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Course logistics - Astrobiology and the Search for Extraterrestrial Life

Astrobiology and the Search for Extraterrestrial Life is made up of five weeks of study.

Each week is broadly divided into two modules which cover a particular topic. For example, in week 1 the first module is an introduction to astrobiology and life and module two is an introduction to the origin of life. So the whole week is about an introduction to life and the origin of life. In week 2 the first module deals with conditions on the early Earth and evidence for life and the second module is about major events in the evolution of life on the Earth, so week 2 is about the rise of life.

Each module has one to four lectures associated with it. The lectures are available on our course website and the associated powerpoint slides can also be downloaded from the site.

In each module there is a quiz to test your knowledge. This means there are two quizzes per week (one for each module), except for week 1 where there are three quizzes (an extra short one is in that week).

The assessment of the course that leads to the certificate is based on the results of the quizzes. This is how it works:

You get three attempts at each quiz if you require it (you see the result of each attempt at the end of the quiz when you submit it). There is no deduction for trying the quiz twice, but on the third attempt you get 80% of your total mark by default. The score that you get for the quiz is the maximum score of the attempts you made (for example if you attempt it once and get 9, your mark is 9; if you attempt it twice and get 7 and then 8, your mark will be 8. If you try three times, remember that even if you get a perfect score on the third attempt, you only get 80% of the mark on the third attempt, this is to take in to account that you have already seen questions and answers two times already!).

You can complete the quizzes at any time during the week in which they are relevant.

You also get the chance to do the quiz for one week after the end of the week in which it is relevant (so you could do Week 1 quizzes until the end of Week 2), but you get a flat 20% reduction for submitting after one week deadline and then a 5% deduction on your mark for every day after the end of the week in which the quiz is associated. So we'd recommend doing the quiz during the relevant week. You'll also find this a better learning experience as you can focus during each week on the material at hand, rather than trying to handle two week's information at once.

At the end of the course you'll need to get greater than 65% average mark on all your quizzes combined to pass the course. Greater than 85% constitutes a 'distinction'.

The quizzes are a mix of two types of questions: 1) radio buttons in which you select one of the answers on offer; 2) check box questions. In check box questions you may need to select more than one answer on offer and you get a mark deduction for incorrectly checked boxes.

We hope this information is useful.