Transcript: digisoc3 support
An informal introduction to the first assessment
Version: Text and audio | Video | Audio (SoundCloud) | Audio (mp3)
This podcast is part of the UCIL Digital Society course from the University of Manchester. Each section contains an audio clip and text equivalent, including any links mentioned. If you prefer, you can listen to all the audio as a playlist. The content is the same in each case.
The purpose of this podcast is to introduce the third assessment and give some examples which may help illustrate it. We recommend you read the official course information: Overview: Assessment, Overview: Marking criteria, and How to complete the third assessment, but you may find this page useful too.
Introduction
Hello my name is Dave and welcome to a Digital Society podcast where I will talk you through completing your last assessment — Digisoc3!
You can also find detailed information on all the assessments on the Digital Society blog under the Course Information tab.
The assessment brief
Like the digisoc 1 and digisoc 2 assessment podcasts we are going to look at each part of the digisoc 3 assessment to explain what you are being asked to do.
For Digisoc 3 the topic question is:
“Using one or more themes explored in the course unit as a guide, write a post of 1500 words in which you critically examine the implications of living in a digital world. This should include a 500 word reflection on how you have developed through exploring these themes (for example, how this course has challenged you, what you have gained from it, how it may help you in future).”
Digisoc 3 accounts for 60% of the overall mark.
In this podcast I am going to talk about the topic question, the marking criteria and the style in which the assessment should be written.
Digisoc 3 — part 1
In this section we are going to look at the first part of what you are being asked to do
“Using one or more themes explored in the course unit as a guide, write a post of 1500 words in which you critically examine the implications of living in a digital world”.
This means that for Digisoc3 you have to focus on one or more of the themes that we have covered in the unit. You can also focus on themes that are related to the topics we have covered in the course.
Throughout the module we have asked you to think and write critically and Digisoc 3 is no exception. When we are asking you to critically examine the implications of living in a digital world, it is important that you reflect on what you think being critical means.
For Digisoc 3 this means critically engaging with the information around your chosen themes rather than just accepting them or describing them, by engaging with the information and ideas you can choose to agree or disagree with the sources you are using in your submission.
Showing evidence of critical thinking and writing is required to gain the higher marks for Digisoc 3.
Digisoc 3 — part 2
In this second part we are going to look at the second part of what you are being asked to do
“This should include a 500 word reflection on how you have developed through exploring these themes (for example, how this course has challenged you, what you have gained from it, how it may help you in future).”
In this section we are going to focus on the reflection part . If you haven’t been asked to produce a piece of reflective writing then you will find this blog post useful which describes the reflective process in more detail.
So, reflective writing is a way of ensuring that you’re looking at your work objectively and that you’re always moving forward as a thinker or a writer, always developing your skills. There are various reflective models that you can use and the University of Manchester tends to use the Gibbs model for the reflective writing process.
In the Gibbs model you describe your experience (of the course), describe your thoughts and feelings, try to evaluate how this went, analyse what you have written about, and conclude with what you have learned/gained etc.
It’s a useful process to go through for any piece of reflective writing.
Additional guidance
As this is the final assessment and worth 60% of your overall mark we have included additional guidance highlighting the areas you need to cover in digisoc 3.
Your post should give a balanced, informed view of what the implications of ‘living in a digital world’ are, including consideration of ethics, our responsibilities as ‘digital citizens’ and reference to one or more themes covered in the unit.
By balanced we are asking you to look at both the positive and negative implications of living in a digital world and that you should consider the ethical implications involved, how this affects your responsibilities as a digital citizen and that you should cover one or more topic themes from the course.
You will need to support your arguments with reference to relevant sources
This means that you should back up your critical examination by referencing and linking to sources such as journal articles, academic textbooks, market research, other students ideas, stats and news etc
It should also include a personal account of what you have gained from the unit, and any ways in which your thinking about ‘digital society’ has changed
This is the 500 word reflective section that was discussed earlier in the podcast
Taking into account what you have learned about writing online, you should demonstrate effective and appropriate communication, and should reference and attribute ideas, information and images appropriately.
Reflect on Digisoc 1 and Digisoc 2 and the feedback you received about writing online ensure that you reference and attribute the materials you have used in your work correctly including statistics, text and images, and as well as attributing images, ensure you have permission to use them.
Digisoc 3: Style and referencing
Digisoc 3 asks you to write your submission in a blog post style. This means a more informal tone than the academic essay that you are probably used to writing. Although it is a more informal style we are still expecting you to reference everything as you would in a standard academic essay; this includes links from the sources you have used to support your analysis in the submission and ideas from other students’ previous writing on this unit. If you have used a source then make sure you reference it!
As you are writing a blog post you should link to what you are referencing within the text of your blog post rather than producing a reference list at the end of your blog post.
When you are editing a Medium post simply double click on a word(s) and this will bring up a range of options and one of those is a chain link image — click on the link, paste in the hyperlink, tap Enter and that is your hyperlink added.
For help with how to do this check out our Support for your coursework page on the Digital Society blog . There is an Advice page in there on how to reference facts and online ideas in your coursework.
Digisoc 3 coursework examples
All of the coursework submitted in the Digital Society course is accessible online for the last 4 years. For Digisoc 3 there is a wide range of really interesting topics from information overload, digital music, our relationship with technology and human rights to name but a few.
So if you are not sure who or what to write about then you can check the previous coursework out for inspiration on the Digital Society blog in the Course information: Overview Assessment page.
If you want to reference other students’ work, just do it as you would any other online writing, use quotes if you’re quoting, use their name or username, and include a link to the post. We encourage you to learn from each other and build on other students’ ideas!
