General instructions

• Assume that you are writing your report for a general reader — someone who has not been involved in the DDS course and has little knowledge of, or interest in, sustainability.
• Your report should be at least 2,500 words long but no more than 3,000 words. You may in addition provide an appendix if you wish (e.g., to list a questionnaire or to give details of data that was collected), but you are not required to do so. An appendix will not count towards the word limit.
• Important: this assessment guidance spells out the criteria that will be used for awarding marks for each section. Read it before starting your report!
• The remainder of this document is a skeleton that lists and explains the content that you should aim to include in your report. You must use these section headers in your report; you may add further sub-headings if you wish. Note that the maximum available marks differ for each section and that Section 3 is worth 45%.

1. Introduction

[5%]

Provide a brief overview of your report, explain the specific problem you are addressing, and why you think it is important.

2. Your Problem Area

[15%]

Explain in more detail what your problem is and how it involves different groups of stakeholders. Describe what stakeholders you engaged with during your project, why you chose them and what you learned about the needs and values of the relevant stakeholder groups. Focus on what is most relevant for motivating your solution — you do not need to give an exhaustive description of all the information you collected about the stakeholders.

3. Your Design Idea

[45%]

Describe the primary design idea that you developed. Justify why you developed this particular idea from among the range of options that you considered, and relate it to the problem area described in the previous section. What evidence do you have for the feasibility of this idea? Use appropriate techniques (e.g., tables, graphs, diagrams, photos) for communicating the information that supports your idea and for illustrating the idea itself, especially if the idea is primarily visual. Data that provides evidence for your idea may include verbatim quotations or dialogues from focus groups and PD sessions. NB You can draw on any research or design exercises carried out within your team, not just information that you collected by yourself.

4. Evaluation and Next Steps

[15%]

What do you think needs to be done next in order to further develop your team’s primary idea? What additional evidence would you like to collect or what further user testing? Are there other design ideas from your project that you have not explored as fully as you wish, and that you think merit more attention? Are there other stakeholders or key individuals in the University who would have to be influenced in order to fully realise the potential of your idea?

5. Reflections

[15%]

How have you dealt with challenges of engaging with people in the University community? What has been your experience of working within an interdisciplinary team and sharing out work, responsibilities and roles — and what did you learn from that experience? What was your personal contribution to the team effort during the project, both in terms of your expertise and knowledge, and also in terms of the tasks you carried out?

6. Conclusions

[5%]

Summarise overall what you personally, and your team, have learned in your project. Consider whether the results of your project could be applied more generally.