Academic Requirements

During your project you must satisfy your university academic requirements.  To ensure this, the most important person in your project is your academic supervisor.  Find one early and talk to them before applying for a project to make sure the topic meets your university departments’ academic requirements, and it has the correct style, depth and duration.

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Expectations

Students will be expected to apply the approach and principles EWB embodies during their project.  They must ensure any recommendations and outcomes are appropriate, sustainable and developed with the necessary community involvement and engagement.

For projects allocated in October and commencing the start of the following year, students are expected to attend the EWB National Conference at the end of November.  This provides significant background and learning on community and sustainable development in addition to the opportunity to meet returned volunteers, staff and other students.

Students are expected to be actively involved in disseminating their project outcomes.  This includes submitting all assessment outcomes to EWB and completing a summary of your project. You will be expected to identify and comply with any relevant ethical policies at your university.

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Support

To assist with your project, EWB advisors and mentors will be available.  Appropriate support will be assigned at the start of your project.  This could be a returned volunteer, EWB staff member or industry mentor with relevant experience.  This support is help provide background and context for your project.  Do not expect your EWB advisor to read drafts of your thesis for errors.

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Integrating Outcomes

Capturing, communicating and utilising outcomes and results from projects is a key part of the Program, and enables EWB and the larger development community to gain as much benefit as possible from research undertaken.  Specific outcomes will be fed back to community partners by being incorporated into EWB’s ongoing volunteer Programs.

During a project, students will need to submit any major outcomes or assessment items to EWB.  This enables EWB to keep up-to-date with work and progress, and also ensure outcomes from projects are available for inclusion in our Volunteer Programs, the EWB Resource base, and for member education.

Results and experience will also be disseminated through:

• seminars and workshops, to local chapters or at the EWB national conference.
• writing papers and articles, or entering students competitions.
• completing a research summary.
• where appropriate, making presentations, reports or thesis’ available to members and partners online at the EWB website.

It is also hoped that students will undertake further involvement with EWB, or other NGO’s, through our volunteer placements or development education experiences. This is to be able to apply their work and new experiences directly, and continue to learn new skills.

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Assessment

All assessment for your project will be completed by universities and academic supervisors and you must comply with any relevant university requirements.

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IP and Confidentiality

To ensure project outcomes can be utilised, IP (Intellectual Property) from projects needs to be available to EWB and its community partners. Typically, any IP generated during an undergraduate project will be owned by the student who created it. This can include designs, prototypes and the thesis itself. At the start of your project you will be asked to sign an IP agreement, to ensure your research can be used freely by EWB and its community partners. If you choose to do so, you can also agree to an open-source agreement, to make your research freely available to all.

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