Hello and welcome to this presentation for Civil Engineering and Construction Management MSc at the University of Derby. I'm the programme leader for the Civil Engineering Construction Management MSc and also for some of the undergraduate provision in civil engineering at Derby and my name is Derek Spalton.
Just to give you a little bit of background about myself I worked in industry for over 20 years predominantly in the highways and drainage and I'm a chartered engineer through the engineering council. I'm very active with professional bodies and sit as regional chair for the chartered institute civil engineering surveyors and I'm a committee member for the chartered institute of highways and transportation as well as actually sitting on several of the academic standard panels and I'm an engineering council reviewer. My general area of research and study is into infrastructure assets modelling and design. Your academic team is quite broad and you've got a lot of professionals with different aspects of civil engineering and construction they'll be delivering new modules. I specialise in the transportation area on the MSc and also the geomatics which is the 3d modelling laser scanning etc my colleague Dr Justin Steele-Davies who is shown in this image here, he actually supports students for their Independent Studies Stamatis Zoras is a professor and he looks after Independent Studies and Research Methods modules. Omar Hamza Dr Hamza is our geotechnical specialist with a lot of research in slope stability. Hirbod Varasteh is our flood risk and looks after hydraulic engineering. John Thornley looks after CPD which is the Strategic Management module and Rosemary Horry looks after the Environmental Planning module. There are other modules that are taught and we utilize associate lecturers to support some of the specialist modules but with any module you should have a subject specialist supporting you.
So why study civil engineering online? Well it can be used for you to actually go through a individual assessment for working towards chartered engineer to ensure that through an individual assessment you can meet the requirements of the academic entry to becoming a chartered engineer so it allows for your career progression.
It covers critical issues that are facing the industry and as I speak today there are continually developing and molding our modules and there is a push to put more sustainability within our modules across the board as this is now becoming a predominant issue in the industry. It will give the opportunity to work and learn about real-life world projects and a lot of the assessment is actually scenario-based and we also have the benefit coming to Derby that you're getting 100% overall satisfaction rating from the 2020 postgraduate teaching survey. This team is strong both academically but we also have the benefit that almost every single person that'll be delivering to you has got industrial experience and has worked in industry and the programme also is accredited through RICS and some other professional bodies, the Chartered Institute of Civil Engineering Surveyors and we are currently working on accreditation with the Engineering Council for the Joint Board of Moderators which includes the ICE.
The program itself can be taught in sort of bite-sized chunks so if you don't want to commit yourself to the full three years of part-time study what you do have an opportunity to do is to do 60 credits of study per year and you can actually sign up to them in step stages as you're moving through the program so in the first year you can actually sign up and do the Civil Engineering Construction Management Postgraduate Certificate (PG Cert) and that will cover some of the underpinning basic modules that are core to all the programs then you can move on to second year and pick up the remainder of the core modules and some of the options and then you'll be at the point where you've reached the Civil Engineering Construction Management Postgraduate Diploma (PG Dip) and then in the final sort of year of study you'll actually take on the Independent Studies 60 credits so you'll take on those 60 credits in one go and over the year you will complete your Independent Scholarship and if you do all of those stages you can do them bit by bit or you can do them as just do the MSc from the word go, that will lead at the end to a recognized Masters qualification.
So we've got a little map in here that shows you how sort of the years work. It does depend when you start and we are fortunate that we actually offer starts both in the traditional September intake at the start of the normal calendar academic year, the January intake and also May. But this is just an example of sort of how the modules map through. So in year one you would do Environmental Risk and Responsibility and Research Methods and then in the second trimester you'll take on your Project Planning Value and Engineering Risk Management module which is 20 credits and then over the Summer which will be your third trimester of year one, you would do your Continuing Professional Development and Research Management module. Then moving into year two you would then do your Flood Risk Engineering which is also a core module and then you do your option b module, depending on where you're starting from depends on which cycle you are with the options and I'll explain a bit more about the options in a minute.
