidence available to you via the. University Library. Google Scholar course is widely. available but consider using. ScienceDirect. the Cochrane Database PubMed or MEDLINE. EMBASE over it as I'm sure you're aware. there are lots of these databases. available on it's good practice to. become familiar with some of them and to. become fairly well skilled and equipped. to use these databases to search for the. information that we need. and finally to try and finish if you.

Like on something hopefully which you'll. find helpful and a little bit lighter. than what we've been talking about and. I'd like to provide you some tips for. good scientific writing what we like to. see in both of course the written report. in the individual report and in a. discussion forum is a high quality of. scientific writing so these slides will. be available to you so you can stop and. you can refer back to them whenever you. are whenever you need to if you need to. but I would suggest certainly following. these guidelines avoid the following. avoid using adjectives that add. subjectivity to your work very. inadequate should be simply inadequate. slightly flawed should be flawed the. words vary and slightly there don't add. anything really other than some. subjectivity try and avoid using. journalistic terms the population are.

Crying out for more exercise is actually. a particular sentence which which I've. seen in a piece of written work I would. suggest that a more appropriate term. could be the population would benefit. from more exercise avoid writing as if. you are texting tweeting or emailing and. also avoid the indiscriminate and. incorrect use of exclamation marks. colons capital letters and other. punctuation marks as I've demonstrated. in my example the study has several. weaknesses doesn't require an. exclamation mark. also avoid State in research. observations as fact or as the. undisputed truth the truth is only the. truth until better evidence shows. otherwise. it's much better to talk about the. evidence suggests or maybe the evidence. strongly suggests rather than talking. about research observations as being. fact also try and avoid quoting directly.

Unless there is a good reason to do so. and I've given I prefer I prefer. provided the quote which many of you. will be familiar with which I guess you. know would be a worthwhile quote as the. disease is make a habit of two things to. help or at least to do no harm is. something as a form of words worthy of. quotation the words which I've given. below are taken directly from a research. paper in the European Journal of. Clinical Nutrition in 2010 nevertheless. the Vice scan system which is a system. for measuring body fat basically may. still prove to be a valuable. motivational instrument for the health. practitioner with a possible future role. in screening for abdominal obesity those. are the exact words of the authors of. that research paper and they don't need. quoting much better if you use a piece. of research like that.

To paraphrase using your own words. try and avoid as much as you can using. phrases such as in my opinion or I think. this is I say as much as possible. because there might be instances where. it's perfectly appropriate to start a. sentence by saying in my opinion but. it's much better to back up those. opinions by providing support in. evidence. so instead try and use phrases such as. based on the evidence one interpretation. of and you can fill in the rest of that. sentence try and avoid writing in the. first person voice for example I will be. searching using the PubMed database but. aim to write in the third person voice. the PubMed database was searched and if. you're not fully sure about what this. means then again I would direct you to a. number of different web site based. resources that can provide information.

About this something that I guess I see. quite frequently is where people cite. continuously using one source it's. difficult to avoid clearly if you're. utilizing a piece of work a piece of. research which is extremely important. and you're using it you know repeatedly. in constructing your argument then. rather than citing it continuously a. simple tip would be just to to make it. clear to the person who's reading your. work that you you know that you will be. using that one piece of work quite. extensively and argue and argue why. you'd be doing that importantly avoid. describing when you've been asked to. explain discuss or analyze if you just. think about that for a moment the. discussion forum is perhaps called the. discussion forum for a particular reason. discussion implies the need to engage in. critical analysis to provide alternative.

Pinions and to go beyond simply trying. to describe what the research evidence. tells us okay so try always to to. discuss to be try and be analytical. explain difficult concepts when they. need explaining try and avoid use in all. studies unless there's a very good. reason why you're using a good an old. study and if you are using an old study. that one might think is out of date but. you have a good reason for doing it then. state in your work while you're relying. on an old study does it have particular. strengths and weaknesses did it break. new ground make it clear that you fully. understand why it is you're using that. particular piece of research in your. work try and avoid using websites to. support your answer unless of course. you're utilizing a website that we can. rely upon websites such as the American.

