CN6000 Mental Wealth; Professional Life 3 (Project) Assessment Brief 2026-27 | University of East London

CN6000 Assessment Brief

Summary of module for applicants

• Developing professional skills is increasingly critical for successful graduate-level employment, entrepreneurship and career progression in the 4th industrial revolution.
• This module will provide students with the opportunity to apply the full range of skills, competencies and experience required for successful development to, and in, a range of potential future career areas.
• Herein, they will advance the areas identified at level 5 for their own personal professional development (including emotional, social, physical, cultural and cognitive intelligences) through taught and workshop activities.
• Students will undertake a sizeable piece of individual academic work in an area of their own interest relevant to, and demonstrating technical skills acquired in, their programme of study. Students will normally need to research one or more academic topic areas and then apply their findings to the construction of a computer-based system.
• Students will consider the ethical, legal, social, and professional issues in the construction of systems, and the project will require appropriate research, analysis, design, implementation, quality assurance, evaluation and project management.
• Students will reflect on the success of the strategies that they employed to further develop their reflective skills, self-awareness, ‘lifestyle’ and ‘self-care’ approaches and where necessary improve their approaches.
• Students will have the opportunity to select an in-house microbusiness to join in the role of ‘Manager’. In this position, they will oversee the successful operation of the enterprise, coach and mentor students new to the programme. Working collaboratively with peers and academic staff, they will ensure the effective delivery of a live project by managing people and physical resources. In doing so, they will apply the skills learnt elsewhere in their studies (and from external activities) required in the workplace.

Main Topics of Study

The module will enable students to apply and develop a variety of skills based competencies explored at level 5, including: self-awareness and regulation; mindfulness; emotional resilience; motivation; ethical decision-making; active listening; self-discipline and management; attention; reaction and response time; cognitive and muscle memory; managing stress; physical resilience; subject knowledge; cognitive flexibility; managing an audience; co-ordinating with others, negotiation; creativity; leadership and entrepreneurship; service orientation; critical thinking; complex problem solving; research synthesis and analysis.

Students cover the following topics by applying their knowledge and understanding of them to their chosen project:

• Identification of a suitable project topic
• Research methods
• Literature surveys, searches and reviews
• Plagiarism and referencing
• Project planning, monitoring, risk assessment and control
• Academic writing and presentation skills
• The development, to a professional standard, of a large, non-trivial computer-based system or the critical evaluation of a recent development in the field of computing
• The documentation, to a professional standard, of a significant, problem-focused computing task, including the study of the application domain, a detailed analysis of the problem and a solution to the problem.

This module will be able to demonstrate at least one of the following examples/ exposures:

• Live, applied project ☒
• Company/engagement visits ☒
• Company/industry sector endorsement/badging/sponsorship/award

Learning Outcomes

• Digital Proficiency – Code = (DP)
• Industry Connections – Code = (IC)
• Social & Emotional Intelligence – Code = (SEI)
• Physical Intelligence – Code = (PI)
• Cultural Intelligence – Code = (CI)
• Community Connections & UEL Give Back- Code = (CC)
• Cognitive Intelligence– Code = (COI)
• Enterprise and Entrepreneurship – Code = (EE)

At the end of this module, students will be able to:

Knowledge

• Demonstrate a sound knowledge and understanding of the subject area to which their project relates (IC) (CI)

Thinking skills

• Critically reflect upon the ethical, legal, and social considerations of a chosen project topic (IC) (CI) (SEI) (COI)
• Evaluate both the research of others and their own project work (CI) (COI)

Subject-based practical skills

• Analyse the problem domain to which the project relates and present that analysis in the form of a literature review (IC) (CI)
• Specify, design and implement a solution to a non-trivial computing problem using industry- standard methodologies, tools and techniques (DP) (IC) (CC) (EE)

Skills for life and work (general skills)

• Defend their work using both verbal and non-verbal communication channels (DP) (SEI)
• Demonstrate an ability to organise, manage, and document a sizeable piece of independent academic work (DP) (SEI) (PI)
• Provide feedback to mentees and peers (SEI) (CC)
• Produce meaningful and realistic career goals and pathways for achieving this (IC, CC, EE)

Teaching/ learning methods/strategies used to enable the achievement of learning outcomes

For on-campus students:

Lectures will be used to provide an overview of the project, its requirements and organisation and an
introduction to research methods, literature surveys and referencing. In addition, every student will be allocated a supervisor at an early stage within the module. The supervisor will support the student for the duration of the project. Feedback will be provided throughout the module in the form of both formative and summative work.

Reading and resources for the module

Core

• Dawson, C. W. (2015). Projects in Computing and Information Systems: A Student’s Guide. 3rd ed. Harlow, Essex: Pearson Education.

Recommended

• Cottrell, S. (2017) Critical Thinking Skills: Effective Analysis, Argument and Reflection. 3rd ed. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
• Denzin, N. K. and Lincoln, Y. S. (2013). The Landscape of Qualitative Research. 4th ed. London: SAGE.
• Murray, N. and Hughes, G. (2008) Writing Up Your University Assignments and Research Projects: A Practical Handbook. Maidenhead, UK: Open University Press
• Pears, R. and Shields, G. (2016) Cite Them Right: The Essential Referencing Guide. 10th ed. Basingstoke: Palgrave

Live, applied project – the core of this module is to develop a substantial practical project that must
be ‘problem-focussed’, i.e., applied to the solution of a real-world problem.

Company/engagement visits – employers will be invited to attend an end-of-project showcase event, and a significant number of projects are client-based, i.e., involve the development and delivery of systems and/or software for businesses and organisations.

Company/industry sector endorsement/badging/sponsorship/award. The British Computer Society awards an annual prize to the best project as judged by the staff responsible for delivering this module.