HSN701 Principles of Nutrition T3 2017 – Assignment
Requirements: Written report (2000 words) plus a 1 minute video summary
Assignment Due: Thursday 11 January by 11:59pm (Melbourne Time)
Assessment weighting: Written report: worth 35% of your final unit grade. Video summary:
worth 5% of your final unit grade
Assignment details
The purpose of this assignment is to:
• become familiar with an emerging, topical and relevant nutritional issue in Australia;
• learn to search for, and critique, peer-reviewed scientific literature; • assist in developing your nutrition communication skills.
You have been employed as a nutrition consultant by a food company that is interested in adding new ingredients to their current range of infant formulae. The ingredients in question are oligosaccharides which include galacto-oligosaccharides (GOS) and fructo-oligosaccharides (FOS), which are intended to simulate oligosaccharides naturally found in breast milk. There is some clinical evidence that these oligosaccharides may assist with the health and wellbeing of infants so they could be an important marketing differential from products made by other companies which don’t contain oligosaccharides.
The title of your report should be: Oligosaccharides: the case for and against the supplementation of infant formula
The following points need to be covered at some stage in your report:
1. What is the role of oligosaccharides such as galacto-oligosaccharides (GOS) and fructooligosaccharides (FOS) in the health and wellbeing of infants and indicate if there are any potential safety issues that may determine upper limits of addition to infant formulas?
2. Outline the weight of scientific evidence for a clinical benefit of oligosaccharide supplementation on infant health and wellbeing compared to formula without oligosaccharides. For this part, you need to take into account both positive (studies that show a benefit) and negative research (studies that didn’t show a benefit) and use the literature to develop an argument to inform your conclusion in part 3.
- If evidence is coming from large-scale long-term human randomised-controlled trials (RCTs) then this would be considered stronger evidence than studies conducted in animals or from observational research (such as cohort, case-control or cross-sectional studies).
- Evidence from systematic reviews and/or meta-analyses of RCTs are generally considered to be the highest form of evidence.
- Almost all the references for your report should be coming from peer-reviewed scientific studies. If you mostly use websites as references then expect to be heavily marked down.
- You may need to consider different categories of infants (e.g. term vs pre-term infants) in considering the weight of evidence, but this would be your decision.
- You may want to consider whether these ingredients are permitted in infant formulas in Australia and in overseas markets and investigate the regulatory and/or scientific rationale for their additional.
3. Include a brief summary/final recommendation to the company which is supported by your analysis presented in part 2.
4. Your employer has asked you to summarise your main findings and recommendations from your report for a brief presentation to the company board. The board meets interstate, so you have been asked to record a one minute video summarising your recommendation of whether or not to add oligosaccharides to the infant formula, and the key points of your rationale.
Please note: this assignment is about comparing the merits of oligosaccharide supplemented versus unsupplemented infant formula. It is NOT about the merits of breastfeeding compared to formula feeding though you may include some discussion on this as a means of background, but breastfeeding should not be the focus of your article.
Assignment submission requirements
Your written report can be submitted in either a Word or PDF file format. Your video summary needs to be in a MP4 format. Each file needs to go into its own assignment dropbox.
How to upload your assignment on CloudDeakin
You are able to submit the assignment up until 11:59pm (Melbourne time) on the due date – assignments submitted after this time without an approved extension will incur late penalties. To submit your assignment, follow the steps below.
1. Click on Assignments (Dropbox) of this unit’s CloudDeakin site which can be found in the menu under the Assessment tab
2. Click on the hyperlink for the assignment that you wish to submit
3. On the next screen, you only need to click on the Add a File button and then browse to where your assignment is from the Upload button and then click the Add button on the bottom of the screen.
4. Once you can see your file has been added directly under the Add a File button, you can click the
Submit button on the bottom right-hand of the screen (there is no need to add any text to the Comments box)
After getting to the confirmation screen, please resist the temptation to send me an email ‘just to check I got your assignment’ as you can always go back into the assignment dropbox screen and your submission will be able to be viewed by clicking on the number in the ‘Submissions’ column.
I’ve submitted my assignment early and now would like to make changes to it and upload a new version before the due date: can I do this?
Yes, the upload system is set to allow you to upload a new submission which will overwrite (erase) what was there previously. It doesn’t matter what file name you give the revised assignment, it will still overwrite the previous submission. I only process the assignments after the due date has passed so you can upload as many versions as you like prior to the due date
Preparing the written report
Your written report can be presented in any format you choose that would be appropriate for a professional report so you have some scope for creativity and layout, although it is mainly the scientific content you will be assessed on as per the marking criteria following.
