Presenting scientific results

Postgraduate course at the Division of Civil Engineering and Built Environment

Formalities

  • Open for: PhD students in in Engineering Science with specialization in Civil Engineering and Built Environment
  • Course manager: Joakim Munkhammar
  • Credits: 2 hp
  • Grade: Pass/Fail
  • Admission: Continuous admission, no specific dates
  • Registration: Send an email to joakim.munkhammar@angstrom.uu.se

Course contents

Exercising oral presentation of scientific results is of importance not only for the training of such presentations – that is, improving pedagogical skills – but also for outreach and getting feedback on the results from the public, other experts in the field, and colleagues. This is also one of the examination goals (B4) for the PhD degree, according to which the student should “demonstrate the ability in both national and international contexts to present and discuss research and research findings authoritatively in speech and writing and in dialogue with the academic community and society in general.”

This course is based on performing three oral scientific presentations for an external audience outside of the PhD student’s own department, and summarizing this in a short report. Upon suggestion from the student, the course manager will approve a particular presentation as part of the course. The student is then supposed to summarize the presentation in the form of a short report of approximately ½-1 A4 page per presentation including:

  1. The topic of the presentation
  2. Time frame (duration) of presentation
  3. Location and audience of presentation
  4. What type of presentation was made, did you try some new tool or approach?
  5. Did you learn anything scientifically relevant from the questions from the moderator/audience?
  6. Is there anything else that you learned from this experience? E.g., too few or too many slides for the time, difficulties with any technology in the room, proper use of microphone or clicker?

When the student has reached three approved presentations, each individual report should be merged together to a single report, and general reflections on the scientific outreach and the acquired pedagogical and scientific knowledge from this process should be summarized.

This report should then be handed in to the course manager for grading. If applicable a revision may be asked for.

Last modified: 2021-02-16
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