Development of Skills for Research

Code:

AST605

Acronym:

AST605

Keywords
Classification	Keyword
OFICIAL	Astronomy

Instance: 2024/2025 - A

Active?	Yes
Responsible unit:	Department of Physics and Astronomy
Course/CS Responsible:	Doctoral Program in Astronomy

Cycles of Study/Courses

Acronym	No. of Students	Study Plan	Curricular Years	Credits UCN	Credits ECTS	Contact hours	Total Time
PDA	1	P.E. do Programa Doutoral em Astronomia	1	-	6	12	162

Teaching language

English

Objectives

The curricular unit aims to ensure that students are able to develop and strengthen the skills that are relevant to perform research work as part of a doctoral degree. This is achieved through actions and tasks that foster the acquisition of concepts, methodologies and approaches used in research. The goal of the course is to allow the student to develop core competencies for research, essential for an adequate training of a research student.

Learning outcomes and competences

Through the tasks planned in this curricular unit the student has the opportunity to develop and strengthen some of the fundamental skills for a researcher, namely on how to exchange information with other researchers. Each of the tasks that are included in the program aim to reinforce specific skills through learning by doing. The implementation of the work plan also provides the student will opportunities to strengthen the links with the teams at the host institution, through active participation in regular activities and meetings of a research team.

The implementation of the tasks requires the student to acquire and consolidate the skills that are the goal of the curricular unit. By completing each of the tasks, the unit ensures that the student has completed the acquisition of the expected experience reaching the goals proposed in the course. This course implies an ongoing activity throughout the year ensuring that the student uses every available opportunity at the host institution to consolidate the experience and to implement the reflection, as specified by the learning objectives.

Working method

Presencial

Program

The program of the curricular unit includes the acquisition of experience with methodologies and tools useful for research, namely: identification and definition of a problem, organization and implementation of a research project, planning and efficiency in developing research work, production of results, publication and presentation of preliminary and final results. This course also includes the mandatory participation in scientific presentations in astronomy and complementary areas (typically weekly), in journal­ clubs, in advanced courses and other initiatives taking place throughout the academic year.

The items / tasks for the academic year are may include:

1. Preparation of a poster
2. Presentation of a lecture
3. How to write a thesis
4. Ethics and good practice in research
5. Exchange of information on research
6. Participation in an advanced course

Mandatory literature

Vários; Material vário (artigos, documentos, exemplos), 2011

Comments from the literature

The student will be given a list of bibliographic items to be used in her/his tasks as proposed in the work plan.

Teaching methods and learning activities

The curricular unit is organized in a series of task, each one contributing to the evaluation, where the student has to perform specific actions and outputs. In some components the student works on how to communicate her/his scientific results while in others emphasis is on discussing or understand the results from others. Besides the competencies on how communicate science the student also has to review ethics and good practices in scientific research.

Software

Presentation packages (PowerPoint, LaTeX, Keynote, etc)
LaTeX

keywords

Physical sciences > Astronomy
Physical sciences

Evaluation Type

Distributed evaluation without final exam

Assessment Components

designation	Weight (%)
Participação presencial	25,00
Prova oral	20,00
Trabalho escrito	55,00
Total:	100,00

Amount of time allocated to each course unit

designation	Time (hours)
Estudo autónomo	50,00
Frequência das aulas	12,00
Apresentação/discussão de um trabalho científico	50,00
Trabalho de investigação	50,00
Total:	162,00

Eligibility for exams

Frequency validation is achieved with the execution os tasks (1) and (2).

Calculation formula of final grade

The final evaluation is a combination of the successful completion of all tasks ensuring the student has acquired planned skills. The relative importance of the different components in the evaluation is:

• 20% for each of the items (1), (2) and (3);
• 5% for items (4) and (6); and
• 30% for item (5).

Classification improvement

There is no option for improving the mark or repeating the evaluation in this course unit.

Observations

Jury: Mário João O. F. G. Monteiro, Nuno M. C. Santos, João J. F. G. A. Lima