Diabetes Association the World Health. Organization Cancer Research UK and so. on they might be appropriate sources of. information if you're looking for. perhaps some statistics around the. prevalence or the incidence of a disease. but much better to try and avoid using. those websites and to go to the kinds of. studies that we'd be talking about in. this presentation primary studies and. secondary studies try and avoid. completing your work in hurry it's. easier said than done but plan your work. in plenty of time give yourself time to. identify the literature the studies that. you need to read give yourself time to. read those studies and to interpret them. an interpretation needs critical. appraisal. and despite the fact that I used. Wikipedia early on in this presentation. to talk about predatory journals try it.

At all times if you can to avoid using. Wikipedia other than for your own rapid. reading and my penultimate slide is I. would suggest that you try and do the. following I've told you what you should. try and avoid doing now I'll give you a. couple of pointers on what I think you. should try and do be selective with the. research and the evidence that you use. and understand why you've used it that. in a nutshell is what this 45minute. talk has really been about being. selective understanding the nature of. the research and the evidence that. you're using to support your work. reference your work accurately and. consistently at all times avoid. plagiarism the university provides very. clear guidelines on what plagiarism is. and the need to avoid plagiarism it is a. serious academic offence and it should. be avoided so make sure you reference.

You work accurately and consistently and. consistently if you really really are. paying you know great attention to. detail one common mistake that I see is. sometimes people might write something. such as studies show and then they don't. provide a reference so whenever I see. the words studies show I'm immediately. looking for a reference rich studies try. and show some critical analysis this can. mean acknowledge in excellent research. as well as highlighting weaknesses don't. fall into that trap don't think the. critical analysis is only about. identifying weaknesses in studies. if studies are you know extraordinarily. well conducted to the highest possible. scientific standards then that's worth. acknowledging. in any discussion post or piece of work. as well and finally I would say aim for. quality over quantity of course certain.

Pieces of work have wood targets attach. them if you like and you should always. make use of the word target if you're if. you're allowed to use 1500 words for a. particular piece of work. aim to use 1500 words but the important. thing is to go for quality over quantity. construct a careful argument that. addresses the question you have been. given and not the one that you want to. answer okay I think that's it that's an. important point make sure you address. the question headon and I think that. brings or not like one slide left if. you're unsure about the question seek. some clarification organize your writing. with a clear structure use headings and. subheadings even if you think it's. helpful to use numbered paragraphs often. if you write in an extended piece of. work rather than repeating yourself it's. sometimes useful to have numbered.

Paragraphs and you can refer your reader. back to you know a particular paragraph. with a particular number help your. readers by signposting for example at. somewhere in your post or somewhere in a. piece of written work you might say. further information can be found in a. particular resource remember that the. discussion forum is a team effort a not. team effort when harnessed can really. produce an excellent source of. information that benefits everybody. ensure you write succinctly and. precisely and proofread your work before. submission I've talked about plagiarism. briefly so always ensure that you use. the Harvard referencing system I think. other speakers have probably already. talked to you about utilizing the. criteria that are provided for each. assessment in striving to achieve. excellence make sure you know what is.

Required to achieve that a grade by. referring to the assessment criteria. try not to be anxious as I know some. people are certainly to begin under the. first week of the first discussion forum. start with some short simple posts build. your confidence and get into the habit. the routine the flow of contributing to. the discussion forum importantly have. fun and enjoy the experience share. information sometimes it's off subject. that's certainly something that I always. try and do and encourage when I'm. tutoring is to invite people to add. information which you say is off subject. to the discussion forum and to ask. questions of one another and I'm sure. that if you have any questions. the staff at diploma MSC would be more. than happy to hear from you thanks for. listening. that is the end of the Diploma MSV.

webinar the induction day so I just like. to thank you for joining us and I also. like to thank our speakers dr. Ruth. Davis dr. Karl new Simon Williams and. Lew Wallace from the University and I. hope that you've found all the. information useful and and we look. forward to you beginning your course. thank you. you