AT7054 - Professional Reporting on Sustainability Issues

The module is designed to facilitate the development of the student learning experience over the course of one semester. Its activities provide your development of professional and academic writing skills.


Directed learning will centre upon a range of activities including pre-reading, preparation for interactive, group-based activities in seminars and use of the discussion board on the electronic Learning Portal.
A teaching and learning plan supports the module, outlining the formal lecture sessions, together with the tutor-directed study in seminars and independent reading. An interactive approach to lecture sessions will draw upon the directed learning undertaken and your own experiences. Throughout, the emphasis will be on high levels of your participation.


Every session of the module leads you towards creating a professional consulting report on a sustainability issue of a company.


Also, you will have a one-day workshop, with a professional business trainer and copywriter, which will aim at maximizing the quality of your company-internal, as well as external, communication.

A member of academic staff leading the module will provide support both during the sessions as well as online, whenever necessary. The sessions will include module lectures, seminars, workshops and directed learning. The emphasis will be on the transferability of academic activities to support your academic and professional development.


The electronic Learning Portal will house lecture and seminar materials relating to the module. You will be provided with electronic reading and practice material as well as a set of data for description and analysis.

All modules at Northumbria include a range of reading materials that students are expected to engage with. The reading list for this module can be found at: http://readinglists.northumbria.ac.uk
(Reading List service online guide for academic staff this containing contact details for the Reading List team – http://library.northumbria.ac.uk/readinglists)

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Formative Assessment


Formative assessment will take place during weekly interactive lectures and seminars where individual contributions and group discussions will be accompanied by relevant tutor feedback. Additional further tutor-supported individual and group discussion will be supported via the module’s electronic Learning platform. During each session you will work on individual assignments leading up to the creation of a problem-related literature review and a consulting report, both of which will be graded. After each session, you will be expected to upload parts of your work to the electronic Learning Portal. As systematic work and revisions of text are inherent in professional and academic writing, the regularity and timeliness of these submissions will be reflected in the final grades of the summative assessment.





Summative assessment


The module has two summative assessment submissions:


Literature review – within a week after Session 5


Consulting report – within a week after Session 9


Both submission grades are of equal weight and each one constitutes 50% of the final module grade, with each assessment criterion constituting 25% of the submission’s grade.





Summative assessment will be used to evaluate your submissions against the module learning outcomes with a range of assessment criteria.


The criteria for the assessment of the literature review will concern the following:


Validity, reliability and relevance of sources


Literature presentation and analysis


Coherence, referencing, language style and accuracy


Preparation and participation





Your consulting report will be assessed according to the following criteria:


Report structure


Report content and data presentation


Referencing, language style and accuracy


Preparation and participation





Small-group feedback on the assessment of your literature review will be provided in Session 6, and there will be a review session for the consulting report 15 working days after the submission deadline.


The resits will entail correcting the inadequacies of the initial submissions.

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The main objective of the module is to help you develop professional skills necessary for writing a consulting report that contains professional advice, which you will also find useful when preparing your dissertation and research. As this module is designed to give you the necessary tools to fulfil the requirements that academic writing imposes, you will advance your general professional writing style, which?is also crucial to functioning in an international business environment.





At the outset of the module you will analyse the latest academic literature with a view to identifying authors’ (hypo)theses, supporting points, evidence and conclusions; this will help you summarise and critically evaluate texts and, ultimately, write a critical literature review. You will also learn how to present data and findings in a clear and efficient manner. Conclusively, on the basis of the literature review and provided data, you will learn how to organize and communicate your ideas clearly in the form of a consulting report.