ASSESSMENT TWO: Deferral / referral

Sustainable City Report

THIRD SEMESTER – 2021 / 2022

LEARNING OUTCOMES ADDRESSED:

LO1. Collect and synthesise information from a range of authoritative sources to inform a choice of solutions to sustainability problems in familiar and unfamiliar contexts of various world cities in the world.

LO2. Select appropriate techniques for evaluation and discriminate between the relative relevance of evidence collected to examine the impacts of businesses and governmental structures in cities on economic development, environment, and social equity.

1.    ASSESSMENT SUMMARY:

In your first assessment you have researched a city and identified critical issues that need to be addressed to improve its sustainability performance. Building on your Assessment 1 research and findings you are required to prepare a report that analyses two of these critical issues and identifies realistic solutions and strategies that could positively impact on your city’s performance in this area. The report should include a reflection on the video recording of the online fieldtrip centred on your role in promoting a sustainable city and potential solutions that can be implemented to this end.

2.    DETAILED ASSESSMENT GUIDE AND STRUCTURE:

Submission method:

• Your report will be uploaded to Turnitin as a single PDF the file must be less than 100 MB)
• Document Name: 5BUSS015W CW2 def-ref
  • Please DO NOT include your name or student number within the file name or anywhere within your submission as the marking is anonymous.

Style

• Formal report including executive summary, contents list, report numbering and subheadings.
• 5-line spacing, 12-point text size and standard margins.

Structure 

A required structure is as follows:

• Title Page (state the title and the word count)
• Disability Statement (if applicable)
• Table of Contents (list of subsections, tables, figures, and appendices)
• Executive Summary(max: 1 paragraph)
  • Briefly identify the city, its sustainable issues, summarise the key findings and draw the main conclusions.
• Introduction (100 words)
  • Briefly outline the purpose of the report and its structure.
• Section 1: Introduction to the city(250 words)
  • Identification of the city and thetwo key sustainable issues addressed in your report.  Summarise the causes and effects of these issues in relation to your city’s sustainability rating / performance.
• Section 2 – Identification and analysis of the solutionsto your chosen sustainability issues. Use a separate subheading for each issue (1000 words)
  • Why are these solutions suitable for the city? What Key Performance indicators (KPI) can be used to measure its progress? What other cities are currently applying these solutions? and analyse potential trade-offs.
  • Students need to revise the following lecture and seminar material (including video recording sessions):
    • Week 2 to 5 (you will find information about some KPIs)
    • Week 6: Sustainable community and social equity
    • Week 7: Building Sustainable Cities (the lecture video recording includes a recap on the field trip)
    • Week 9: Solutions to energy
    • Week 10: Solutions to affordable housing
    • Week 11: Solutions to transport
  • Section 3 – Reflection on field trip(400 words)
    • Students need to watch the following online tour video (online field trip):
      • https://vimeo.com/480070158
      • Password: Westminstermay2022
    • Identify two key initiatives that have you have learnt about during the field trip.
    • Analyse how cities can be re-imagined for a more sustainable and inclusive future. What is your role in the achievement of SDG targets?
    • Students need to revise the following lecture and seminar material (including video recording sessions):
      • Week 7: Building Sustainable Cities (the lecture video recording includes a recap on the field trip)
      • Week 8: The role of the company in the sustainable city
    • Conclusions(250 words)
      • Identify key findings in relation to the city, the two key sustainability issues and the potential solutions.
      • Why are these key findings important?
    • Reference List
    • Appendices
      • Appendices to include additional information for the reader (material that is too detailed to include in the main report).

Important aspects that you need to pay attention in your report:

• Report format and presentation
  • Amount of text, subheadings, spacing, figures and tables. Have you followed the suggested report structure?
• Quality of research sources and Harvard referencing style 
  • Include reference to a fair balance of academic and non-academic literature sources in your work.
    • Academic literature: For example, academic books and academic journal articles.
    • Non-academic sources: Newspapers, magazine articles, business reports and information written and published on official organisations’ sites, for example sustainability, metropolitan and government sites.
    • Please use any sources with caution and assess their reliability before referencing them. If in doubt, speak with your seminar leader or post a question on the discussion board.
  • Harvard referencing style
    • Use in-text citations and create a reference list following the Westminster Harvard referencing (WHR) style.
    • Reference list should be in a single list in alphabetical order. Do not keep web references separate and do not forget their access dates.
    • You should follow the guidance from the booklet ‘Referencing your work: using Westminster Harvard’: https://www.westminster.ac.uk/sites/default/public-files/general-documents/referencing-your-work.pdf

3.    ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

More information about the assessment including will be found on Blackboard / Assessment / ‘Defer / Refer Assessment 2: Report’

Discussion board

If you have any question, please post it on the discussion board (click on the following links):

• About Assessment 2: Discussion on Deferral / Referral Assessment 2: the Sustainable City Report (50%).
• About any other business: Discussion on any other business (AOB).

