Learning and Assessment in a Computer Based Human Physiology Project at 
Junior Honours Level
F. Bowser-Riley, P.G. Newman & M.A. Radcliffe
Department of Biomedical Sciences, Marischal College, University of Aberdeen  
Aberdeen AB9 1AS

The human physiology project is a student led, team-based practical project 
that incorporates a wide range of enterprise skills.  Since these skills 
are discipline independent, the actual nature of the project would be 
determined by local resources and requirements. No special developments 
are required, since maximal use is made of software packages and equipment 
that are readily available and commonly used in industry, science and 
commerce.  The essence of the project is to allow students to work in an 
environment resembling that of an operational research laboratory, and thus 
to develop their understanding of the discipline by formulating and testing 
hypotheses. To this end it is important to select problems that are not 
over-prescriptive, but which permit reasonable conclusions to be reached in 
the time available.  In our view, it is important that the development of 
computing and other technological  skills is seen in perspective: it is not 
a means in itself, but a means to an end.

The contents of the Learning Pack for this course are summarised in the 
summary.wpf file and the total set of files are zipped into one file 
py3002.zip. You will find it convenient to create a directory called PY3002, 
copy the PY3002.zip into it and unzip it. Please free to modify them to suit 
your own circumstances. To give you some idea of the kind of data that the 
undergraduates are able to manipulate successfully in spreadsheet format see 
the 3pysampl.wk4 file.