Admission requirements
This course is obligatory for students of the MSc Industrial Ecology (joint degree TU Delft and Leiden University).
Description
The course introduces the key analytical tools used in the field of Industrial Ecology (IE), providing an understanding of their underlying philosophy and their position in the field. Students are trained in the applicability of these tools by working on case studies with the aid of specific software-tools.
Before the course begins, please ensure that you can run the software-tools STAN (https://www.stan2web.net/) and OpenLCA (https://www.openlca.org/) on your computer. For Apple users, please ensure you can run MS windows. For guidance on this, you may refer to resources such as: www.howtogeek.com/187359/5-ways-to-run-windows-software-on-a-mac.
Course objectives
Upon successful completion of this course, you will have the ability to:
DESCRIBE the most important analytical tools in IE, their philosophy and position in the field.
DISCUSS the applicability of these tools, including their potential uses and limitations).
DEFINE and refine research questions for your analysis.
UTILIZE 3 families of analytical tools (including the associated software & databases), namely: Material Flow Analysis/Substance Flow Analysis (MFA/SFA), Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), Environmental Extended Input Output Analysis (EEIOA) for pre-processed cases in a societal, policy, or business contexts.
PRESENT your findings in a clear and transparent manner.
DEMONSTRATE analytical, critical and system’s thinking skills.
Timetable
You will find the timetables for all courses and degree programmes of Leiden University in the tool MyTimetable (login). Any teaching activities that you have sucessfully registered for in MyStudyMap will automatically be displayed in MyTimeTable. Any timetables that you add manually, will be saved and automatically displayed the next time you sign in.
MyTimetable allows you to integrate your timetable with your calendar apps such as Outlook, Google Calendar, Apple Calendar and other calendar apps on your smartphone. Any timetable changes will be automatically synced with your calendar. If you wish, you can also receive an email notification of the change. You can turn notifications on in ‘Settings’ (after login).
For more information, watch the video or go the the 'help-page' in MyTimetable.
Please note: Joint Degree students Leiden/Delft have to merge their two different timetables into one. This video explains how to do this.
Mode of instruction
Lectures and discussions with key articles for theoretical background.
Practical group work with software tools for MFA/SFA, LCA and EEIOA skills.
Consultation offered for each group work session.
Course materials are communicated at Brightspace Leiden University.
Assessment method
Assessment
Individual written exam (5,5 out of 10 points). A 3-hour digital exam will be conducted on campus at the end of the course. The examination will consist of a combination of close-ended questions (e.g. multiple choice) and short open-ended questions.
Group assignments (4,5 out of 10 points). Throughout the course, there will be three group assignments focusing on SFA, LCA and EEIOA. Each assignment contributes 1.5 points to the total score, which is determined by the quality of group reports and the accompanying models. Additionally, each assignment has two mandatory work sessions. Please note that absence from these work sessions could result in a reduction of up to 10% in the individual score for each assignment.
Weighing
The final grade for the course is determined by the weighted average of the written exam score (55%) and the group assignment score (45%).
The final grade is expressed as a number between 1 and 10, rounded to the nearest half. The rounding process is only applied at the end for the final calculation. Interim grades (for the written exam and group assignments) will retain two decimal places. Please note that a grade of 5,5 cannot be awarded. Grades ranging from 5,01 to 5,49 are rounded down to 5,0, while grades between 5,50 and 5,99 are rounded up to 6,0.
Resit
A resit is offerred for the individual written exam.To pass the course, the minimum unrounded grade for both the written exam and the overall course must reach 5.50.
In case of an insufficient grade, a resit is offered for the individual written exam.
Inspection and feedback
A inspection and feedback session is offered within 3 weeks from the publication of the grading results of the written exam.
Reading list
Jan J. Boersema and Lucas Reijnders (eds). Principles of Environmental Sciences, ISBN 978-1-4020-9157-5. Key chapters used in the course are:
Helias Udo de Haes and Reinout Heijungs, Chapter 12.4 Material Flow Analysis: A Tool for Analysing the Metabolism of Materials and Substances
Helias Udo de Haes and Reinout Heijungs, Chapter 12.5 Life Cycle Assessment: A tool for the Analysis of Product Systems
Reinout Heijungs, Chapter 17A An illustration of the LCA technique
Paul Ekins, Chapter 11.2 Input-Output Analysis
Registration
Every student of all years must enroll via MyStudyMap.
In this short video, you will see step by step how to enroll in courses in MyStudyMap. Note that your enrollment is only completed when you submit your course planning in the 'Ready for enrollment' tab by clicking 'submit'.
There are two registration periods per year: registration for the fall semester opens in July and registration for the spring semester opens in December. Please see this page for more information.
Please note that it is compulsory to register for every exam and retake. Not being registered for a course means that you are not allowed to participate in the final exam. Keep in mind that there are enrollment deadlines, see this page for more information.
Extensive FAQ on MyStudymap can be found here.
Contact
Coordinator(s): Mingming Hu and René Kleijn
Other involved teachers: Nils Thonemann, Ranran Wang, Lauran van Oers, Ingeborg Kluts, Reinout Hijungs and Stefano Cucurachi
Remarks
MSc Industrial Ecology students can register for the course and exam via MystudyMap. Other students need to contact the study advisors of the programme via studyadvisor-ie@cml.leidenuniv.nl