Course Coordinator:Leah Barclay (lbarclay@usc.edu.au) School:School of Business and Creative Industries
UniSC Sunshine CoastUniSC Moreton Bay |
Blended learning | Most of your course is on campus but you may be able to do some components of this course online. |
Online |
Online | You can do this course without coming onto campus, unless your program has specified a mandatory onsite requirement. |
Please go to usc.edu.au for up to date information on the
teaching sessions and campuses where this course is usually offered.
This course will give you a strong ecocritical grounding, practical fieldwork experience and fundamental audio-visual documentation skills to create work that responds to a diversity of environments and ecosystems. Through interdisciplinary practice which intersects sound, photography and design, you will focus on creative technologies and emerging methods for understanding and sensing changing environments. This course will introduce you to the potential of new technologies for creative practice including spatial audio, XR, drone photography and locative media.
| Activity | Hours | Beginning Week | Frequency |
| Blended learning | |||
| Learning materials – Interactive online learning activities. | 1hr | Week 1 | 12 times |
| Tutorial/Workshop 1 – Scheduled face to face workshops. | 2hrs | Week 1 | 10 times |
| Fieldwork – Scheduled face to face field trips | 2hrs | Week 5 | 2 times |
| Online | |||
| Learning materials – Interactive online learning activities. | 1hr | Week 1 | 12 times |
| Tutorial/Workshop 1 – Scheduled online workshops (recorded)/ | 2hrs | Week 1 | 10 times |
| Fieldwork – Scheduled virtual field trips (Recorded). | 2hrs | Week 5 | 2 times |
First Nations perspectives
Understanding landscapes
Seeing and listening in place
Oceans, rivers and rainforests
Photography and the environment
Sonic geography and field recording
Visualising place
Sensory ecology
Locative media
Environmental mapping and monitoring
The science of sound and photography
Shifting perspectives
Site-specific art and design
Audio-visual post production
Immersive environments
300 Level (Graduate)
12 units
| Course Learning Outcomes On successful completion of this course, you should be able to... | Graduate Qualities Completing these tasks successfully will contribute to you becoming... | |
| 1 | Application of principles of environmental engagement and demonstrated ecological awareness | Sustainability-focussed |
| 2 | Demonstrated application of the principles of image and audio quality, creativity and technical skills within a creative project | Empowered |
| 3 | Recognise and reflect upon local, regional, and global perspectives in approaching creative practices. | Engaged |
| 4 | Analyse and apply the post-production pipeline to a complex project. | Empowered |
| 5 | Apply reflective practice, innovation and experimentation to design outcomes that are responsive and adaptable in diverse contexts to imagine, shape and navigate a future that is changing rapidly by design. | Empowered |
| 6 | Apply design thinking, ethical practice, and inclusive design methods to generate innovative creative projects and original ideas for diverse contexts locally and internationally. | Ethical |
| 7 | Apply design methods and creative thinking that respond to the SDGs including SDG 3 (health and well-being), SDG 11 (Sustainable cities and communities), SDG 13 (Climate Action), SGD 14 (Life Below Water), SDG 15 (Life on Land) |
Ethical Sustainability-focussed |
Refer to the UniSC Glossary of terms for definitions of “pre-requisites, co-requisites and anti-requisites”.
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Standard Grading (GRD)
| High Distinction (HD), Distinction (DN), Credit (CR), Pass (PS), Fail (FL). |
Formative feedback on Task 1 will be provided in Week 4 during tutorials. Formative feedback on Task 2 and Task 3 will occur during field work.
