UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON
Department of Civil, Environmental & Geomatic Engineering
Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT
GUIDELINES FOR THE INDIVIDUAL
MRes PROJECT 2013-14
URBAN SUSTAINABILITY AND RESILIENCE
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SECTION I: SELECTION, SUBMISSION, AND ASSESSMENT
OBJECTIVES
Each student who is registered for an MRes in the Department of Civil, Environmental & Geomatic
Engineering is required to carry out an individual project as part of their programme of study. The
objectives of this are:
• To further enhance your knowledge of one particular area of the subject you are studying.
• To demonstrate a high level of understanding of the subject at a higher level
• To demonstrate your ability to think originally and analytically about problems in your
subject, and to synthesise ideas from current literature.
• To test your ability to communicate your research in a concise and organised manner.
SCOPE AND CONTENT
There are many different kinds of project that can be undertaken by students on the MRes. Some of
them will involve field work; others will involve laboratory experiments or other forms of data
collection such as interviews, questionnaire surveys, or observations, some may involve developing
a theoretical framework, some may be a state-of-the-art review. Typically the research you
undertake as part of the MRes project will inform the direction and/or scope of your EngD or PhD
research as well as providing some preliminary results.
Your MRes dissertation should form an integrated and coherent whole. It should not be seen as
simply a first year or interim report for the EngD or PhD. As such, your research as part of the MRes
project needs to be presented as a complete piece of work. You will need to set out clear objectives
for the MRes project, describe the approach you used to address these objectives, discuss your
findings and draw appropriate conclusions. It is expected, particularly where the dissertation has
focused on developing a theoretical framework or presents a state-of-the-art review, that the
dissertation will include a substantive section on suggestions for further work and that it will be
clear how these suggestions arise from the research presented.
The dissertation will be expected to demonstrate competence and diligence in the applications of
knowledge, together with critical analysis and some degree of originality.
SUPERVISION
Your MRes project will be supervised by your regular academic supervisor and, if you have one,
your industrial supervisor. The role of the supervisors is to guide the work in the project, provide
support where appropriate and aid the student in reaching a suitable standard and amount of work
for an MRes dissertation. Meet with your academic and industrial supervisors at least fortnightly.
Organise regular 3-way meetings at UCL and the company’s premises. Industrial and academic
supervisors are a great resource but it is your job to draw them into the project.
You should not expect your supervisor to provide you with a detailed timetable or list of tasks to be
performed. Although you will discuss the objectives of the project, and will agree some specific
milestones that should be achieved during the summer, you are expected to display initiative and to
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be self-motivated. If you’re twiddling your thumbs waiting for your supervisor to tell you what to do
next, then something has gone wrong.
Your supervisor will be able to provide advice and give feed-back as you write your dissertation. It is
advisable that you draft a chapter structure at an early stage, and agree this in principle with your
supervisor. He or she will also read a sample chapter, and comment on the style, use of English, and
so on. Bear in mind, however, that this can take time, and your supervisor may be away from
College at certain periods of the summer: make sure that you submit your drafts earlier rather than
later.
If your project involves field work, or any other activity that may have health and safety
implications, you should discuss this with your supervisors and/or the Departmental Safety Officer
and agree procedures for safe working. Similarly you should discuss the ethical considerations of
your research with your supervisor and, if necessary, apply to the UCL ethics committee for
permission to proceed. You are also expected to adhere to UCL policy on data protection.
It is expected that during the project phase of the course, students will be based either at UCL (or
one of the collaborating institutions for inter-collegiate courses) or at an external organisation that
is collaborating on the project. For those based at external organisations, it is essential that contact
with the academic supervisor is maintained through regular meetings (at least once per fortnight).
The department does not consider that an adequate level of supervision can be maintained through
e-mail alone.
ASSESSMENT
The assessment criteria and marking scheme are as follows:
The report (95%)
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


Breadth and understanding of background knowledge. Independence of thought
Research Design: objectives, methodology, reasoning
Research Outcomes: novelty, significance, data quality, analysis, conclusions
Communication: report structure, English expression, referencing style, figures
Details of the grading scheme are provided on page 4.
Marking is completed by the project supervisor and second marker, and agreed by the external
examiner.
The presentation (5%)



