Methodology

The training activities are divided into three sections: theory classes, problem classes and laboratory practicals, each with its own specific methodology. These activities may be complemented by a series of tutorial sessions to be scheduled by mutual agreement between students and teaching staff.

Theory classes

The lecturer will explain the syllabus content with the support of audiovisual material that will be made available to students on the course Virtual Campus at the beginning of each topic. These expository sessions will constitute the most important part of the theory section. Students are advised to have the material published on the VC in printed form so that they can follow the classes more comfortably, and to complement the syllabus by regularly consulting the recommended books listed in the Bibliography.

Theory classes will mainly take the form of lectures and exercises/microprojects proposed in class, which will be submitted in class or through the VC, following the lecturer's instructions and within the established deadline.

Problem-based learning

The group will be divided into two subgroups, whose lists will be made public at the beginning of the course, and each student will attend the sessions scheduled for their group.

At the beginning of the semester, a dossier of problem statements for the course will be provided through the Virtual Campus. These problems will be solved throughout the sessions. In a limited number of sessions distributed during the semester, the problem-solving teaching staff will explain the experimental and calculation principles required to work on them, outlining the guidelines for their resolution and at the same time teaching part of the subject matter that complements the theory classes.

Problems will be prepared outside class hours in working groups of four to five people, which will remain in place throughout the course. The in-person non-lecture sessions will be devoted to solving problems previously worked on in groups, which will be presented at the board by members of the different working groups. The teaching staff will ensure that all groups have the opportunity to explain their proposed problem-solving approaches publicly during the semester and will occasionally collect the solution sheet for some problems. In addition, new statements will be proposed to be worked on in groups during the same class, and their solution must be submitted at the end of the session. At the end of the course, the members of the working group must also answer a questionnaire through the Virtual Campus in which they assess their own work and that of their group.

Attendance at problem classes is compulsory, except in cases where there is a justified and documented reason.

Laboratory practicals

The group will be subdivided into four subgroups, whose lists will be announced in advance. In order to ensure the proper functioning of the practical sessions, changes between groups will only be accepted when they are clearly justified and have been previously accepted by the practical-session lecturers. As a general rule, no changes will be accepted other than those involving the exchange of one student for another from a different group. Students must attend practical sessions with a lab coat, splash-protection goggles, the practical protocol (available on the Virtual Campus) printed and read beforehand, and a notebook to record observations and the data obtained.

On the days established in the calendar, students enrolled in the Biochemistry laboratory will be called to carry out basic experiments on the determination of properties and the analysis of biomolecules. The practicals, as well as their assessment, will be carried out in groups of two people. After each session, a questionnaire must be submitted with the results of the experiment and the answers to the questions posed.

Attendance at practical sessions is compulsory, except in cases where there is a documented justified reason.

Tutorials

These sessions will always be scheduled at the request of students, through their representatives, or at the proposal of the lecturer, since they are not explicitly scheduled in the teaching calendar. The aim of these sessions, if held, is to resolve doubts, review basic concepts not explained in class, provide guidance on the information sources consulted and hold debates on topics for which autonomous learning has been scheduled or which have been proposed by the lecturers. These sessions will not be lectures and no official syllabus content will be advanced in them; rather, they will be debate and discussion sessions. Their scheduling will be agreed with the class group so that the different sessions are evenly distributed throughout the syllabus.

Material available on the course Virtual Campus

• Teaching guide
• Presentations used by the teaching staff in theory classes
• Problem dossier
• Practical-class protocols
• Documentation for additional self-learning for theory classes (if necessary)
• Calendar of teaching activities (classroom sessions, laboratory classes, tutorials, assessments, submissions, etc.).

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.

Assessment for this course will follow a continuous-assessment format with several types of monitoring: partial written tests with multiple-choice questions and short-answer questions, in-person completion of short online tests, submissions through the Virtual Campus and in class, presentation and in-class submission of problems, and practical sessions. The aim of continuous assessment is to encourage students' continuous effort throughout the syllabus, making it possible to gauge their degree of follow-up, understanding and integration of the subject matter. The following section presents the details of the assessment methodology.

Theory

Individual assessment through:

Two partial tests with multiple-choice questions and short-answer questions. The multiple-choice questions will refer to the part of the syllabus covered in each partial test. The short-answer questions will also refer to that part, although to answer the questions in the second partial test it may be necessary to refer to concepts already acquired. In this way, the short-answer section makes it possible to assess the integration of concepts and to view the course as a single body of knowledge; this section will take a format equivalent to a comprehensive test in the second partial examination, where it will be assigned a greater weight in the mark than in the two previous partial tests.

Each partial examination will count for 25% of the final course mark.

Multiple-choice questions and short-answer questions will account for 75% and 25% of the mark in the first partial examination, respectively, and multiple-choice questions will account for 100% of the mark in the second partial examination.

The written test corresponding to the second partial examination will also propose the resolution of problems previously worked on in class as a complement to the assessment of this type of teaching activity (see the Problems section).

The partial tests are eliminatory; therefore, students who have passed the theory examinations after the second partial examination will have completed their assessment for the course.

No conditions are established for sitting any of the scheduled tests.