And then in the Summer if you wanted to pick up an option in the Summer you could do something from the option pool c and then in the third year if you've already taken your two options then you you'd go straight on to your Independent Study but if you haven't taken both of your options, if you've still got one outstanding, you can select an option from option pool a. I will point out at this point as well anything that's selected from option pool b that does include a couple of modules that require residential study. So they are short blocks of residential study and it's typically between three to five days and accommodation is provided when you're doing that study and I'll also explain a little bit more about that in a moment. So this just shows the accelerated route that you can actually do so some students opt to do this and it follows the same plan except you're doing 40 credits per semester. What we usually do, and you can see this model allows that, is we require students who want to go on accelerated route to start off on the standard route and do the 2 x 10 credit modules and look how they're performing and managing with their time at the end of that first trimester and then if everything is in place and they've got the time to do the study we can then accelerate them to doing 40 credits online per trimester which actually just pulls everything close together and again actually it's not quite as it seems here because if you do your two options from pool b and pool c you can actually be halfway through your second year you can be undertaking your Independent Study. So the pools for the options currently as they stand because this is always being reviewed we're reacting to market demands etc and developing new modules as we go through but our current pool from pool a is a BIM an Integrated Project Collaboration module which obviously its name says is about building information modelling and communication and project management within the construction industry. Alternatively there is a negotiated module however i will point out at this point that negotiated module requires any candidate doing it to have suitable working practice that they can base their study on and generally we prefer people to do the standard taught modules rather than negotiated module but that would be something you'd discuss with your program leader nearer the date when you're considering your options. In the option pool b we have our Geomatic Monitoring Asset Engineering module and we also have our Sustainable Construction Methods and Materials module and new for 2023 we have our Advanced Geotechnics module. Now the geomatics module and the new module in geotechnics both of those have a requirement for a residential so just be aware of that if you're looking and you are looking at coming in from a far away country with covid etc can you actually come in for the dates the residential sit on? This could actually make a decision whether you decide to opt for those modules or not. Whereas the Sustainable Construction Methods is taught wholly online. In the pool c we have Transport Infrastructure and Engineering module and a Negotiated module reappears so again that's sort of giving you an options so pool a and c are sort of sitting on the outside of the options with the main options sitting in the pool group b. The titles may differ slightly from what is shown on screen.
So whilst you're studying are you going to actually achieve some real world skills? Well the real world learning is with our UK and overseas students is residential based and what you can see is a student from a couple of years ago who actually did a project with us that was residential in Scotland and actually we did a 3d model of the Falkirk wheel and you can see the student here in this full PPE actually running a laser scanner to actually make a 3d model of the Falkirk wheel. We also do other areas where we go out with the geomatics module and we've scanned the Norfolk coastline with master student groups we've also scanned tunnels and viaducts on the Monsal Trail and we're always looking for new and interesting projects to go and make 3d models of because the advantage with this particular module is that it actually involves writing health and safety risk assessments, method statements etc so you are effectively doing the role of a practising professional and you're given a real life project so it is real world learning and the same with the Geotechnical Engineering module that one when that starts in 2023 will actually require you come in you'll stay somewhere in Derby and you'll be doing lab work and probably getting some soil samples from in and around the Derbyshire area and doing some lab testing triaxial testing and calculations and determinations of slope stability and it may be actually linked into doing some surveying to ascertain where something isn't isn't moving in the real world.
So you're teaching and learning and what you'll find is the resources are broke up each module is broke up into a number of units and depending on how it's been written those it can be 10 units in a module or there can be five units in a module but a single units from a 10 unit module is estimated to be around 20 hours of work including the activities you do and what you'll find is that there'll be a mix of as you can see this is just some shot stills from a couple of modules so you'll have a there'll be hyperlinks where it says source materials etc so when you click over that you'll be interactive we also use some text directed reading, use of images, videos and also interactive videos that support your learning so for example at the moment in the Geomatic module there are videos there on how to use the software but there are also videos of practice and previous surveys that have been done with direction and transcripts to help you prepare for your residential work.