Your written report should have a logical flow and be written at the level for health professionals and include supporting evidence from a minimum of seven original published studies (research articles and review papers are both acceptable) which are cited in the text and listed in a reference section at the end of the article. Only cite references from Internet sources and non-peer-reviewed literature if there is a strong reason to do so such as websites from government departments or reputable health bodies which contain original data or reports.
Required information on the first page of the written report: Your name, student ID and word count.
Use the Marking Criteria following to guide how much detail is expected for each part of the assignment based on the word limit. There are a total of 40 marks available for the written report and it counts towards 35% of your overall final unit grade.
Word Limit: 2000 words (not including the reference section, in-text references, headings and subheadings, tables, and figure/photo legends). The word count maximum means just that – there is no '10% over' allowance rule. Any assignment exceeding the word limit of 1500 words, even by one word, will receive a marking deduction. The strict word limit is in place to ensure equity in assessment between students as marking of the assignment allows for the realistic depth a person can go into within the word limit.
Penalty for exceeding 2000 words maximum:
• 1-100 words over: 2 marks
• 101-200 words over: 4 marks
• 201-300 words over: 6 marks
• 301 words over: 8 marks
Assessment
Criteria
Excelled /Above expectations
Achieved/Reached standard
Below Standard
4 - 5 marks 2.5 - 3 marks
Clear and concise Generally clear and
Role of identification of the concise identification of
oligosaccharides role of the role of
in Infant Health oligosaccharides in oligosaccharides in the
and Wellness health and wellness health and wellness of
of infants infants 0 - 2 marks
Poor or no identification of the role of
oligosaccharides in the
health and wellness of
infants
4 - 5 marks 2.5 - 3 marks
Consideration of
Thorough and Generally accurate
any safety issues accurate description description of safety and
and dosage of safety and dose dose consideration of 0 - 2 marks
Poor or no description of safety and dose consideration of
related to consideration of oligosaccharide addition oligosaccharide addition
oligosaccharide oligosaccharide to infant formula to infant formula
addition to infant
addition to infant
formula formula
Assessment
Criteria Excelled /Above expectations Achieved/Reached standard Below Standard
7 - 10 marks
Sound, logical argument either
supporting or not
Infant Formula supporting the use of
Supplementation oligosaccharide supplemented
formula over nonsupplemented
formula in infants
5 - 6 marks Generally logical argument either
supporting or not
supporting the use of oligosaccharide
supplemented formula
over non-supplemented formula in infants
0 - 4 marks Poor or illogical argument either
supporting or not
supporting the use of oligosaccharide
supplemented formula
over non-supplemented formula in infants
7 - 10 marks
Excellent supporting
Infant Formula
evidence for the
Supplementation recommendation with
- Evidence and thorough critique of
Critique the positive and negative literature 5 - 6 marks
Generally provides supporting evidence for the recommendation
with reasonable critique of the positive and negative literature 0 - 4 marks
Sparse use of supporting evidence for the recommendation
with little or no critique of the positive and negative literature
4 - 5 marks
Final recommendation for whether
Infant Formula supplementation
Supplementation
should or should not
-
occur supported by
Recommendation previously presented argument and evidence 2.5 - 3 mark
Not complete and/or adequate final
recommendation for whether supplementation should or should not occur
supported by previously
presented argument and
evidence 0 - 2 marks
No final recommendation for whether supplementation should
or should not occur or not satisfactorily
4 - 5 marks
Consistent use of appropriate scientific
Clarity of Writing writing and referencing style
suitable for health professionals 2.5 - 3 marks
Generally uses appropriate scientific
writing and referencing
style suitable for health professionals 0 - 2 marks
Inappropriate writing style and referencing
which is unsuitable for health professionals
Overall Mark 30 to 40 20 or 24 0 to 16
Turnitin originality check
Your assignment will be checked by electronic means through the Turnitin Originality Check for the purposes of detecting plagiarism against current and archived Internet material, and journal publications. You can find the check tool in the More link in the unit toolbar next to the Assessment option or through the Get Help Learning box on the right-hand side of the screen in a green box on the unit home page. For the Originality Report, you can elect to exclude the bibliography section which can give an artificially high originality report.
The Turnitin Originality Check is not for submission of the final version of your assignment; that should be submitted through the assignment dropbox.
Having a few words or phrases come up in the plagiarism report is a non-issue – having entire paragraphs word-for-word marked as being identical to a journal or Internet source is an issue.
Paraphrasing and referencing should always be your writing aim.
