A full description of the requirements for graduating with Honours in Chemistry can be found under "Degree Programs". If you are interested in the Honours Program or would just like more information, please contact your regular chemistry advisor.  Information about the honours research project (Chem 4901) can be obtained by contacting the project coordinator:

Alan Doucette
902-494-3714
alan.doucette@dal.ca
Office: Room 526, Chem Bldg

Honours Research Project

Students registered in the BSc Chemistry Honours program are required to engage in a full year research project (Chem 4901) under the supervision of a member of faculty in the Department of Chemistry at Dalhousie University. A list of participating faculty and their projects is published annually.  Chem 4901 is also accessible to students registered in a Combined Honours program involving Chemistry, as well as students registered in the BSc Chemistry 20 credit major program. Chemistry majors may alternatively elect to engage in one or both of the half-year projects (Chem 4801 or Chem 4802), which are also conducted under the supervision of a member of faculty in the Department of Chemistry at Dalhousie University.  The 4901 research project must begin in September and end in April of the school year. Students registered in a research project class are expected to commit time equivalent to “other advanced, laboratory-based courses in chemistry”. This translates into a minimum of 6 hours per week devoted to the project. However, most students will dedicate significantly more time, exceeding 10 hours per week. Regular (~weekly) tutorials are offered to assist students with various aspects of research and communication.

Supervisors
All students engaged in either the Honours and Major Research Project (Chem 4901) or the Research Project (Chem 4801, Chem 4802) must first identify a research supervisor who is a faculty member of the Department of Chemistry and who normally works on campus. Students may also identify a supervisor elsewhere, though they must also identify a resident faculty member in the Department of Chemistry who is prepared to co-supervise the project. Selection of project supervisors is normally performed in the spring preceding the beginning of the project, and involves interviewing various members of the department. The choice of supervisor selection is left to the student, though the supervisor must also agree to accept the student. It should be noted that the number of available spots for a given faculty member may be limited.  

Click here for the Supervisor Selection Form

Assessment
Chem 4901 students are primarily graded through the submission of written reports, as well as an oral presentation and defence of their research, taking place at the end of the fall and winter terms (plus an initial research proposal at the onset of the project). Project supervisors also evaluate the student’s research performance, based on their industry, contribution, and initiative. These evaluations occur on four separate occasions throughout the academic year. A detailed breakdown of the grading assessment is as follows:

Fall Grading Scheme

Initial research proposal …..….……….             5%

Supervisor midterm evaluation …………          5%

Supervisor fall evaluation …….………...           5%

Fall report …..……………………………           10%

Oral presentation & defence …..………..         10%

Winter Grading Scheme

Supervisor midterm evaluation………...           5%

Supervisor final evaluation…..…………           5%

Final report ……………………………….          35%

Final oral presentation & defence ….....           20%

Initial Research Proposal
This constitutes a 2-page (max) summary of the project to be conducted. The proposal contains a brief description of the area of study, including citation of relevant literature (5-10 references max, outside the page limit), a statement of the research objectives, general summary of methods, and anticipated significance of the work. The proposal is to be written by the student, with comments and edits provided by the supervisor, and communicated at a level appropriate to the knowledge of other 4901 students.

Fall Research Report and Oral Presentation
Students registered in Chem 4901 are required to prepare a written report based on their research thus far, to be submitted at the end of the fall term (Nov 22^nd 2011) followed by an oral presentation open to the Department of Chemistry near the last days of fall term (afternoon of Dec 5^th & 6^th in 2011).

The fall report generally takes on the form of a research manuscript, appropriate to the field of study in which the research was conducted. The main body of the report shall be no longer than 20 pages in length (double-spaced; 6 lines/inch (12 point); one inch margins all round), including diagrams/ tables/ schemes which are embedded within the main body of the text (full page diagrams/ tables extra).The main body of the report presents an introduction to the topic of the project, the proposed research project and objectives, an explanation of methods chosen to achieve the objectives, a detailed experimental section, and a presentation of the research results with discussion. Appropriate references must be included at the end of the report, with format consistent to the field of study. In addition to the main body, the report also includes a title page, abstract, acknowledgements, and table of contents, including lists of figures, tables, equations and schemes, as well as a glossary of terms which may be unfamiliar to the general chemist.

