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Initial Project Plan

The final year project is a substantial part of your degree. It can have a major effect on the degree class you are awarded and even whether or not you pass the degree. The initial project plan is to make sure you understand what your project requires you to do and how you are going to finish it successfully. You must submit an initial project plan at the beginning of the first semester of your project (the deadline for this is listed in your PATS account under the project description).

The initial project plan for a short individual project must be approved by your supervisor and moderator. Therefore, you should discuss the plan with your supervisor before you submit it to make sure both of you agree on what your project entails. You should further check the project plan with your moderator and also seek his approval in person before you submit. However, the first person to talk about your initial plan is usually your supervisor.

We suggest that you write an initial version of your project plan and arrange meetings with your supervisor and moderator to discuss it and revise the plan. If you are not sure what to write in the plan, please discuss this with your supervisor before you write a draft. Once your supervisor and moderator are happy with your plan, submit it on PATS where they can officially approve it. As you can resubmit the plan via PATS multiple times, you can also submit a draft and your supervisor and moderator can look at it there and also leave comments. However, unless there are exceptional circumstances (e.g. supervisor or moderator may be away), we highly recommend to discuss the plan in person and not just on PATS or by e-mail.

Finally, note that this is an initial plan, and you can, and most likely should, adjust the plan as you progress. Note, however, that with the initial plan you are prescribing what you intend to deliver at the various stages of the project (in particular for the final and, if applicable, interim report).

For information about how to submit your initial plan via PATS please see the Submission Guide.

Structure and Contents

For your initial plan one to two pages of text are sufficient. It should contain the following information:

Project Title

The title of the initial plan document should be “Initial Plan” followed by the title of your project. List yourself as author and also say who your supervisor and moderator is. Please also list the module number you are taking and credits due for this module (see Approval Criteria below).

Project Description

The first section of the document should be a brief description of your project outlining its context and what it is overall about. You can adapt the proposal used to select your project. There is no need to describe a lot of detail and this would usually not more than half a page.

Project Aims and Objectives

The second section of the document should be a list of aims and objectives for your project. These are statements of what you set out to achieve with your project. Try to be as specific as possible at this stage, but avoid getting into too many details that may change later. It's the main results and components of your project you should list. A bullet point list with at most one level of sub-points is usually sufficient.

For modules CM0300, CM0333 or CM3303 (the short individual project) your aims and objectives are what you expect to have at the end of the module for your final report.

Work Plan

The last section of your plan should consist of a time plan stating what you are working on when. This should include clear milestones of what you expect to achieve by which date and also show how you intent to achieve these milestones. Make sure the deliverables for the reports (especially the interim report, if applicable) clearly link with your time plan, such that you can actually deliver them when they are due.

You are free to choose the work plan format that you think is best suited for your project and working style. This may be a Gantt chart, but sometimes it may also be sufficient to simply list in sequence what you are working on with a time-scale and milestones/deliverables. Usually a weekly scale for the work plan is a good choice. Take note of the deadlines for the deliverables as listed in your PATS project description when you develop the work plan and also consider any other commitments and busy times such as the exam periods.

Approval Procedure

Once you have discussed your project plan with your supervisor and moderator and have submitted it on PATS, both, your supervisor and moderator, must approve your plan on PATS. They can choose to leave any comments with your plan. You will see the comments and the approval as soon as they have done this.

You can resubmit your plan at any time until the deadline. Should you resubmit a plan that has already been approved, the approval will be removed and the new plan must be approved again.

After the submission deadline your supervisor and moderator can still approve the plan, edit their comments, etc. and in very special cases even remove approval (they should get in contact with you to discuss if they choose to do this). They can do this until about one week after the plan submission deadline (the relevant approval deadline for them in shown in PATS to them). After this approval deadline they cannot undo any approval (but still approve your plan in case there is any delay, just that approval will then be final).

In case you fail to submit your plan by deadline or wish to resubmit a plan after the submission deadline, please get in contact with the project coordinator to discuss this.

Approval Criteria

Your supervisor and moderator will approve your plan according to the following criteria:

  • Title and project description accurately represent the project and are suitable for the module you are are taking
  • Aims and objectives are clear, sufficiently detailed and provide a suitable challenge for your project
  • Time plan is feasible, sufficiently specific to the project, and has a clear timeline and milestones
  • The amount of work is suitable for the credits and level of the module:
    • 20 credits (200 hours of work) for CM0300
    • 30 credits (300 hours of work) for CM0333
    • 30 credits (300 hours of work) for CM3303
initial_plan.1379508990.txt.gz · Last modified: 2013/09/18 13:56 by scmfcl