As for ‘what percentage figure is too high in the originality report?” - I don't give a figure for this as it can be so variable. A report can have a very high percentage if you do not exclude the reference section from the check, but has no bearing on an assessment of plagiarism.
What you need to look at in the originality report is what is being picked up: is it just repeated words or lots of very short phrases, or is it entire sentences and paragraphs being flagged? Both can give rise to identical percentage figures in the final originality report, but only the second issue of sentences and paragraphs being identical to online/journal sources raises plagiarism issues. All your work should be paraphrased, not repeated or quoted verbatim from the source even when citing a reference - -quoting- shows a very low level of insight in scientific writing.
Preparing the video summary
The purpose of this part of the assignment is to:
- Assist in developing your verbal communication skills for the nutrition discipline; - Assist in developing your ability to summarise information and identify key points; - Assist in developing your skills in technology use (digital literacy).
The time limit for the recording is one minute. In this presentation, you are not being assessed on how much information you can get through in a minute, but on your choice of relevant key points to present, and on your clarity and manner of presenting these. There are a total of 18 marks available for the video summary report and it counts towards 5% of your overall final unit grade.
There are a number of different options for creating a recorded video presentation – you can use your phone video camera, iPad or tablet, a dedicated video camera or a computer web cam. You are NOT expected to produce a professional-quality video in regards to image, sound quality, lighting and so on. I am not expecting you to be a multimedia production expert, only to make use of common tools available to make videos of ‘home’ quality.
Your video needs to be uploaded in a MP4 format which ensures small file sizes and compatibility at the assessment end that your presentation can be viewed. If your recording device cannot output in MP4 format, then I highly recommend the free and simple-to-use file conversion program HandBrake which will do the job easily. See the next page for the simple instructions on how to use HandBrake.
Assessment
Criteria
Excelled /Above expectations
Achieved/Reached standard
Below Standard
Content 5 - 6 marks 3 - 4 marks
Strong connection between Recommendation and rationale stated recommendation and stated but not clearly connected, presented rationale. or too much time describing
Rationale reflects high level recommendation without interpretation and sufficient rationale, or not most
discernment of key evidence relevant rationale 0 - 2 marks
Not adequately covered
Professionalism 5 - 6 marks 3 - 4 marks
Entirely appropriate for board Mostly appropriate for board presentation. Clear image presentation. Adequate image and audio. Consistent and audio. Displays some
positive engagement towards interest towards topic presented topic. Leaves the listener
motivated and interested in learning more about the topic 0 - 2 marks
Unprofessional in all areas
Communication 5 – 6 marks 3 - 4 mark
Clear voice, words clearly Voice not clear at times, listener articulated, and language finds it difficult to understand at
entirely appropriate for times, language not appropriate
intelligent but non-specialist for audience
audience 0 - 2 marks
Poor communication skills in all areas
Overall Mark 15 to 18 9 or 12 0 to 6
Converting video files to MP4 format with HandBrake
HandBrake is a free, open-source tool for converting video from nearly any format to a selection of modern, widely supported codecs which includes MP4. It is useful for converting and compressing video footage or movies into other, smaller formats to suit many different devices. You can download it from http://handbrake.fr/ PC, Mac and Ubuntu versions are available.
Even if you already have an MP4 output, running it through HandBrake can make it even smaller which will help with the upload time at assignment submission deadline.
When you open the program, you will see the open window shown in the screenshot following.
1. Click on Source and choose the folder where your file is or alternatively, just drag the file you want to covert straight onto any place on the open window.
2. Next choose what device you want to covert the file for. In this case, please choose Universal.
3. Click the Browse button and select the location where you want to save your converted file and the name you wish to give to the converted file
4. Check to make sure Mp4 is selected in the Container option.
5. Finally hit Start and the conversion will begin. For a short, one minute video, the process should only take a couple of minutes.
Researching the assignment
Useful resources for this assignment include your Study Guide and textbook for initial background information. A good free website to access Medline to search peer-reviewed medical journals is
PubMed www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez You can search for full text articles on Medline through the
Deakin University library website http://www.deakin.edu.au/library/a-z/databases.php?l=M
You may find the use of a medical dictionary helpful. A good online medical dictionary is MedTerms www.medterms.com/script/main/hp.asp
Information you find on the Internet for this assignment should be treated with caution and should always be able to be verified through the mainstream scientific literature. If you can't source claims or information on the Internet back through the scientific literature then you may be just getting one person's or company's opinion. Internet sites or companies with a vested commercial interest in selling a product or service are NOT to be considered reputable sites for unbiased and balanced scientific evidence.