A sample research report is provided to the students at beginning of term, which assists with the proper formatting. Supervisors are encouraged to take an active part in the preparation of this preliminary research report in order to show the students how such reports are prepared and written, and should convey any deadlines for submission of ‘draft’ reports to the respective students.  Three copies of the proposal (one unbound) should be submitted to the Honours/Majors coordinator by the indicated deadline.   The oral presentation will normally be of 10 minutes duration with 5 minutes for questions.  The designated reader of the report will ask the first question(s).

Grading of the Preliminary Research Proposal Defence
The preliminary report will be examined by at least two designated faculty members from the Department of Chemistry, acting as readers and members of the examining committee. The readers will identify corrections and make comments, which are returned to the student. Furthermore, the committee will ask the student questions during a defined question period (i.e. defence) which follows the oral presentation of the student’s research. The oral presentation is graded by all faculty members in attendance at the fall presentation. 

Final Report, Presentation and Defence
Students registered in Chemistry 4901 are required to submit a final report in late March and to defend their research through a formal presentation and defence open to the Department of Chemistry.  Writing of the final report is expected to be entirely the student’s own work.  However, supervisors are again encouraged to read the thesis and comment on passages that are not clear or that need re-writing. Supervisors or other members of the research group may not provide direct edits of the report, or write any part of the thesis. The format of the final report follows identically with the fall report, with exception that the page limitation is increased to 30 pages for the main body.

The results presented in the fall and final reports, as well as the presentations must have been obtained between September and April of the year of enrolment in the research project. Research performed by the student during the summer before the project started should not be presented among the results, but may be presented as part of an introduction.  In these circumstances these results must be clearly identified as previous work, and all those who worked to produce the results must be cited.

The final report is read and evaluated by two independent faculty member. Students may request to the project coordinator (in writing, to remain confidential) not to send their report to a particular faculty member for grading). If requested, the report will not be given to that person.

Each student is allocated 10 minutes for their oral presentation with 10-15 minutes for questions.  Should the presentation finish early, the remaining time will be added to the question period. 

The Grading of Presentations
The presentation and defence is graded by all members of the faculty present in the audience. Each member of the examining committee provides a score for each student presentation/ defence, assigned according to one of four categories:

1 - unsatisfactory

2 - satisfactory

3 - excellent

4 - exceptional

Supervisors do not score their own students.  The individual examiner scores are averaged. The examining committee then discusses each student’s presentation in the context of the ranking, with emphasis in the discussion from the two reader evaluations of the presentation. From the average scores, boundaries are defined for conversion to letter grades (akin to ‘grading along the curve’). The course coordinator will convey the score average to the students, and associated grade. If requested, the coordinator will also convey the distribution of scores, but will not reveal who gave which score.

Final Report
The final reports for all students enrolled in Chem 4901 in a given year are to be submitted to the Department of Chemistry, where they will be bound and are kept in the chair’s office. The final grade will be withheld until such time as a final report is submitted by the student, following signing off by the research supervisor (final corrections to be made when specified).  Students will be informed of their fall term and of their final grade by the Honours/Majors Coordinator, which will include a breakdown of the grading for each assessment component.

CHEM 4801 and 4802

These classes are half credit classes and can be taken in either the Fall or Winter term, or even spread out over both terms (note that Chem 4802 has Chem 4801 as a prerequisite). The research can be ‘lab based’ (i.e. the student engages in original research, as directed by a project supervisor), or can be ‘library based’, wherein the student is asked to provide a detailed literature survey on a topic agreed upon by the student and the supervisor. Regardless of the nature of research, the 4801 and/or 4802 project classes require that a full report be prepared (following guidelines of 4901 report). There is no page limit here. The report is due on the last day of term in which the class finishes.  This report will be read by two readers. With Chem 4801, the two readers of the report, the Honours/Major coordinator and the supervisor make up the examining committee. The student gives a 15 minute presentation to the committee (closed audience format) and this is then followed by questions. The questioning period is designed to give the student a full opportunity to present his or her knowledge of the work and has no strict time limit (to provide an approximation, this question period will likely exceed one hour). After the presentation, the committee agrees on a grade that takes account of the report, the presentation and the supervisor’s grade for the project.

Chem 4802 normally follows Chem 4801. Again a full report is required (with no page limit), but this time the presentation becomes part of the regular 4901 sequence and is graded as per the format of the final 4901 oral presentation and defence, along with a supervisor’s assessment of the student, report and defence. The 4802 report is due on the same day as the 4901 final report.