Marking criteria
To help you with the assessment we are going to look at a piece of Digisoc 3 coursework and see how it answered the question and how it could have been improved on. It received a 4 for Marking Criteria 1 and a 4 for Marking Criteria 2 and received a good overall mark.
So just to return to the brief for Digisoc 3 for a moment the topic is
“Using one or more themes explored in the course unit as a guide, write a post of 1500 words in which you critically examine the implications of living in a digital world. This should include a 500 word reflection on how you have developed through exploring these themes (for example, how this course has challenged you, what you have gained from it, how it may help you in future).”
There are two sets of marking criteria for each piece of assessment and each one is on a scale of 1–5 with 5 being the highest level — you need to cover both marking criteria to achieve the higher marks.
In this podcast we will focus on the highest levels for marking criteria 1 and marking criteria 2.
This is the coursework example we will be using:
Marking Criteria: Part 1
In this section we are going to break down the marking criteria into 2 parts
The highest level for marking criteria 1 asks for “an excellent understanding of the themes, showing clear insight and awareness of the issues and a balanced, critical account supported by references to relevant information on the topic.”
The first part we will look at is “ an excellent understanding of the themes, showing clear insight and awareness of the issues “.
Throughout the course we have covered a range of themes around the Digital Society. In your submission you need to demonstrate an excellent understanding of the theme or themes that you have chosen and with that understanding you need to show a clear insight and awareness of the issues within that theme or themes.
As the reader of your work what do I need to understand about the theme or themes you have chosen and what are the key issues surrounding them?
In this piece of coursework, the student focused on different themes that we have covered in the course, how we are engaging with technology, what privacy means in the digital age, different aspects of the internet and our responsibility as digital citizens.
So how this could the submission be improved? Although the post focused on the themes from the course it tended to focus on them at a surface level concentrating on the positive aspects of the digital world and only briefly touching on the negative aspects. Without going into any depth its difficult to demonstrate the excellent understanding of the themes that is required to receive the highest marks.
The submission could have been improved by focusing on just one or two themes so that the writer could fully explore them at a deeper level demonstrating understanding and highlighting the issues that are involved.
Marking Criteria: Part 1
In the second part of Marking criteria 1 we are asking for “a balanced, critical account supported by references to relevant information on the topic” — so what does that mean?
By balanced we are asking you to show you have read and considered different viewpoints. By critical we are asking you to demonstrate critical analysis in examining and questioning the topic and that you should back up your statements by linking to research on the topic.
In her blog post the writer demonstrated some critical analysis writing about the start of the digital world leading to more isolation rather than less but then links this to covid19 — where would we be without the internet in the lockdown? So in relation to the pandemic the Internet has been a way to keep connected to our family, friends and information. This is a really interesting point which the student also links to a number of articles to back up what she is saying.
So how this could submission be improved? The writer could have gone into further critical depth exploring the relationship that we have as individuals and societies with the Internet and also clarifying her own position on whether it’s a positive or negative relationship. The focus of the post tended towards a positive one rather than a negative one which suggests a lack of questioning from the writer. For a balanced, critical account, you should show that you have considered and questioned different arguments. At one point the writer states “I believe the pros of the digital world outweigh the cons” but she doesn’t actually back up what she is saying by linking to any evidence so it comes across as an opinion. In this submission you need to be consistent throughout and link to the evidence to back up your statements. However, this was a good post, achieving a level 4, just not achieving the highest level, 5
Marking criteria 2
For the highest level of the second marking criterion we are asking for “a clear ability and grasp of how to write for an online audience, with a concise and engaging writing style, excellent structure, consistent and appropriate attribution and appropriate use of formatting (links, headings, bulletpoints, paragraph breaks, etc.) to help the reader navigate the text”
This means that you should write in a way that keeps the reader interested without using to many words. You can reflect on how your writing has developed in the two previous submissions and how you can use the feedback you were given to improve on your approach.
As well as your writing style you need to ensure that your post has an excellent structure throughout, all relevant information is referenced correctly and that you have permission to use the images in your post which you should caption accordingly.
You can use the options in Medium to format your post to include headings, sub headings, bulletpoints and paragraph breaks which provide the reader with the structure they need to navigate through the text. There is support on the Digital society blog on how to format your blog post.
In her blog post the writer received a 4 for MC2, her writing style was engaging and of a good standard but was slightly unclear in a few areas that affected the overall mark.
The post was well structured with a number of headings highlighting the specific sections. Within a number of paragraphs, text was in bold to emphasise key points or quotes for the reader’s attention. Throughout her post the writer include free to use images from Unsplash which can be accessed from Medium when you are writing a blog post.
In order for the post to be excellently structured the writer could have used more elements of the Medium formatting including sub headings, bullet points or section breaks to clearly highlight or separate sections of the post for the reader.
Reflection (500 words)
Finally as part of Digisoc 3 we are asking you to “include a 500 word reflection on how you have developed through exploring these themes (for example, how this course has challenged you, what you have gained from it, how it may help you in future).”
In this section we are going to look at how the writer approached this section and how it could be improved.
This reflection was a genuine one and included detail about the course and what was challenging about talking a fully online module. The student reflected on the fact that she hadn’t looked or thought about the topics that much in the past but that topics like Smart Cities and the Internet made her realise how surrounded we are by technology and how they impact on us now and will more so in the future.
So how could the student have improved her reflective writing — the student could have considered using a model such as the Gibbs one. Whilst this is not required it would have given her reflection more structure.
Further Support
Thank you for listening to the digisoc3 podcast.
You can access further support on our blog and if you have any questions then you can email the team at the usual address — digisoc@Manchester.ac.uk.
Good luck with your final assessment.
