EL7046 - Publishing Placement

Structured full-class seminars/workshops will prepare you to engage with and evaluate your placement experience alongside your specialist ‘key contact’-led experience in the publishing industry. This combination of experiential learning and reflective practice is designed to maximise the value of your placement. You will learn by reflecting on your own practice in supporting the work of a contemporary publishing team. The main focus of the module is for you to learn under the supervision of qualified staff in a live workplace context. You will complete a minimum of 60 hours of ‘key contact’-supervised t engagement on placement. In the latter stage of the module you will learn how to construct and maintain a learning log to evaluate your experience for purpose of assessment. You will learn how to take responsibility for managing your own learning in a professional situation and to identify and analyse the impact of your work on colleagues, as well as your understanding of options for future employment.

You will be supported through your placement by a series of structured seminars/workshops that will prepare you for professional experience, help you to reflect effectively on your workplace learning, engage in critical readings related to your placement and assist you in approaching the presentation and creation of the learning log. You will engage in one-to-one discussions with your module leader to consider the ways in which a variety of roles across the business connect in the wider organisation and how individuals and teams work together and separately on projects.

You will be supported by your module tutor and placement mentor in developing theories of personal development through the setting up and use of a learning log. Through a ‘learning log’ you will manage your own learning making formative interventions and entries as you engage in the placement and analyse and reflect on the networked roles of the publishing industry. This will develop your employability as you articulate your learning from your experiences in the workplace and communicate your processes and the impact you have had in the summative assessed presentation at the end of the module. Formative feedback from the presentation will help to inform the production of the summative assessment of the reflective learning log.

On the placement you will be supported by a Hachette or New Writing North in-house mentor and will have the chance to engage with various professionals across these organisations. You will use your learning log to reflect on work place experiences and your module tutor will assist in supporting you with assessment criteria. You will have tutorials along with self-directed learning resources on Blackboard that will help you connect your self-directed personal development learning to your experiences on placement.

All modules at Northumbria include a range of reading materials that students are expected to engage with. Online reading lists (provided after enrolment) give you access to your reading material for your modules. The Library works in partnership with your module tutors to ensure you have access to the material that you need.

The assessment for this module will ask you to:

1.Knowledge & Understanding
• Show understanding of the variety of roles in contemporary publishing
• Show understanding of the practices, structures and challenges across different publishing sectors and the socio-cultural and economic contexts of the publishing industry;

2.Intellection/Professional Skills & Abilities
• Use reflective strategies to review professional practice and consider the reality of working in a variety of roles within the contemporary publishing industry, including the wider place of these roles within the context of an organisation and the industry as a whole and the development of interpersonal and professional communication skills and collaborative working practices;
• Demonstrate the transferable skills necessary for employment including independent engagement, team work and reflective practice in regards to continuing professional development.
3.Personal Values Attributes/Cultural Awareness, Ethics Curiosity
• Reflect on experiences on placement and how they develop skillsets including the ability to assimilate and analyse information, negotiate and persuade, work individually and as part of a team, show self-awareness and sensitivity to ethics and values in the working environment

Summative Assessment 1
Briefing Presentation (30%) equivalent to 2000 words: on placement roles and responsibilities, activities, organisational size and shape, culture and management, workplace practices and ethics. 5mins on key findings.

Summative Assessment 2
Reflective Learning Log (70%) 3000 words: 6 entries of 500 words each offering reflections on roles and responsibilities, knowledge and skills, structures and challenges in the placement working environment and reflective lessons learned for individual professional development.

Placement (60hours)

All placement activities to be completed before Assessment Week 2 in Sem 2 to enable reflection for the final assignment.

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In this module you will be mentored by a Hachette UK employee working in an area of publishing germane to your interests, and this ‘key contact’ will supervise you over the course of a virtual work placement in the second semester, offering you a comprehensive insight into how a major publisher operates. You will have opportunities also to work with New Writing North across their various activities, e.g. on literary events, awards et cetera.

The first semester consists of whole-group classes that prepare students for the working environment and skills requirements of Hachette; and, following consultation, the pairing of each student to a suitable ‘key contact’ mentor at Hachette.

The second semester requires a minimum 60 hours of placement activity carried out under attachment to the ‘key contact’ – those to include one-to-one meetings with the contact, a directed research task or tasks, attendance of wider HUK departmental-divisional and whole company meetings, participation in new staff onboarding/induction activities, and a day of meetings and seminars hosted at Hachette’s London HQ. Those hours will be completed virtually (though in some cases the student might meet with their ‘key contact’ in London.) The ‘key contact’ can also offer branching connections and referrals to Hachette colleagues based on the student’s interests (e.g. in other publishing roles, their Major Publishing Project research, etc.)
The second semester will also include approximately 10-20 hours of sessions on campus: these delivered by visiting Hachette staff (and which might include e.g. ‘live briefs,’ as in real-life professional tasks that students are invited to fulfil for extra work experience, and ‘ready for work’ instruction in job application, CVs, interviewing, etc); with additional careers-focused contributions from New Writing North, and guest professionals in other fields of publishing.