Revision

• The module leaders are organising a deferral / referral assessment revision session on Monday 27th June at 2 pm (UK time). This will be an online class using Blackboard Collaborate and subsequently, the link will be available on the Blackboard module site

How to approach the assessment task: 

Ideally, you will have completed Assessment 1 and received feedback on the quality and validity of your poster research.  If you have not completed Assessment 1, then you could draft it in preparation for Assessment 2. The focus of this second assessment is to identify two issues that negatively impact on your city’s sustainability performance. Consider social, environmental, and economic concerns.  Select and analyse two issues, identifying the causes and impacts of these problems. Research best practice in relation to the problems you have identified. Compare your city’s performance to another that has implemented a workable solution addressing this issue. Propose solutions that could address your concern. Indicate how your solution addresses targets outlined in SDG11, other UN targets and the Paris Agreement. Consider how your suggestions could be funded. What public/ private initiatives could be taken to make your solutions a reality? What trade-offs would need to be made to improve sustainable performance?

Certain sources are clearly unreliable, and you should avoid including Wikipedia, UKessays and Businessballs.

The following video tutorials show how to covert a Word document to a PDF

How to Convert a Word document into a PDF on a PC

https://youtu.be/Qj_KlSqTNWU

How to Convert a Word document into a PDF on a Mac

https://youtu.be/_gZeJIsdib8

How to Convert a Word document into a PDF using Google Drive / Chromebook

https://youtu.be/bBFVDJQYbi0

4.    MARKING CRITERIA:

The pass mark for this assessment component is 40%. The poster rubric can be seen in section 8. The marking criteria are as follows.

5.    TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES WITH SUBMISSION:

If you have a financial hold situation a hardcopy plus electronic version will be accepted via the WBS Registry Coursework Lobby before the deadline. Please contact the Marylebone Registry to clarify how you should submit assessment in this situation:

Please do not email your module leaders or your seminar leaders your coursework unless you have been asked to do so. The Registry does not accept such a submission in most cases.

If you are having technical difficulties on the date of submission and cannot submit the coursework on time log a call via the IT Service Desk that can be found on this webpage: https://www.westminster.ac.uk/current-students. Please make sure that your message is very specific. The Service Desk will then email you confirmation that you will be able to use as supporting written evidence for your MC claim.

You can also email the module leaders and ask for advice, Gustavo Espinoza-Ramos g.espinozk and Beverle)

6.    PENALTIES FOR LATE SUBMISSION:

Any assessment submitted late online will be penalised unless you submit a claim for Mitigating Circumstances (MC) and the claim is accepted by the Registry. Check this page for more information: https://www.westminster.ac.uk/current-students/guides-and-policies/assessment-guidelines/mitigating-circumstances-claims

If you do not submit an MC claim or if your MC claim is rejected, then the penalty for assessments submitted individually online within the 24 hours late period is a reduction of 10% of the overall marks available for the assessment, except for work which is marked in the range 40 – 49%, in which case the mark will be capped at the pass mark (40%). Assessments submitted individually online more than 24 hours late will be given the mark 0%, unless the Mitigating Circumstances claim has been accepted officially by the Registry.

7.    AVOIDING PLAGIARISM:

Your assignment must demonstrate your own work and ideas. You may use graphs and clipart as appropriate.  All written work must be the work of the individual student. Similarities between the work of students will be reported as collusion.

Any quotations and references that you include in your assignment will be identified by the Plagiarism detection programme as being similar to other sources, therefore it is vital that you reference correctly.

Please check information about Westminster Harvard Referencing style here: https://libguides.westminster.ac.uk/referencing

Westminster Harvard Referencing Style booklet can be downloaded here:

https://www.westminster.ac.uk/sites/default/public-files/general-documents/referencing-your-work.pdf

Any evidence of plagiarism will be reported to the Academic Standards team. A similarity content of 0% will be investigated by the Academic Misconduct Panel as it is regarded as being an indicator of an attempt to circumvent the plagiarism software. Since your document should have several different references the plagiarism detection programme should identify them.

Please see more information about plagiarism here: https://www.westminster.ac.uk/current-students/guides-and-policies/academic-matters/academic-misconduct/plagiarism