D2AIR: Assessment

Assessment for part one

The AREA framework suggests the following steps to developing a responsible research plan: 

• Anticipate outcomes
• Reflect on motivation, processes and products
• Engage with stakeholder
• Act responsively

You should develop a plan for your own research, following this structure, and using relevant tools that have been introduced during the course. The plan should be around 4-5 pages long (a brief introduction and around one page per step, but this is flexible). The plan should be submitted by 28 February, by email as a PDF document to B.Webb@ed.ac.uk. 

Note that this plan is intended to be a living document, updated throughout your PhD. The feedback for the submitted plan will be provided in a face-to-face meeting where immediate updates will be suggested. You should subsequently aim to update the document at least annually , or better, whenever new information comes to light that seems relevant. 

Marking scheme:

10% Anticipation: The technical, social and environmental impacts of your planned research are described in relation to social values, needs and expectations. There is consideration of possible indirect effects, who might be excluded from benefits, and potential risks.

10% Reflection: There is consideration of the existing processes to support RRI in the student's own approach, and their immediate (e.g. research team) and wider (e.g. University) research environment. Relevant regulations, standards and ethical issues are considered, including what opposed opinions might exist, and the accessibility of the outputs.

20% Engagement: A broad range of stakeholders are identified. It is determined what input, when, from who, should be most helpful to ensure the project aligns to societal values, needs and expectations. Consideration is given to how under-represented groups, and the wider public, will be reached.

40% Act: In relation to the sections above, a clear plan is developed for 1) What you should learn more about to support responsibility; 2) What changes in the process of your research could enhance responsibility; 3) How you plan to engage; 4) How you will monitor considerations of responsibility throughout your PhD (note these specific topic headings are not required and some actions might be given more emphasis than others, as appropriate)

20% Quality of report: Clear structure and clear writing, coherent connection of the sections, appropriate use and citation of supporting information.

Assessment for part two

Following the discussions in class, you are asked to produce a pair of outputs for part 2 of this module - an in-class presentation, followed by a 2-3 page report on the same material, to be sent by email as a PDF document to s.ramamoorthy@ed.ac.uk. 

It is expected that both the presentation and the report will build on earlier work, such as in part 1, but the focus here will be on identifying specific technical issues associated with safe development in your domain, e.g. the difficulty of quantifying safety requirements in field trials and the best ways to combine simulation and field deployments to gain confidence. So, while you may reuse ideas and material from other assignments (e.g. the synthesis course) to describe the architecture, the novel content of this assignment is specifically aimed at questions of evaluation and validation of your system, and potential open questions in the field that are relevant to safe deployment.

The schedule suggests time for you to work on these outputs, interleaved between lectures. Please bring questions arising from this independent activity to the discussions in class - both to help clarify any doubts in your mind, and to inform your peers.

Marking scheme:

30% Clarity of the question: The core concern in your domain (associated with evaluation and validation methodology) has been clearly identified and articulated. This starts with clearly describing the system architecture, e.g. what robot or autonomous system are we interested in, and how is it architectured at a high level. However, following the objective of this assignment, it is also important to clearly describe the technical issues associated with safe deployment - this should be well forumulated and situated with reference to the recent literature and state of the art methods in the area.

30% Significance and novelty: In most areas of robotics, there is already discussion on these topics in the literature and in the popular media. You should try to add to this with your own original insights (e.g. what is insufficient about evaluation methodologies in the papers you are reading, and what might be unique to your own problem), based on your unique framing of the problems you propose to address.

10% Quality of presentation: Ideas are conveyed clearly and effectively, Q+A reveals useful and original insights  

30% Quality of report: Clear structure and clear writing, coherent connection of the sections, appropriate use and citation of supporting information.