What’s the difference between searching PubMed and using Medline on the Deakin library website?
Even though PubMed www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez is a free-access Medline search engine, it is perfectly fine to be using for medical, biological sciences and nutrition research article searching for all your university studies. In fact it is what most of the academics in the School of Exercise and Nutrition Sciences use on a daily basis so don't feel you need to use EBSCOhost through the Deakin library to access Medline.
PubMed covers far more journals than the library's full-text Medline database as the Deakin Medline database only searches journals that it has full-text access for (about 2,100) while PubMed doesn't make this discrimination as it covers all 5,000 journals in the full Medline database.
If you find an article of interest on PubMed, you can then search the Deakin library to see if they subscribe to the journal in electronic or hardcopy form. You can also search from here http://library.deakin.edu.au/screens/srchhelp_journals.html to see a list of eJournals Deakin subscribes to.
I’ve found a great article on PubMed, but Deakin doesn’t have a subscription to the journal: what do I do?
When searching articles through PubMed you can always see the abstract; however, links to the full article normally (though not always) ask you to pay for the paper if you (or your university) don't have a subscription to the journal.
If you find that Deakin's eJournal subscription does not have the journal you are after, then if you have a friend at another university you can ask them to get you a copy if their university subscribes to that journal. If that fails, then don’t be afraid of sending a polite e-mail request to one of the authors of the paper (Googling their name and institution normally gets you their email easily enough) and request an electronic PDF copy as more-often-than-not you can expect a positive response – researchers are usually happy to share their work with students.
Referencing requirements
You are free to use any standard referencing system used in other subjects or field of study (e.g.
Vancouver, Harvard or APA). The referencing system preferred for this assignment though is the Vancouver system which uses in-text numbering for each reference and a numerical order bibliography though you will NOT be penalised if you choose to use Harvard or APA.
The Vancouver system is by far the most common style used in scientific journals, and is also one of the simplest to use. The Vancouver system also assists with readability of text by not having paragraphs full of author names disrupting the flow of the text.
The two main types of referencing systems use either in-text author-date citations and then an alphabetical list of authors in the bibliography section or in-text numbering and a numerical list of references in the bibliography section. You should not mix the styles i.e. if you use in-text author-date names then you DO NOT number the references in the bibliography – you list the references in alphabetical order. Likewise, if you use in-text numbering, you DO NOT attempt to sort your reference list in alphabetical order.
Some help on referencing styles is here: http://www.deakin.edu.au/students/study-support/referencing
In your article you should always avoid quoting directly from papers as it shows very little insight e.g. Crowe et al. have stated, “Blah, blah, blah….”. You should always paraphrase the text in your own words and then cite the reference. It is NOT plagiarising to paraphrase someone else’s conclusion or views if you then reference this.
How to correctly reference articles you find on PubMed
Papers that you find on PubMed are referenced according to their journal reference – you DO NOT reference the website link to PubMed or weblink to the abstract that you find in your PubMed search.
Referencing articles cited within a paper
If when reading a paper you come across a research study that you feel on its own is important for your assignment, then you need to obtain this original research paper and then reference it directly. You do not under any circumstances reference the paper that first made reference to the article as that is a secondary source – it is akin to referencing ‘Deakin Library’ as your reference rather than the book that you borrowed from it! If on the other hand you are writing about the conclusions of a review paper, you only need to reference the review paper, not all the articles that went into writing it and forming the conclusions from it.
How recent do my references need to be?
While there is no hard-and-fast rule about the cut-off for the year of publication that articles should be used from, once research papers are around 10 years old they may not be as suitable. This is not to say that there is anything wrong with the research at all, it is still just as valid – it is just that research and knowledge in an area should be advancing so recent studies build on the work of previous ones and likely are more important to be reading and citing in your assignment. You can use references older than 10 years, but most of your references should have been published in around the last 10 years.
Endnote software
The University makes available to all students, free of charge, Endnote database software which provides an electronic referencing system, covering all recommended referencing styles. Endnote will save you considerable amounts of time in completing the referencing for your assignments, and ensure that you are citing and listing references in the correct manner.
If you haven’t used it before, it is well worth exploring using Endnote to help with your referencing as it has the potential to save you a lot of time if applied across all of your university assignments. Once a reference is entered into Endnote, you can format it in a Word document in any style you like at the click of a button, plus references included in the text are automatically updated as you edit the document.
Endnote is available for downloaded from the university's software library
www.deakin.edu.au/software it is located in the Teaching and Learning section of this webpage. The Library has on-line tutorials on how to install and use Endnote here http://deakin.libguides.com/endnote