Quality of visual aids: clear layout, appropriate content, effective illustrations.
Quality of presentation: structure, clarity of explanations suitable for a non-specialist
audience, effective summary of the research
Performance at the Presentation Event: responses to questions, professional
presentation
Marking is completed by the project supervisor and second marker, and agreed by the external
examiner.
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MRes in Urban Sustainability and Resilience Dissertation Marking Guidelines
100-80%
80-70%
60-50%
50-40%
Breath and
understanding of
background
knowledge and
independence of
thought.
Evidence of
considerable extracurricular reading
with original
interpretation
Evidence of extracurricular academic
reading, critical
thought and original
interpretation
Demonstration of
critical thought,
extra-curricular
reading, and
excellent
understanding of
literature
At least some
evidence of extracurricular reading
and critical thought,
good understanding
of literature
At least some
evidence of extracurricular reading
understanding of
literature, adequate
referencing
Research Design:
clear statement of
objectives/researc
h questions;
appropriate
methods/technique
/reasoning to
answer them
Novelty and
significance of
Research
Outcomes
given difficulty of
the problem
Faultless execution,
exemplary analysis
with entirely
appropriate
methods,
unquestionable
originality
Only very minor
faults in execution
or depth of
understanding,
clearly original
thought
Some minor faults
in execution or
understanding with
good evidence of
original thought
Demonstration of
good familiarity with
techniques used
and some evidence
of original thought
Communication:
report structure,
English
expression,
presentation of
data
Criterion
70-60%
40-30%
30-20%
20-10%
10-0%
Very little evidence Some evidence of
of extra-curricular reading, poor or
reading, inadequate sloppy referencing
referencing
Little evidence of
any reading, very
poor referencing
with items missing
No evidence of any
reading and no
references
Mostly
demonstrates
understanding of
techniques used,
but with occasional
errors of judgement,
and little original
thought
Outstanding
Significant
Contribution to field Minor contribution Reproduction of
contribution to field contribution to field (e.g., publishable at to field (e.g., worthy state of the art,
(e.g., publishable in (e.g., publishable in domestic
of poster
fulfils aims and
international journal international
conference or
presentation or
objectives of the
or best paper at a conference)
poster publication) internal seminar)
project
conference)
Some serious flaws
in understanding
methods used and
very little evidence
of original thought
Topic has not been
handled at all well,
lack of
understanding of
techniques used,
original thought
apparently absent
All aspects of the
project have been
handled badly, with
no understanding or
confusion of
techniques used
No evidence of any
understanding,
perhaps some
mention of relevant
terms
Good effort at the
state of the art, but
ultimately falls
short, with some
project goals
achieved
Attempt to create
Actual
the state of the art, achievements very
although project
few or not apparent
goals not nearly
achieved
No possible
contribution, goals
unmet, with no
concrete
achievements
apparent
Excellent write up
both in terms of
readability, clarity
and structure, with
faultless
presentation of data
Write up is not fully
coherent, rushed,
contains important
omissions or
irrelevant material
Write up is poor,
unstructured, some
parts missing,
writing needing
significant
improvement
Write up
substantially
absent,
incomprehensible
or wrong
Excellent write up
with only minor
faults, highly
readable, extremely
clear with excellent
structure
Good project write
up with very clear
logical structure
and good
presentation of data
Clear project write
up with logical
structure, some
minor errors in
presentation of data
Adequate write-up,
lacking clarity or
detail in places, or
containing
irrelevant material
Adapted from Simon Prince's computer science project marking scheme and MSc AAC dissertation Marking Guidelines
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Major failure in
write up structure
with missing parts,
very poor
readability , not at
all clear
SUBMISSION
The report
TWO soft-bound/ring bound copies of the report should be handed in to the departmental
reception on the ground floor (Lee/Sarah) by the following deadline (or the next working day if this
date falls on a weekend or Bank Holiday) using the Dissertation Submission sheet in appendix II. You
MUST also submit an electronic copy via Turn It In.
