Prospectus

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Research Skills and Scientific Integrity

Course
2024-2025

Admission Requirements

Approval from the study advisor to be admitted to a BSc project.

Description

This course will prepare you and support you in carrying out your Bachelor Research Project, which is the final part of your degree. A series of crash-courses and short sessions (run by local experts) will touch upon the core skills that are necessary for you to finish your research project successfully.

Additionally, this course offers the opportunity to share your research experiences with your fellow students. This can help you to tackle problems encountered during your project and it provides a broad overview of the research performed within the institute.

The RSSI courses are mainly scheduled in the spring semester, when also the BRP starts. It starts with two weeks of crash courses preceding your bachelor project and regular meetings for the duration of your project. The sessions will cover:

  • Labskills & Safety

  • Project Management

  • Research Skills

  • Communication Skills

  • Personal & Professional Development

  • Scientific Integrity

  • Ethics

In the Scientific Integrity & Ethics part of the RSSI course we address two aspects of your participation in the scientific community, which are the code of scientific conduct, and that of your responsibility towards society in general.

In order to pass you need to complete the Safety Drill attend all compulsory sessions, turn in assignments, and give the required presentations. There is a consiberable choice of modules to create your own path and serving your needs.

The regulations for double students are largely similar and there where differences exists, these will be communicated during the BRP kick-off meetings in the fall semester.

Course objectives

The goals of this course are threefold. The first goal is to let you acquire the soft skills as listed below. The second goal is to help you with difficulties that can occur during your bachelor project. The third goal is to give you an overview of the research being done in the institute.

Transferable Skills

After this course you will be able to:

  • Work safely and independently in a scientific research environment

  • Identify and relate with the key support departments of a lab

  • Manage a ~20 week research project

  • Perform a structured search for scientific literature

  • Efficiently obtain from scientific literature what you need for your research

  • Manage research data and write a data management plan

  • Analyze experimental errors

  • Write in proper academic English

  • Present your research to a specialized audience

  • Identify when you or your colleagues do not handle research according the code of scientific conduct

  • Identify when you or your colleagues do not handle responsible towards society in general

Timetable

Schedule

For detailed information go to Timetable in Brightspace

In MyTimetable, you can find all course and programme schedules, allowing you to create your personal timetable. Activities for which you have enrolled via MyStudyMap will automatically appear in your timetable.

Additionally, you can easily link MyTimetable to a calendar app on your phone, and schedule changes will be automatically updated in your calendar. You can also choose to receive email notifications about schedule changes. You can enable notifications in Settings after logging in.

Questions? Watch the video, read the instructions, or contact the ISSC helpdesk.

Note: Joint Degree students from Leiden/Delft need to combine information from both the Leiden and Delft MyTimetables to see a complete schedule. This video explains how to do it.

Mode of instruction

See Brightspace

Assessment method

The course is Pass/Fail.

To pass, you need to:

  • Attend all sessions in the first week of February (full week)

  • Attend all subsequent sessions

  • Turn in all assignments

    Within the semester you need to acquire 24 SP (skills points) for the Physics program (3EC), and 18 SP for the Astronomy program (2EC).

Reading list

None

Registration

As a student, you are responsible for enrolling on time through MyStudyMap.

In this short video, you can see step-by-step how to enrol for courses in MyStudyMap.
Extensive information about the operation of MyStudyMap can be found here.

There are two enrolment periods per year:

  • Enrolment for the fall opens in July

  • Enrolment for the spring opens in December

See this page for more information about deadlines and enrolling for courses and exams.

Note:

  • It is mandatory to enrol for all activities of a course that you are going to follow.

  • Your enrolment is only complete when you submit your course planning in the ‘Ready for enrolment’ tab by clicking ‘Send’.

  • Not being enrolled for an exam/resit means that you are not allowed to participate in the exam/resit.

Contact

Dr.ir. P.S.W.M. Logman Dr. M.P. van Daalen Prof.dr.Thomas Schmidt

Remarks

Software
Starting from the 2024/2025 academic year, the Faculty of Science will use the software distribution platform Academic Software. Through this platform, you can access the software needed for specific courses in your studies. For some software, your laptop must meet certain system requirements, which will be specified with the software. It is important to install the software before the start of the course. More information about the laptop requirements can be found on the student website.