Project Instructions

HIM 1430- Principles of Disease

Project Due Week 7

 

The goal of this assignment is to conduct library research on the epidemiology of a disease or health condition that interests you. You will select a disease or condition, search the published scientific literature to answer the questions below, and prepare a concise fact sheet that describes the disease.

What is a fact sheet?

A fact sheet provides meaningful information about a topic in a format that is extremely brief and easy to read. Fact sheets are used to provide an overview, to provide recommendations and advice, and sometimes to convince the reader to change their behavior. The focus is on providing what is essential and presenting the information in a way that is visually appealing and accessible.

Example- provided below.

Fact Sheet Format for this assignment:

1. The fact sheet should be between 2-3 pages double spaced typed pages, not including the reference list.

2. Use 12 point font.

3. Figures or table can be used.

4. The fact sheet should be based primarily on at least 3 recently (within the last 5 years) published review articles of your topic (from a public health or medical journals). You may augment this information with data from websites or other publications, but published reviews will form the basis of your research. The course textbook can be used to gain a basic understanding of your chosen disease or condition.

5. All references used to create our fact sheet should be cited in the text and referenced at the end.

6. APA format should be used.

Steps in Preparing your Fact Sheet:

1.    Choose a topic- The focus is a disease or condition that affects humans. It may help to explore texts of infectious disease, chronic disease, or public health to see what catches your interest.

2.    Conduct a search of the literature

3.    Limit the scope of the topic- After researching your topic to get a sense of its scope, you may decide to study the disease in general (for example, “heart disease” ) or limit your topic by focusing on a specific group according to race, age, gender, or geographic location. (For example, “heart disease in women”, or “heart disease in African-Americans”, or “heart disease in Orlando, FL.”) If there are too many review articles on your topic you need to limit the scope of your fact sheet further or select another disease/condition. If there are not enough reviews, you may want to check in with the Professor about your topic.

4.    Focus on Reviews: Identify all published reviews on your topic during the past 5 years.

5.    Summarize your review & create your fact sheet.

 

******** Click on the tab in the course called “Library Guide” to begin your research.

 

Content of Fact Sheet:

The following questions should be answered in your assignment. For some topics, these will not be appropriate, but if that is the case, be sure to clearly state that there is a gap in the literature otherwise, I will think you have missed something. This list is written in the order information usually appears in a fact sheet. If you decide to deviate from this, you should have a reason for doing so.

A.    What is the name of the disease or condition? How is it defined and diagnosed?

B.    Why is it a problem? Describe its symptoms, morbidity, and mortality.

C.   What are the major risk factors of the disease? Is there a known agent or cause

D.   What populations are at risk for this disease or condition?

E.    What is the incidence of the disease?

F.    How is the disease treated?

G.   How is the disease prevented?

PROJECT INSTRUCTIONS .

Written assignments must not exceed the specified maximum number of words.  All assignments which do so will be penalised.  The penalty will be the deduction of marks at the Marker’s judgement.  Assignments will not be accepted without a word count on the cover sheet.

Submission Dates:

This assignment must be uploaded on Turnitin no later than 10:00hrs on the 14.07.2015..

Work submitted after this time or date will receive a mark of 0 unless an extension has been approved in advance of this deadline.

Requests for short-term extensions will only be considered in the case of illness or other cause considered valid by the Programme Director.  These must normally be received and agreed by Programme Director in writing at least twenty four hours prior to the deadline.

Please refer to the Academic Regulations or your Student Handbook for full details.

Further details:    This assignment must be completed individually.

This assignment must be attached to a completed University Assignment Cover Sheet.

All assignments must be submitted via TURNITIN. You are advised to keep a copy of your TURNITIN receipt.

Aim of Assessment

You are to develop a travel destination package to learn about the planning involved in organizing a trip.

Task

Produce a report for your client for a 5 day trip to the Edinburgh Festival for a party of 50 people including both adults and children, some with disabilities. You are required to analyse the current trends and identify the potential issues in planning a trip for a mixed party of customers. You should also address the impact that your trip could have on the destination chosen.  You must consider the economic, environmental, cultural, political and social impacts and follow recognised codes of ethics and practice.

You are required to produce and deliver a 15 minute PowerPoint presentation to your client giving your recommendations and rationale for this trip.

Submission

•    The word limit for this assignment is 3000 words.
•    Students are expected to keep within the word limit. Appendices can only be used to support the main body of the report. Any new information included in the appendices will not be marked.
•    Your assignment should be written as a report supported with a PowerPoint presentation.
•    You should use an appropriate writing style and vocabulary.
•    Assignments should be correctly referenced using the Harvard system of referencing. Incorrect or insufficient referencing will be penalised.
Assignments with a copy of the presentation must be submitted via ‘Turnitin’. Individual feedback will be automatically generated by Turnitin once the marking and quality assurance process has been completed.

Assessment Criteria

This assignment requires you to demonstrate your ability and understanding of the demands and issues involved when working in the Tourism sector and meeting client’s requirements.

The analysis must be supported by academic theories and concepts and the paper must be a report and comply with the Harvard referencing guidelines.  The reflection must not be descriptive in nature; it should provide clear evidence of understanding of the issues under consideration.

There is no correct number of academic references to be utilised as the student must draw as many references as required to provide a high quality answer.  However, a minimum of 12 academic sources are expected, and a majority of these should be current, internationally peer reviewed articles/journals or accredited textbook references.  Sources such as Wikipedia and the like are not accepted.  Sources available only online should be avoided.

You must be mindful of how marks are allocated based on your ability to define, analyse and apply the key concepts.  The chart below demonstrates how the marks (in percentages) will be allocated according to the criteria shown.

You will notice that without any application or understanding you may struggle to pass the module and note that the majority of the weighting in the marks is on analysis. Similarly, if you only demonstrated understanding and application the highest mark that you could achieve is 50%.

Specific Module Guidance

To achieve a pass level mark you must ensure that you describe the characteristics of the tourism sector and recognised codes of ethics and practice. This will require secondary research.  Your work will be referenced according to the Harvard Referencing System and will be report format.

To achieve higher marks, in addition to the requirements to achieve a pass mark, you will need to make informed comparisons between the theories and concepts you have studied and provide a reflection on how these apply to your project topic. The analysis will be very well applied and will rely heavily for support on current literature.