So you will be part of a global student body so you'll be actually could be working with students from anywhere in the world. We do have quite a lot of students who come from the Middle East, South East Asia and the African continent as well as a lot of students who are utilizing the fact that they don't have to commit to day release and regular periods of study in the UK.
So you you've been mixed up with quite a broad spectrum of students and a nice benefit with this particular program being Civil Engineering and Construction Management is that what you'll find is that you'll actually also be mixed from people with quite diverse industrial experience so from a site manager, contracts manager somebody working in the supply chain right through to somebody on the design a civil engineer, a technical engineer, a surveyor, quantity surveyor, land surveyor you'll have a diverse people in your group and through the discussion boards and some of the online lectures that are sometimes available you'll actually be able to interact with these people so it is it's quite a broad spectrum of people that you'll be working with.
As I've already said not only do we have the benefit that we're able to learn from the diverse staff that we've got and your colleagues or peers in your academic group but we also get professional people to come in and contribute to the teaching team so from time to time you might have a recorded guest lecture questions and answer sessions you might have an assignment that's set where there's a real client who comes in and actually sets you the brief for the assignment we utilize. Guest speakers these can be guest speakers from other academic bodies from professional bodies or even from trade bodies where we're looking at the roles of new materials for instance and this also allows us to link into real-world case studies so the projects you'll have to be doing will actually be based at something in the real world. The majority of those projects however will be UK based with the nature of the course with the university being based in the UK but you will be able to take those skills that interconnect between modules to enhance your learning overall.
So the aim of probably doing your MSc is to transform your future. So if you are successful in the course this will allow you to progress your career in all the different fields and it gives you effectively any civil engineering construction management qualification is effectively a multi-disciplinary qualification so it will sit in for geotechnical engineering, commercial management, education, general management - it opens doors up to lots of areas for you to explore for your career it works as a stepping stone towards registration with professional bodies and as I've said at the moment there is accreditation for certain professional bodies have accredited the online course and we are at the moment seeking accreditation for other aspects of the the course with other professional bodies and as they arise and are granted we'll advertise that to you and hopefully some of these accreditations will occur before September so if you're enrolling in September you will be on an accredited program and probably one of the biggest drivers for people to develop their academic skills and broaden their interests is to improve their future earning potential and also the improve their continuity of work throughout their working career.
So the virtual campus here you'll get guidance at the start up on how to use the resources and how how to interact with the different aspects discussion boards etc but you'll also be given effectively a created a space to work in the virtual world. So you'll have a study space, a place where you can also upload and store your own materials, your courseworks etc as you're working on them so it can be accessible on different devices at different times of the day. You need to protect around 20 hours a week if you're doing the standard method of study, to actually sit down and study when you go through a unit you can probably read through a unit in no more than an hour probably some even slightly less but typically to read from start to end of the unit they could be 20 or 30 pages long but within that embedded there are lots of activities. So there'll be several embedded activities, some elements where you'll need to have support for thought and contribute to discussion boards etc and then at the end of each unit there will be an activity or an assessment for the end of each unit and what the aim is is they will support you and build up to your end of module assessments so they are fed back on by your tutors but they are not necessarily your final grading, they are basically stepping stones along the way see it as working tutorials. If you're used to work in a normal academic environment you'll have regular engagement interaction with your peers and academics through the online forum and you can check your learning through the portals, look for announcements, set yourself up so your emails when an announcement's made it emails you so you'll know that something's else has been added or that something's been put on discussion board so you can link to them and throughout the each trimester things will be updated and additional resources may be provided so it might be a bit of additional video or it might be that the lecturer links one of your lectures to a live lecture on campus, makes a recording of that and makes that recording available to you. So from time to time as well lectures will actually allow you to join the on-campus lectures as a virtual student and that gives you the opportunity to ask questions as the lecture is actually happening but that's not it, not done as a for every single unit or it's not done at every single in every single module but look out for that because that's a great addition to the resources and making it work for you as well you need to think about leaving a suitable time to do your assignments and not trying to rush them in the last minute because the deadlines you're working on a 10-week cycle for a module and the deadlines do come around quite quickly if you're not keeping on top of your work. So in the online community we use a different bunch of ways of working where we find that discussion forums are really good. What will often happen is it will allow you to work with your peers, questions will be raised generally by your tutor but maybe all the peers could raise questions in that forum and then they are monitored and feedback is provided where necessary from the tutor in each of the modules certain aspects when you're managing things through the UDOL platform require you to actually deal with different departments via email and you'll be given a university email address and for personal confidential matters you can use this email and you should be getting a response typically within two working days but I put two working days there because you need to be aware if you make a request on a Friday afternoon in the UK time you should be expecting an answer to that sometime on the Tuesday. Don't expect to count the weekends because the weekends obviously are not working days in the UK. And then blackboard collaborative live. Live sessions are available, questions and answers. What you'll find is that lecturers will actually set up a collaborative blackboard meeting, invite people into it and then there can be questions and answers.
