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TMA 02

TMA 02

Submitting your tutor-marked assignments

T452 uses the electronic TMA (eTMA) system for submission of TMAs. To submit your TMA, please go to your StudentHome page
and follow the link(s) provided. The file size limit for your eTMAs is 10 MB each.

If you foresee any difficulty with submitting your assignment on time, you should contact your tutor in advance of the cut-off date.

For further information about policy, procedure and general submission of assignments please refer to the Assessment Handbook.

Tutor-marked assignment TMA 02

You should submit your completed assignment to arrive no later than 12 noon (UK local time) on the cut-off date. Please refer
to the Study Planner on the T452 website for the cut-off date.

This assignment is compulsory. If you do not submit it, you will fail T452.

It contributes 30% towards the overall mark for the continuous assessment, and requires a minimum mark of 30%.

Completing your assignment

Use the A4 paper size for your word-processed document, and put your name, your personal identifier, the module code and the
assignment number at the top of every page.

Make sure that at the end of each part you add a statement of the number of words contained in that part. One of the purposes of
this assignment is to help you plan your EMA and stay within the final word count.

Plagiarism
If you take material from an Open University module or elsewhere and incorporate it into your answer word for word, you must
indicate where you have taken it from. Not to do so is termed ‘plagiarism’ and is regarded as an infringement of copyright. To
attempt to pass off such work as your own is cheating.

You must therefore acknowledge all your sources of information. You will find further guidance at Referencing and plagiarism. On
that page is a link to a guide on developing good academic practice.

The assignment
This assignment assesses your progress and in particular the proposed structure of your final project report. For this you will need
to be familiar with the requirements of the EMA.

Task 1 Provide an update of your project proposal

The learning outcomes in this task are:

Question 1a:

Identify and refine objectives and content for the execution of a project.

To gather, analyse, evaluate and use relevant material.

Demonstrate that you can solve problems in developed technologies using well proven analytical techniques.

Demonstrate a successful application of your engineering knowledge to deliver a project using established technologies and
methods.

Question 1b:

Demonstrate that you can organise yourself and your work appropriately and keep systematic records of your plans, progress
and achievements.

Question 1c:

Demonstrate a self-awareness of the skills and activities needed to carry out a project by listing, describing and practically
demonstrating them.

Question 1 What has changed since TMA 01?

Update your project using the structure given below

Q1a Specific title, aim(s) and objectives for the project

Confirm the specific title and principal aim you have chosen for your project.

Give the key objectives of your project.

(5 marks)

Study notes
The 5 marks are broken down as follows:

2 marks for a specific title and aims that fall within the scope of your subject area and clearly identify your chosen topic

3 marks for a clear statement of your key objectives which may be in list form if you wish. Be sure to make your objectives specific,
realisable and clear.

Q1b Schedule for the project

Provide an updated and detailed schedule for your work on this project. This should include a breakdown of the planned tasks and
how they support the objectives. They should have estimates of their duration and their relationship to each other (e.g. concurrent
or sequential). It is expected that you will produce a detailed graph such as a Gantt chart showing your proposed schedule.

The 20 marks are divided between the following:

10 marks for description of tasks and timing

5 marks for logic of schedule

5 marks for graphical representation.

(20 marks)

Q1c What resources do you expect to use?

In order to complete your project, you may anticipate requiring equipment or software. If so, your tutor needs to know about such a
requirement. If you do anticipate any such requirement, state what it is and what you have done, or intend to do, to ensure you are
able to meet it. Alternatively, if you do not anticipate requiring any extra equipment or software, make sure you acknowledge this so
that your tutor is informed. 5 marks are available for the evaluation of resources and of the link to the project aims.

(5 marks)

Task 2 Execute a literature review

The Learning outcomes in this Task are:

To gather, analyse, evaluate and use relevant material

To demonstrate a self-awareness of the skills and activities needed to carry out a project by listing, describing and practically
demonstrating them

To execute a literature review supporting your project.

Use your literature sources to describe the development of your methods. Summarise the key engineering points from your work
so far. Explain clearly how they contribute to meeting your project objectives.

Guidance
Word count: Mandatory maximum of 800 words.

You should ensure that:

appropriate terminology including theories, paradigms, concepts and principles are used and suitably explained

you include diagrams and tables where appropriate and refer to them in your text

you provide full references for the papers/sources that you use at the end of your summary and cite the authors correctly
within the text (see Section 5.2 of the Project Guide) using the OU Referencing Guide (note that for papers containing more
than 10 authors, you only need to list the first author and ‘et al’ in the text and the first 10 authors then ‘et al’ in the references)

you pay particular attention to the word count; a maximum number of words is given here to encourage clear, concise writing
which is required for your final project.

(45 marks)

The role of the literature review

The principal purpose of a literature review is to show that you are clear about the area you are working in. This means that you
have to survey the published literature. The use of reference databases is essential. As you gather articles, you will establish your
own criteria of usefulness, working out whether a particular reference will be valuable and also identifying its limitations.

You will be seeking to group references together to highlight or contrast different approaches and methods. The material you look
at and then evaluate will allow you to define and limit the problem you are working on and the methods you adopt. It should prevent
you from ‘reinventing the wheel’ on the one hand and neglecting to do something important on the other.

The review itself will have a short introduction outlining the main topics. This will be followed by descriptions, evaluations and
contributions of various references. In the review, you will seek to support the methods that you have chosen for your project. You
must supply a clear link between your evaluations of the references and your chosen methods.

The review should extend your reader’s understanding of the problem you are tackling as well as providing a methodology (a
systematic analysis of the methods used) for the project.

Task 3 Describe the development of your proposal

Learning outcomes

Demonstrate competence in the use of the principles and conventions of project management and execution

Demonstrate a self-awareness of the skills and activities needed to carry out a project by listing, describing and practically
demonstrating them.

This part of the assignment asks you to reflect on your project work so far. This covers the period from when you first learned of the
generic titles up to the submission of this assignment. You should refer to your project log in responding to the following questions.

Q3a Describe the methods that you have used to produce your proposal. Below are a series of questions which might help you
structure your answer. You are not expected to answer all of them.

Which methods used to develop your project aims have worked well? Which methods did not? Why was this? What would you do
differently? How would you distinguish between an academic and a work project?

(10 marks)

Q3b How did the feedback from your TMA 01, initial pro forma and any emails with your tutor affect the development of your
proposal?

Add any relevant material regarding your discussions in an Appendix to this assignment.

(10 marks)

Q3c Attach a copy of your Project log which should detail all the activities you have undertaken so far, including the dates.

(5 marks)

TMA 02 Unless otherwise stated, copyright © 2023 The Open University, all rights reserved.