Honoursmodule: How tech is sustainability

6 EC

Semester 2, period 5, 6

5512HCBF6Y

Owner IIS honoursprogramma
Coordinator dr. Frank Nack
Part of Instituut voor Interdisciplinaire Studies (algemeen), honoursvakken, year 1

Course manual 2021/2022

Objectives

  • Carry out a literature study to describe current issues related to sustainability as well as historical research landmarks and future directions
  • Critique, analyse, and reflect on peer-reviewed research articles that describe real-world systems, with respect to how well they support or facilitate a sustainable society.
  • Identify the stakeholders in a particular sustainability problem space.
  • Explain the basic technologies and architectures for complex systems and assess how technical solutions can work in the face of real-world constraints
  • Reflect and understand how biases direct research
  • Systematically carry out and present the own research in an essay and a poster presentation

Teaching methods

  • Seminar
  • Presentation/symposium
  • Self-study
  • Supervision/feedback meeting

The course is designed for interaction, collaborative and explorative work. Seminars are considered as room for the explanation and discussion of essential concepts and examples of various forms of sustainable systems. They are also considered as a space to discuss research directions students develop. The aim is to reflect on approaches with respect to their usefulness and usability.

Learning activities

Activity

Hours

Werkcollege

22

Self study

146

Total

168

(6 EC x 28 uur)

Assessment

Item and weight Details

Final grade

Even though students work in groups, at the end of the course each student has to provide an individual essay of 4000 words that discusses one of the addressed topics of the course in detail. The essay has to define a problem space, provide an overview of current theory and the description of a potential technological solution of one of the addressed problems. This covers 90% of the grade.

The final group presentation counts for 10% of the grade.

Fraud and plagiarism

The 'Regulations governing fraud and plagiarism for UvA students' applies to this course. This will be monitored carefully. Upon suspicion of fraud or plagiarism the Examinations Board of the programme will be informed. For the 'Regulations governing fraud and plagiarism for UvA students' see: www.student.uva.nl

Course structure

WeeknummerOnderwerpenStudiestof
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16

Timetable

The schedule for this course is published on DataNose.

Last year's course evaluation

In order to provide students some insight how we use the feedback of student evaluations to enhance the quality of education, we decided to include the table below in all course guides.

Course Name (#EC)N
Strengths
Notes for improvement
Response lecturer:

Contact information

Coordinator

  • dr. Frank Nack