They can be quite interactive they could be linked to PowerPoints etc and from time to time you might want to use telephone or virtual meetings and with the current pandemic we're seeing lots of people now migrating over to meetings that are based around Teams. You'll get academic support from your program lead, your module leaders, module tutors and your personal academic tutor. Each person who studies at the University of Derby's assigned a personal academic tutor you'll also have access to online learning advisors for non-academic support and as a student at Derby you'll get student services such as the well-being, the library that is stocked with lots of virtual e-books, the careers and the union of students. You'll get one terabyte of cloud storage, access to Office 365. If you're using something like AutoCAD and you don't have that you can actually get a academic license for AutoCAD and other packages and the portal itself for students as a virtual learning environment is open 24 7 but obviously if you're interacting with certain people you need to work around the standard sort of working day 9 till 5 Monday to Friday. I've mentioned the library, if you actually are fortunate enough to come on campus we have a four-story library but we actually have two libraries in Derby so we have the main library at Kedleston Road and then we have a satellite library at the Britannia Mill site which has its one floor of library so it has less book stock but the online reading lists are available online. Books and journals can easily be accessed. Library services available to you including loans, access to journal papers etc the library plus service when you're inducted you'll be given guidance on that and the library also do live sessions that are available and recorded so people can understand what facilities are available for the library. Within each module you'll have some guidance on core reading but you'll also have quite extensive referencing at the end of each unit so to give you guidance on where to go and that will also include links to online publications and documentation. And our students it's really pleasing to see at the end of every academic year in the cycle that our students actually come over to Derby even though they've been probably working remotely around the UK or in other countries and they come over to Derby and they celebrate their success when they graduate with a graduation ceremony that this year has been running July and November as well and as you go through your studies you'll be told once you've completed your studies each of your different levels that you complete when your graduation is and you put plenty of time to organize flights and accommodation to come over and celebrate your success. So what are the next steps if you're interested in studying an MSc in Civil Engineering and Construction Management online at the University of Derby? What I'd advise you to do is to check the website for the entry criteria. It's typically a UK or UK equivalent undergraduate degree at 2:1 or higher but we do actually take on board and look at issues around working practice and experience and we can also look at other qualifications mapping together to get to that so don't just rule it out if you don't think you meet the general criteria, contact somebody get some ideas and they'll go to tell you when you actually apply whether you'll actually be granted or whether you'll be guided to do a little bit more study before you start your masters course. You'll also find on the website information on the course fees. We offer payment plans so you can actually pay in stages and it will also tell you if you go to the website which is derby.ac.uk/online it'll tell you when the next intakes are. So as I'm recording this we're looking for people who are watching this probably going to be on intake in September 2022.
So if you've got any further enquiries or anything please do contact udolenquiries@derby.ac.uk otherwise I'm going to wish you, your families and your friends to stay safe and well and we'll look forward to seeing you at the University of Derby.
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