The course is organised around two elements that alternate throughout the semester:

1. Lectures. The instructor presents the content of the thematic blocks in class. No notes, summaries or support materials prepared by the instructor will be distributed: this is a deliberate decision and forms part of the pedagogical design of the course. Research in the cognitive science of learning consistently shows that the active process of listening, selecting, reformulating and completing information through independent study produces deeper conceptual understanding than the passive reception of ready-made materials. Students are expected to keep their own class notes, supplemented by independent reading of the compulsory texts.
2. Reading seminars and critical prompting workshop. Collective commentary in class on the texts from the compulsory reading list, distributed in advance on the Virtual Campus. The critical prompting and academic writing workshop, held in a dedicated session, provides technical and methodological support for the research article: article structure and templates, citation systems, argument construction and journal selection criteria.

The compulsory reading list is the only material distributed by the instructor. All other documentation and research work is the student's responsibility.

Annotation: within the schedule set by the centre or degree programme, 15 minutes of one class will be reserved for students to evaluate their lecturers and their courses or modules through questionnaires.

Continuous assessment consists of three activities of different types; none exceeds 50% of the final grade, in accordance with Faculty regulations. The rules below are strictly applied and admit no exceptions beyond those provided for in the regulations.

Activity / Type / Weight

Synthesis test / Written test / 40%

Research article / Research work + oral defence / 30%

Readings test / Written test / 30%

Requirements to pass: a final grade of 5.0 or above is required. A minimum of 3.5 must be obtained in each of the three activities in order to calculate the average. If any activity falls below 3.5, the final grade will be capped at 4.5 (fail) until the activity is retaken.

1. Synthesis test (40%). In-person written test at mid-semester covering the content of Blocks 0, I and II. Maximum duration: 1 hour 30 minutes.
2. Research article (30%) Individual writing of a fully academic article on a topic from the course, following the structure of a journal article (abstract, literature review, argumentation, discussion and references). The topic and approach must be agreed in writing with the instructor within the deadlines provided in class; the exact submission processes and formats established must be followed. Prepared with the support of the critical prompting and academic writing workshop (templates, citations, argumentation and journal selection). Mandatory conditions: (i) the complete set of AI threads used must be attached as an annex, with the transparency declaration —without this annex, the article receives a grade of 0; (ii) the article includes a brief individual oral defence. If the student is unable to justify the authorship, sources and decisions in the text, the activity is treated as an irregularity, graded 0 and is not retakeable.
3. Readings test (30%) Written test on the compulsory reading list, which will be published on the Virtual Campus at the start of the course. Assessment criteria: comprehension of the texts, conceptual analysis and ability to draw connections between them. Maximum duration: 1 hour 30 minutes.

Submissions, deadlines and authorship: deadlines published on the Virtual Campus are fixed. A late submission without documentary justification receives a grade of 0. A change of date is only possible for a serious accredited cause, requested at least 7 days in advance (or within 3 working days if the cause is unforeseen). Any irregularity results in a 0 for that assessment activity, which is not retakeable; multiple irregularities result in a final grade of 0 for the course.

Non-assessable: a student will receive a "Non-assessable" grade if they have submitted evidence worth 30% or less of the total. A student who has only submitted the research article (30%) or sat the readings test (30%) will be recorded as Non-assessable; a student who has sat the synthesis test (40%) already exceeds the threshold and will receive a numerical grade.

Resit: two conditions must be met simultaneously: having been assessed on activities worth at least 2/3 of the total grade, and having an average of 3.5 or above. All three activities are retakeable: the synthesis test and the readings test through a single global synthesis exam (maximum duration 2 hours) and the article through resubmission of a revised version with a new oral defence. The resit only allows students to pass failed activities, not to improve already passing grades; the same minimum grades apply.

Single assessment: this course offers the single assessment option. Requesting it constitutes a definitive waiver of continuous assessment and must be submitted within the official deadline. The research article must be submitted in advance within the established deadline; the global exam takes place on a single date, with a maximum total duration of 4 hours.

Evidence / Type / Weight

Global exam (syllabus + readings) / Written exam / 70%

Research article, submitted in advance and defended on the day of the exam / Research work + defence / 30%

Minimum grades, resit, non-assessable and grade review: the same criteria as for continuous assessment apply.

• Publication of results and grade review: results will be published within a maximum of three weeks. The average grade for retakeable activities will be published at least 72 hours before the resit. Scale 0–10 with one decimal place. Grade review will be personal and individual, and will begin at least 24 hours after publication of results.