SED Report

SED Assessment – Main – 2021 2022

Task details:

Scenario: you have been shortlisted for a job interview with an event agency. In preparation for the interview, you have to select a real-life client and design a two-day/two-night strategic event for them.

You should write a report to put forward your proposal and justify your decisions.

Read the letter from the agency very carefully with further instructions.

Examples of good practice on event design for a variety of events can be found on blackboard.

Dear applicant,

We are pleased to inform you that you have been shortlisted for the post of Event Designer in our organisation and, before attending the interview, you must prepare a proposal for an event.  Your proposal must not only show creativity to cultivate the attendees’ experience but must also be strategically consistent with the organisation’s objectives and brand. 

You should identify an organisation of your choice as the context for your work.  The organisation can be from the commercial sector, a public body or city, charity, or association.  The proposed event must be focused to achieve a variety of objectives and should not be a commercial event whose aim is for short direct profit.  Therefore, your proposed event could be one of a variety of formats, for example: a conference, product launch, exhibition, fundraising event, training/incentive/corporate hospitality event, or any other marketing or innovative type of event you may want to suggest. You should discuss your chosen organisation and your event with your tutor as soon as you have started researching it to ensure it fits with the context provided.

Whichever organisation you select as your client you should undertake research as to their business objectives, values and current issues they might be facing.  This will help to ensure you deliver an event that is tailored to that organisation’s needs.

The event should take place outside the UK, and you will have to propose a destination and a venue and justify your recommendations.  This justification, while agreeable with operational requirements, should not be solely based upon operational considerations e.g., cost, time, risk.  You should consider your choice of destination and venues as a strategic one and justify according to the context and your desired outcomes.

Using event design and experience design theory you should critically discuss ideas and strategies to generate the best possible outcomes for the key stakeholders (the organisation, attendees, and any other partners in the event). A clear identification of their objectives should be included, and you should demonstrate how your recommendations for the design of the event would provide return on investment for the client and attendees.

It is essential that in the development of your ideas you evidence not just what your ideas are but why you think they are good ideas.  With this task you must demonstrate your ability to design an enticing event for your organisation, target market and any other stakeholders, and persuasively justify and evidence why you have made the event design decisions that you have.

Particular emphasis should be given to the co-creative aspects of the event and to delivering value with tight budgets. There is no requirement to provide budget, but your decisions need to be proportionate.  Your event programme cannot replicate any existing event of the selected organisation.

Best wishes, your future employers

1. Please go through the Assessment slides on Blackboard (Assessment tab) to be sure what each section of your report should contain. I have included good examples of student work for each section so these should give you a clear indication of the standard required;
2. Check the SMART Objectives  sheet that I have also included under the Assessment tab. I hope that this will clarify the way to word your objectives so they are SMART. I would expect 2 or 3 impact objectives and 3 or 4 learning objectives for your event;
3. Please note that attendees at your event are those people who can learn something new and whose change in behaviour will then lead to the impact objectives being met for the client. You may be using specialists, actors, speakers and so on but these do not count as attendees…they are at the event to support the learning;
4. Most of you have two main attendee groups so create personas that represent one attendee from each. You can do an empathy map for each persona but I will be happy with just one example of an empathy map (of one persona). Personas and the empathy map can be included in your report as screen shots to save words;
5. Remember to show the link between your objectives and the design elements of your event. Refer to the objectives when you are justifying your design…for example, the XXXX game will provide an active learning experience to ensure that attendees learn YYYY (see objective 2.1);
6. Study the two examples of design elements that I have shown in the lecture slides – one on technology and one on gamification. They are both good. The technology example is packed full of excellent sources as justification but the actual experiences that the student has designed herself could be more interesting and innovative. The gamification example is just the opposite! The ideas are really innovative but the student could have been improved this section with more academic sources to underpin the ideas.

Instructions to students for submission of the report

Online submission: The submission point will be available on the Blackboard site for this module, and this is where you need to upload your work.

Please upload your work as either a Word document (.doc/.docx) or a PDF.

Turnitin submission: The Turnitin tool is available on the Blackboard site for this module, and you can upload your work as many times as necessary to Turnitin before you upload the final version by the submission deadline.

If you submit work after an assessment deadline without an authorised extension but within 24 hours (excluding the weekend period) of the original submission time you will receive either a capped mark at the minimum pass mark or the full uncapped mark for your work, whichever is the lower. If you submit work after this period, you will not receive a mark for your work but you will receive feedback comments from your tutor.

Understanding your mark

As well as assessing your work against the module learning outcomes and assessment criteria, your marker will use the guidance below to award your final grade for your work. These descriptors also provide you with more general guidance to improve your mark.

Class %  General Characteristics

FIRST  (Excellent)  Marks: 74 81 89 96

Exceptional breadth and depth of knowledge and understanding of the area of study; evidence of extensive and appropriate selection and critical evaluation/synthesis/analysis and of reading/research beyond the prescribed range, in both breadth and depth, to advance work/direct arguments; exceptional demonstration of relevant skills; excellent communication; performance deemed to be beyond expectation.

UPPER  SECOND  (Very good) Marks: 62 65 68

Very good knowledge and understanding of the area of study as the student is typically able to relate facts/concepts together with some ability to apply to known/taught contexts; evidence of appropriate selection and evaluation of reading/research, some beyond the prescribed range, may rely on set sources to advance work/direct arguments; demonstrates autonomy in approach to learning; very good demonstration of relevant skills; strong communication skills.

LOWER  SECOND  (Good) Marks: 52 55 58

Good knowledge and understanding of the area of study balanced towards the descriptive rather than analytical; evidence of appropriate selection and evaluation of reading/research but generally reliant on set sources to advance work/direct arguments; good demonstration of relevant skills, though may be limited in range; communication shows clarity but structure may not always be coherent.

THIRD  (Sufficient) Marks: 42 45 48

Knowledge and understanding is sufficient to deal with terminology, basic facts and concepts but fails to make meaningful synthesis; some ability to select and evaluate reading/research however work may be more generally descriptive; strong reliance on available support set sources to advance work; arguments may be weak or poorly constructed; adequate demonstration of relevant skills over a limited range; communication/presentation is generally competent but with some weaknesses.

FAIL  (Insufficient) Marks: 25 35

Insufficient knowledge and understanding of the area of study; some ability to select and evaluate reading/research however work is more generally descriptive; fails to address some aspects of the brief; a limited use of sources to advance work; arguments may be weak/poor or weakly/poorly constructed; demonstration of relevant skills over a reduced range; communication shows limited clarity, poor presentation, structure may not be coherent.

Fail (Highly insufficient) Marks: 5 15

Knowledge or understanding of the area of study; understanding is typically at the word level with facts being reproduced in a disjointed or decontextualised manner; fails to address the outcomes addressed by the brief; typically ignores important sources in development of work and data/evidence inappropriately used; weak technical and practical competence hampers ability to demonstrate/communicate achievement of outcomes.

ZERO Work of no merit or absent, work not submitted.

The assessment feedback and feed-forward for the report

Students will receive marks and electronic feedback within 3 working weeks of the hand in date.  Students are also offered the opportunity to meet the tutor in the month after that for more detailed discussion if required / desired.

Assessment Criteria SED Report