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Learning outcomes & discipline specific guidance

Photography guidance


New BA (Hons) Photography units:

  1. Photography 1.1: Approaching Photography (PH4APH)
  2. Photography 1.2: Practice and Process (PH4PPC)
  3. Photography 1.3: Narrative and Context (PH4NAC)
  4. Photography 2.1: Challenging Genres (PH5CGG)
  5. Photography 2.2: Ethics and Representation (PH5EAR)
  6. Photography 2.3: Digital Image and Visual Culture (PH5DVC)
  7. Photography 3.1: Practice and Research (PH6PAR)
  8. Photography 3:2 Context and Audience (PH6CAA)
  9. Photography 3.3: Major Project (PH6MPT)

Teach Out BA (Hons) Photography units:

  1. Photography 1: Expressing Your Vision (PH4EYV)
  2. Photography 1: Context and Narrative (PH4CAN)
  3. Photography 1: Identity and Place (PH4IAP)
  4. Photography 2: Landscape, Place and Environment (PH5LPE) - also includes Photography 2: Landscape (PH5LDS)
  5. Photography 2: Documentary Fact and Fiction (PH5DFF) - also includes Photography 2: Documentary (PH5DOC)
  6. Photography 2: Digital Image and Culture (PH5DIC)
  7. Photography 2: Self and the Other (PH5STO)
  8. Photography 3: Body of Work (PH6BOW)
  9. Photography 3: Contextual Studies (PH6CTS)
  10. Photography 3: Sustaining Your Practice (PH6SYP)
  11. Visual Skills 1: Visual Dynamics (VC4VSD) - See Visual Communication guidance
  12. Visual Studies 1: Understanding Visual Culture (AH4UVC) - See Visual Studies guidance

Assessment requirements

When considering the learning outcomes and assessment criteria for your course unit, it is important to know what you are being asked to submit. These are known as your assessment requirements. These will typically include:

  1. Learning Log entries All levels - Submitting between 2 to 3 learning log entries for each learning outcome. HE6 Contextual Studies unit - If you are on an earlier version of the course unit where you may have used a research folder rather than a learning log, please submit selected extracts from your research folder in place of learning log entries (which can be scanned or typed up) in order to show how you've met the learning outcomes. 
  2. Creative Work
    HE4/HE5 level     - Selecting three assignment outcomes (excluding critical reviews/essays) or pieces of creative work. These assignment outcomes/pieces of creative work would typically constitute a series of photographs, but depending on how you have approached an assignment brief or course exercise, it could be a video outcome, an installation, an photographic artefact or other piece of digital media. It’s up to you to discern what your strongest outcomes on the course unit have been, not to select the ‘best images’ from across all of the series’ you have produced. 
    HE6 Body of Work unit - Submitting your body of work
    HE6 Sustaining your Practice unit - Submitting your developed body of work
  3. Critical reviews
    All levels     - Submit any critical review/essay from your course unit. Where relevant, include (and label clearly) a first draft and tutor annotations (if your tutor has done this) with your final critical review/essay.
    HE6 Contextual Studies unit - Submit your extended written piece. You are also advised to include your Assignment Two: Literature Review and Proposal (and, if appropriate, comment on any ways you may have since departed from what was originally proposed). 
  4. Reflective presentation/evaluation All levels - Your reflective presentation or evaluation will also help assessors to navigate your submission. If you choose to include images of your work in this, we suggest roughly 10 to 12 images. This could help you to visually connect your reflections to your work. If you choose to present this as video, you can keep this very simple using a mobile phone or laptop— it could show you speaking about, or even handling, your work, you could use this to show aspects of scale, texture, physicality of materials or process.

Guidance on Academic misconduct, plagiarism and use of Artificial Intelligence (AI):

Ensure you consult the Academic misconduct policy for guidance. 

Additional OCA resources to documenting work

What if … I can’t go outside to photograph by Andrea Norrington

Experimenting with Physical Formats and Tactile Processes to Demonstrate Critical Thinking by Rachel Smith

Discussing and Sharing the Tactile Qualities of Work by Rebecca Fairley

Student Work: video-documentary of site-based work by Bryn Davies

Photography and digital assessment— a wider picture by Dan Robinson