In addition to the above, a copy of your report must also be emailed to Jane Doogan
j.doogan@ucl.ac.uk and to each of your project markers by the deadline below.
DEADLINE for dissertation submission
for those who enrolled in Sept 2013: 2.00pm Friday 29 August 2014
for those who enrolled in Jan 2014: 2.00pm Thurs 11 December 2014
The presentation
Jane Doogan will advise on deadline for presentation submission - It is likely to be a few days before
the date of the presentation event. You will also be notified of the date of the presentation event in
due course.
Turnitin
An electronic copy (PDF) of your report must be submitted through Turnitin (TII) at
www.submit.ac.uk, (NOT www.submit.com, or www.submit.edu or any such variation) using:
Those of you who have previously submitted coursework to TII will have an account so simply use
your email and password. Those of you that don’t, need to create an account, log in using your email
and the password you created and then enter the Class ID and enrolment password
Class name: CEGE MRes Dissertations 2014
Class ID: 682947
Enrolment password: USAR2014
Late / No Submission or Fail
In the case of late submission the full allocated mark will be reduced by five percentage points for
the first working day after the deadline for the submission of the report. The mark will be reduced
by a further ten percentage points if the report is submitted during the following six days.
If you do not submit or fail your project for any reason then you will only be allowed to resubmit it
for consideration in the following academic year.
Submission of supporting material
Any programs that have been written for the project, and any data sets created or acquired, should
either be submitted on a hard disc or CD-ROM with the bound thesis (usually appropriate for PC
work) or arrangements should be made to transfer them to an agreed location on the departmental
computer system. This should be an arrangement between the student and either the supervisor or
the appropriate systems manager.
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Marks/feedback
The project marks, along with your final overall mark will be made available on Portico about four
weeks after the Exam Board which is held in late September for those who enrolled in September
and in late January for those who enrolled in January. You will also be able to obtain feedback on
your project from your supervisor.
SECTION II: THE REPORT
FRONT COVER – see appendix II.
The front cover should include the following information:
Title
Student’s Name
Supervisors
Programme
Department Name
Signed statement relating UCL regulations governing plagiarism
LENGTH
The length of the report will vary greatly but will normally fall within the range 15,000-20,000
words. Your report may be shorter if it takes the form of a journal article. Your report should not
exceed 20,000 words. The maximum length of 20,000 words is inclusive of the illustrations, tables
and titles but exclusive of references, table of contents, index, acknowledgements and appendices.
If your report is above the prescribed word count it will not be accepted for submission (i.e. it will
not be date-stamped or otherwise recorded as formally submitted), but immediately returned to
you with instructions to reduce the word length. The work may then be resubmitted but the original
deadline for submission still applies and penalties for late submission will be applied as specified
above.
For reports when resubmitted that exceed the upper word limit by 10% or more, a mark of zero will
be recorded. For reports that exceed the upper word limit by less than10% when resubmitted the
mark will be reduced by ten percentage marks; but the penalised mark will not be reduced below
the pass mark, assuming the work merited a pass.
PRESENTATION AND STYLE
The formatting and font of the report is a matter of individual choice, but the font type should be
standard (i.e. Arial or Times New Roman) and no less than 12pt in size. The text should be spaced at
either 1.5 spacing or double-spaced and either left or centrally justified. Exceptions to this are
allowed where the report takes the form of a journal article. In these cases, the report may be
formatted according to the requirements of the journal to which you intend to submit it.
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SUBMITTING A JOURNAL ARTICLE AS THE REPORT
As indicated above, you may submit your report in the form of a journal article. This format is
intended for those who wish to publish the results of their research shortly after completing the
MRes. In order for a journal article to be accepted as the report submission the following conditions
must be met:



