module specification

This Major Project module enables Jewellery & Silversmithing students to prepare for independent practice in the workplace or to progress onto higher studies. In this module, you will carry out the project conceived and developed in the parallel Project Design and Development module (DN6001), fully realising it in appropriate physical form by the end of the module.

You will exercise and display your abilities in selecting, analysing and applying knowledge, skills and understanding to a negotiated and fully researched project in order to properly understand your strengths, interests and position in your field, and the potential for your future professional development.

You will show that you understand the complex and changing nature of problems in the professional disciplines of jewellery and silversmithing and can devise and apply realistic strategies for constructing, applying and managing a process designed to provide solutions.

A professional standard of realisation, contextualisation and presentation will be expected, providing the elements for a portfolio of practice with which you may enter the field of employment or self employment or further studies.

Pass & Completion of Prior Level

This module seeks to enable you to:

• Devise a fully holistic process to realise the outcomes of a design research & development  project
• Achieving outcomes of a professional standard of realisation and presentation
• Contextualise and present your outcomes to a professional standard, showing that you have understood and managed complex and ambitious tasks
• Work independently, self-reflectively and with concern for the ethical issues and principles attached to your project showing your understanding of your particular strengths, interests and position in your field, and your potential for further development

Through a negotiated and agreed individual project, you will gain experience of:

• Planning, recording, managing and conducting a process for the production and completion of a researched proposal
• Aligning skills and knowledge in various areas of expertise and endeavour – technical, intellectual, creative, organisational, critical and interpersonal – to the successful conclusion of an integrated project
• Liaison with industry figures in the pursuit of the project
• Professional expectations of styles and quality of presentation
• Critically assessing your own work against standards expected in your field

Projects will seek to enable a range of learning opportunities such as;
• Formative feedback from industry specialist staff
• Professional mentoring
• Self directed and managed study and practice
• Critique and creative feedback from peers
• Online fora to share progress and support
• Acquisition and deployment of higher level skills in practice

At the end of the module, you will be able to:

Knowledge and Understanding
Transform and realise the outcomes of a design research and development project into a holistic plan for the production of the practice intended

Cognitive Intellectual Skills
Work independently, managing complex problems and tasks, critically analysing your own work and defending it including in the context of ethical issues arising

Transferable Skills
Show your work in a fully contextualized way and to a professional standard, explaining or illustrating your position in your field, your strengths and interests and how you can continue to develop your professional capacity

Subject Specific Practical Skills
Carry out such a plan, achieving professional standards of project management and realisation/ visualisation as appropriate and expected in the disciplines of jewellery and silversmithing

Boyle, G. (2003) Design Project Management, Ashgate Publishing.
Cooper, R. and Press, M (1994) The Design Agenda, Wiley.

Additionally texts and other reference materials will be identified by studio tutors annually that support a
specific studio theme.