| Delivery mode | Task No. | Assessment Product | Individual or Group | Weighting % | What is the duration / length? | When should I submit? | Where should I submit it? |
| All | 1 | Artefact - Creative, and Written Piece | Individual | 30% | 3–5 minutes of audio, 6-8 images, 250-word critical reflection, and project documentation. |
Week 6 | Online Submission |
| All | 2 | Artefact - Creative | Individual | 40% | 5-6 minutes audio-visual work, with process documentation |
Week 11 | Online Submission |
| All | 3 | Journal | Individual | 30% | 2000 word journal, supporting images, audio and video |
Exam Period | Online Submission |
| All - Assessment Task 1:Locative Media Project | ||||||||||||||||
| Goal: | The goal of this task is to create a geolocated digital map using original images and sound that demonstrate ecological awareness, an understanding of place and the application of design principles. Your project will respond to a selected field location and and will be published in a accessible mobile application. |
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| Product: | Artefact - Creative, and Written Piece | |||||||||||||||
| Format: | You will select one field location and create 6–8 original images and 3–5 minutes of audio recordings for publication on an interactive geolocated digital map. The resulting work will be presented for public engagement, with the geolocated map accessible through a mobile application for locative media. Your submission will include project documentation, including original images, audio files, fieldwork reflections, production notes and a 250-word critical reflection on the final artefact. This documentation should demonstrate your field work, creative process, ecological engagement and connection to place. Please refer to the Assessment 1 folder on Canvas for the full project brief, relevant readings, links to mobile applications and production advice. |
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| Criteria: |
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| Generic Skills: | Communication, Applying technologies |
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| All - Assessment Task 2:Sensing Environments Audio-Visual Project | |||||||||||||||||||
| Goal: | Select one field location and create a series of images, audio recordings and video that you will compose into an audio-visual experience exploring your connection to place and the temporal qualities of the environment. Your work should respond to subtle and dynamic shifts in the environment, including light, sound and sensory experience, using creative and ecological methods to interpret the site through an audio-visual experience. |
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| Product: | Artefact - Creative | ||||||||||||||||||
| Format: | You will select one field location (this may be a site explored in the course or a location of your choice) and record a series of images, audio and video that respond to your sensory and ecological connection to place. This could include drone videography, underwater photography or 3D sound recording. You will then compose these recordings into an audio-visual experience of 5-6 minutes, using the editing techniques introduced in this course. The final work should be suitable for large-scale projection and will be presented in a public showcase. Your creative artefact may draw on sensory photography and acoustic ecology to interpret subtle and dynamic environmental shifts, responding to qualities of light, sound, movement and atmospheric change. The images and recordings should remain focused on sensing the environment, offering multiple perspectives that reveal the temporal qualities of the site. Your submission will also include your process documentation, including field documentation and a 500-word report reflecting on your production processes, field experience and creative interpretation of place. Please refer to the Assessment 2 folder on Canvas for the full project brief, relevant readings, links and examples. |
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| Criteria: |
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| Generic Skills: | Communication, Problem solving, Organisation, Applying technologies |
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| All - Assessment Task 3:Field Journal | ||||||||||||||||
| Goal: | The goal of this task is to create an immersive field journal that reflects on the field experiences and documents the development of key ideas and concepts in text, images, video and sound. |
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| Product: | Journal | |||||||||||||||
| Format: | The field journal will document your personal responses and critical reflections on fieldwork, audio-visual artefacts and post-production activities. It should record the process of creating audio-visual material in the field and provide thoughtful reflection on the ecological, social and cultural contexts of the sites you engage with. Your journal should demonstrate how your sensory observations, creative decisions and ecological methods informed your understanding of place. The 2000-word journal will be presented online via ArcGIS StoryMaps and will include documentation from Task 1 and Task 2, integrating the development of your locative media and audio-visual work. The journal may include images, sounds, maps, reflective field notes and other relevant documentation, and should also include images of you in the field with the creative technology you use during your field work. Your journal must reference at least three course readings or project examples and draw meaningful connections between theory, field practice and creative interpretation. You will receive formative feedback on your journal in Week 12 prior to final submission. |
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| Generic Skills: | Communication, Applying technologies |
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A 12-unit course will have total of 150 learning hours which will include directed study hours (including online if required), self-directed learning and completion of assessable tasks. Student workload is calculated at 12.5 learning hours per one unit.
Please note: Course information, including specific information of recommended readings, learning activities, resources, weekly readings, etc. are available on the course Canvas site– Please log in as soon as possible.
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Academic integrity is the ethical standard of university participation. It ensures that students graduate as a result of proving they are competent in their discipline. This is integral in maintaining the value of academic qualifications. Each industry has expectations and standards of the skills and knowledge within that discipline and these are reflected in assessment.
Academic integrity means that you do not engage in any activity that is considered to be academic fraud; including plagiarism, collusion or outsourcing any part of any assessment item to any other person. You are expected to be honest and ethical by completing all work yourself and indicating in your work which ideas and information were developed by you and which were taken from others. You cannot provide your assessment work to others. You are also expected to provide evidence of wide and critical reading, usually by using appropriate academic references.
In order to minimise incidents of academic fraud, this course may require that some of its assessment tasks, when submitted to Canvas, are electronically checked through Turnitin. This software allows for text comparisons to be made between your submitted assessment item and all other work to which Turnitin has access.
Eligibility for Supplementary Assessment
Your eligibility for supplementary assessment in a course is dependent of the following conditions applying:
(a) The final mark is in the percentage range 47% to 49.4%; and
(b) The course is graded using the Standard Grading scale
Late submissions may be penalised up to and including the following maximum percentage of the assessment task’s identified value, with weekdays and weekends included in the calculation of days late:
(a) One day: deduct 5%;
(b) Two days: deduct 10%;
(c) Three days: deduct 20%;
(d) Four days: deduct 40%;
(e) Five days: deduct 60%;
(f) Six days: deduct 80%;
(g) Seven days: A result of zero is awarded for the assessment task.The following penalties will apply for a late submission for an online examination:
Less than 15 minutes: No penalty
From 15 minutes to 30 minutes: 20% penalty
More than 30 minutes: 100% penalty
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For help with course-specific advice, for example what information to include in your assessment, you should first contact your tutor, then your course coordinator, if needed.
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