LSP581 Project Communication in English
LP4 VT24 (4.5 hp)

This course is a compulsory course in both the Computer Engineering and Electrical Engineering programmes, and is run by the department of Communication and Learning in Science. The two sets of programme students, TIELL and TIDAL, are taught separately in this course because we work in collaboration with the project courses - LET086 for TIELL and LET627 for TIDAL.

Contact details

• Examiner and TIELL teacher: Carina Sjöberg Hawke carsjobe@chalmers.se  
• Support Teacher TIELL: Marie Vander Borght
• TIDAL Teacher: Sindija Franzetti sindija@chalmers.se 
• Support teacher TIDAL: Astrid Liedholm 

For different communication purposes:

• For personal questions, ideally, please use your Canvas Inbox as the main channel of communication.
• For course questions that all students can benefit from knowing the answer to, please use the discussion forum.
• For general course updates or information, the teacher will communicate via Announcements.

Course purpose

The aim of the course is to enhance students' ability to communicate effectively in English, in speech as well as in writing and to enable students to use English for academic writing and oral presentations during their studies.

Learning objectives

After completion of this course, the student should be able to:

• Write and structure a project report in a logical, coherent, and formal manner.
• Plan and deliver an academic oral presentation.
• Critically read and assess technical content and use appropriate referencing in written work.
• Give and receive constructive feedback throughout the project.
• Use a process-oriented approach to written and oral work as a strategy for improving communicative competency in English.
• Plan, track, and account for your language and communication learning during the course.

Link to study portal: Project Communication in English

Course design and schedule

We meet once a week, usually on a Tuesday (TIELL students in the morning, TIDAL students in the afternoon). Check schedule information for any deviation from this. The meetings are primarily seminars, a combination of lecture and workshop activities. Two main topics dealt with in the lecture series include report writing and presentation skills.

Teaching, assignments, deadlines, revisions

• Teaching: Carina teaches the TIELL students and Sindija the TIDAL students. The content is almost the same, but deviates in the details or needs of the project in the course that we work in parallel with. 
• Assignments: 3-min presentation about sources found on the topic of your project; a project report that is both for this course and your project course; an oral presentation of your project; peer response of a draft of the report; and the learning portfolio, in which you plan, track and account for your language and communication learning during the course.
• Assessment: Assessment details for each assignment available on their respective submission pages. For course grading, see the section below "Examination Form".
• Process-oriented approach: the writing and speaking assignments are designed to build on each other. For example, the project report goes through two draft versions, one receiving teacher feedback and another peer feedback. 
• Deadlines: important to keep to the deadlines. Any issues with meeting deadlines, please contact the relevant teachers. 
• Revisions: if assignment requirements are not met, revisions will be requested. If a revision is requested on a graded assignment, only a passing grade of 3 will be awarded.
• Participation and compensation tasks: active participation in the course and attendance in the meetings are expected. Please contact the teachers if you have schedule issues. Should any compulsory sessions be missed, a compensation task will be issued.

Canvas
You are probably aware by now that every teacher utilises the Canvas learning platform quite differently. Here in LSP581's Canvas, students have been divided into either a TIELL or TIDAL section (a section on Canvas is just a grouping to help us give you the right access). After you've registered for the course, you should only be able to see TIELL modules and assignments if you are an electro student and TIDAL modules assignments if a data student. If you think you are viewing the wrong modules and assignments, contact your teacher and they will make sure you are assigned to the correct section so you don't get the wrong information for your study in this course.

AI tools disclosure
If used with careful thought, AI tools can be useful for the learning and the development of your communication skills. AI tools do not always provide appropriate output for the context you are communicating in, so as a writer, you have a responsibility to your audience and to your own skill development to critically reflect over any suggestions AI tools propose and make a conscious decision why you do or do not incorporate it in your work. This thinking is part of an effective writing process. Therefore, since we focus on a process-oriented approach on this course, we ask students, as the authors of their written and oral work to disclose in their submissions the use of AI and AI-assisted technologies. Declaring the use of these technologies supports transparency and trust between authors and reviewers (peers and teachers). These disclosures should not just be a one sentence statement but also give examples of the type of input and output involved. This can help the teachers further help the students with their communication skills.

Schedule

TimeEdit only gives you an indication of the date, time, and room. For more details, see each session page (TIELL session pages, TIDAL session pages).

Remember, any issues with attendance, please get in touch with the relevant instructor sooner rather than later (a missed compulsory sessions will always result in a compensation task).

Course literature

There is no specific book or paper for this course. The course literature consists of session material and other recommended materials. Session materials will be published on the relevant session page, either just before the session or just after. If possible, or needed, a set of "heads-up" slides will be published before.

Two useful extra study resources are:

• Chalmers Writing Guide - a good resource for writing skills, as well as a little on presentation skills; and
• Purdue OWL (Online Writing Lab) - it has one of the most comprehensive and long-running writing guides in existence.

Changes made since last course run, 2024

• Have removed colour-coding and shapes that were previously used to help TIELL and TIDAL students navigate in the Canvas page because some areas could not be hidden for some. Canvas now has better functionality where we can assignment modules, assignments, etc to specific individuals or "sections" (student groups).
• As a consequence of feedback from students last year, the Assignment "Learning Portfolio" has been extended to 6 parts instead of 5 parts. This is for making it easier to distinguish between the different tasks. So part 3A and 3B are now part 3 and 4. 
• We have also tried to simplify Part 1 in the Learning Portfolio and tried to make the goal setting clearer. 
• Presentation planning and skill development now spans several sessions throughout the course, rather than being confined to a single workshop before the final presentations.
• Criteria for both the report and presentation have been updated with the aim to be clearer for both students and teachers.

Examination form

There is no written exam. The course is graded on the U-3-4-5 Chalmers scale. In order to receive your course grade, all of the assignments in the table below (pass/fail and graded ones) must be completed.

The grade of the course is determined specifically by the two graded assignments, the project report and the project presentation, worth 60% and 40% respectively. 

How grades are determined 

• Each graded component of the course will generate a grade (based on an assignment's criteria) calculated to 2 decimal places. This is then converted to a grade from 3-5:

3.00 – 3.64 = 3

3.65 – 4.34 = 4

4.35 – 5.00 = 5

• The final course grade will be calculated from your raw scores and converted to a 3-5 grade.
• If you receive a U for the report or presentation, you will be given the opportunity to revise. Note: these revisions will only be awarded a passing grade of 3.00.