The student must be the lead author, if not the sole author.
Where the paper isn't sole authored, it must be made clear what the contribution of each
author was.
The student should also clearly indicate which journal it will be submitted to if known. This
is especially important where this affects the length, tone or format of the piece.
You may wish to either add some sections which will not to be included in the final copy for the
journal or sandwich the paper between an introduction and conclusions to make sure you have met
the examiners’ expectations of an MRes project report, particularly relating to discussion of the
research context, the literature, the methodology, the limitations of your research and proposed
future work.
PLAGIARISM
Plagiarism is the unacknowledged use of the work of others that is either wilfully or inadvertently
passed off as the student’s own work. The College takes this issue very seriously, and the penalties
can be severe. You are therefore urged to read this section carefully, and if in doubt to err on the
side of caution.
The material does not have to be copyrighted for its use to constitute plagiarism. Copying material
from web pages and pasting it into your report is not acceptable. You may be surprised to learn how
easy this is to detect.
Any figures or diagrams that are copied from other works should be acknowledged by a reference in
the caption:
Figure 1: Projected sales of GI systems in the UK (from Smith, 1998)
Where you have modified or re-drawn the diagram, you may use the form:
Figure 2: The GPS constellation (after Smith, 1997)
You are expected to read the work of others, to think how it is relevant to your project, and to
synthesise it and express it in your own way. Occasionally, one author may have made a statement
that you think is highly significant: if you wish to quote it in full, then you must put it into quotation
marks and give the reference. It is not acceptable to quote the work of others verbatim and then
assume that giving the reference is sufficient.
It may be the case that a preliminary section (on background theory, for example) is strongly based
on one or two key texts. In this situation, rather than acknowledge every single equation or
statement, it may be acceptable to state at the beginning that the section is based on a particular
reference (although again, you should not quote passages verbatim).
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In this context, it should be stated here that some sections of this document have been based on a
set of guidelines prepared by Arthur Alan and Keith Atkinson of this department in 1989, who in turn
acknowledge The “Why?” and “How?” of report writing by F. J. Hazlewood, School of Materials
Science, University of Bath.
You MUST print out, sign and submit appendix II with your report
REFERENCES
References should be cited in the body of the report using the Harvard system:
.... studies concerned with the coastal zone (Smith 1997, p102).
The form Smith et al., 1999 should be used where there are three or more authors, but for two
authors both names should be retained.
Visit here for more information:
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/library/CitationPlagiarism.pdf
For web-based references, give the URL, the page title, the date accessed, the author or institution.
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Appendix I
UCL DEPARTMENT OF CIVIL,
ENVIRONMENTAL & GEOMATIC
ENGINEERING
MRes Dissertation Mark Sheet
Student:
Project Title:
Supervisor:
Second marker:
Breadth and understanding of background knowledge. Independence of thought.
Research Design: objectives, methodology, reasoning
Research Outcomes: novelty, significance, data quality, analysis, conclusions
Communication: report structure, English expression, referencing style, figures
OVERALL MARK
Comments
Excellent
Good
Poor
PROJECT REPORT (95%)
Adequate
1st SUPERVISOR/MARKER
Excellent
Good
Poor
PRESENTATION (5%)
Adequate
/95
Quality of visual aids: clear layout, appropriate content, effective illustrations.
Quality of presentation: structure, clarity of explanations, effective summary of the
research
Performance at the Presentation Event: responses to questions, professional
presentation
OVERALL MARK
/5
Comments
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Breadth and understanding of background knowledge. Independence of thought.
Research Design: objectives, methodology, rigour, reasoning
Research Outcomes: novelty, significance, data quality, analysis, conclusions
Communication: report structure, English expression, referencing style, figures
OVERALL MARK
Comments
Excellent
Good
Poor
PROJECT REPORT (95%)
Adequate
SECOND MARKER
Excellent
Good
Poor
PRESENTATION (5%)
Adequate
/95
Quality of visual aids: clear layout, appropriate content, effective illustrations.
Quality of presentation: structure, clarity of explanations, effective summary of the
research
Performance at the Presentation Event: responses to questions, professional
presentation
OVERALL MARK
/5
Comments
HOW FINAL MARK WAS AGREED (if discrepancy greater than 5 marks) - SUPERVISOR
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APPENDIX II
MRes DISSERTATION SUBMISSION
Student Name: __________________________________
(BLOCK CAPITALS)
Programme:
___________________________________ (e.g. MRes USAR)
Supervisor:
___________________________________
Dissertation Title:
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
Word Count:
_________
DECLARATION OF OWNERSHIP

I confirm that I have read and understood the guidelines on plagiarism, that I understand the
meaning of plagiarism and that I may be penalised for submitting work that has been
plagiarised.

I declare that all material presented in the accompanying work is entirely my own work
except where explicitly and individually indicated and that all sources used in its preparation
and all quotations are clearly cited.

I have submitted an electronic copy of the project report through turnitin.

I declare that to the best of my knowledge the word count given above is correct. It includes
illustrations, tables and titles but is exclusive of references, table of contents, index,
acknowledgements and appendices.
Should this statement prove to be untrue, I recognise the right of the Board of Examiners to
recommend what action should be taken in line with UCL’s regulations.
Signature:
Date
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