The minimum mark for a partial examination to be taken into account is 4.0/10. See the Global assessment and resit process section for an explanation of how the overall course mark is calculated, the minimum marks required to pass the course and the resit process.

Exercises and questions must be submitted only to the lecturer or through the VC. This part will count for 15% in the calculation of the final mark. The average for this mark will only be calculated if all submissions have been completed within the deadline established by the lecturer.

Overall, the theory section will account for 65% of the total assessment: 50% corresponding to the partial examinations and 15% corresponding to the submissions completed during the course.

Problems

Group assessment with an additional individual-assessment component:

Resolution of problems worked on in groups throughout the course and presentation in class, organized so that all groups have the opportunity to solve exercises at the board.

Group resolution of problems proposed in the classroom.

The mark obtained in these two sections, which will initially be the same for all members of the group, may be adjusted if a member does not complete one of the submissions.

Individual examination in which four problems (with subparts), not previously dealt with in class, will be solved. This examination will be held together with the examination corresponding to the second partial test. The minimum mark for considering the problem examination passed is 4.0/10.

The problem section will account for 20% of the total assessment: 5% corresponding to group assessment and 15% corresponding to the test proposed together with the second partial examination.

Practicals

Group assessment:

Presentation of the results obtained during the practical sessions and resolution of the proposed questionnaire. In addition, attitude, the performance of the practicals and behavior in the laboratory will be taken very much into account.

Attendance at laboratory practicals is compulsory. Changes of group will only be accepted exceptionally and always with documentary justification. In the event of justified absence from any of the practical sessions and if there is no option to complete it with a group different from the assigned one, that session will not be considered in the calculation of the practicals mark.

The practicals section will account for 15% of the total assessment.

Global assessment and resit process

The three sections are inseparable, so students must take part in and pass all of them (theory, practicals and problems) in order to pass the subject. The final mark is calculated according to the percentages explained above: the theory section accounts for 65% of the mark overall, the problem section for 20%, and the practical section for the remaining 15%.

The course will be considered passed when all three of the following conditions are met:

• A minimum mark of 4.0 must be obtained in any of the individual examinations in order to average it with the other marks.
• A minimum of 5 must be achieved in the average of the two partial theory assessment tests in order to average this mark with the other marks (problems and practicals).
• A minimum mark of 5/10 must be achieved from the sum of the marks for the theory, problem and practical sections.

Students who do not meet these conditions will be called to a resit test, which will be scheduled after the second partial examination. To be eligible for the resit test, students must have been previously assessed in a set of activities whose weight is equivalent to at least two-thirds of the total course mark.

The resit test will contain multiple-choice questions corresponding to the course partial tests and a written test of short-answer questions covering the entire course. Students who sit it must answer the multiple-choice questions for at least those partial examinations in which they did not achieve 4.0/10, as well as the short-answer section. They may, however, choose to answer questions from other parts of the examination, in which case they will be considered to have waived the previous mark. This test will also include an optional problem, the mark for which will replace the mark obtained in the second partial examination.

For the partial examinations that do not have to be retaken, the mark from the multiple-choice section obtained in the first instance will be used. In order to calculate the course mark and therefore to pass it, the overall theory mark after the resit examination must be equal to or higher than 4. Otherwise, a mark below 5 or a "Not assessable" will not allow the final mark to be calculated and, consequently, will appear in the academic record of students who have failed. If the course is not passed, marks will not be saved for the following academic year. At the student's request, only the mark corresponding to the laboratory practicals may be kept.

The resit test will also be open to students who decide to improve their mark, which will mean that they waive their previous mark and that the same remaining conditions applied to students required to take the resit will apply to them. Students who wish to sit the examination to improve their mark must inform the teaching staff in advance.

Other considerations

The dates of the partial assessments and the resit established in the calendar may not be modified under any circumstances.

Students who are unable to attend an individual assessment test for a justified reason (such as illness, the death of a first-degree relative or an accident) and who provide the corresponding official documentation to the Degree Coordination and to the theory teaching staff will have the right to take the test on another date.

From the second enrolment in the course onwards, repeating students will not have to complete the teaching activities or assessments for the competences they have already passed. In this case, these consist of group work on cases/problems, practicals, submission of assignments through the VC and in-person online tests. The competences in the various sections will be considered passed if 50% or more of the corresponding mark is achieved.

Important:

If plagiarism is detected in any submitted work, it will receive a mark of zero and students may fail the entire module.

In this course, the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies is not permitted at any stage. Any work that includes AI-generated fragments will be considered a breach of academic honesty and may result in a partial or total penalty in the mark for the activity, or more serious sanctions in severe cases.

Any irregularity in an assessment activity (academic fraud, plagiarism or misuse of AI, unless such use is expressly authorized in the teaching guide) that may lead to a significant change in the mark means that this activity will be marked with a 0. If the teaching guide stipulates that, in order to pass the course, it is essential to have obtained a minimum mark in that assessment activity, or if several irregularities occur in assessment activities within the same course, the final mark for this course will be 0. In addition, disciplinary proceedings may be initiated against any student who commits any of these irregularities.

Single assessment

Students who opt for single assessment must complete the laboratory practicals (PLAB), with compulsory attendance at the in-person sessions, and must pass them; these will account for 15%.

Single assessment consists of one synthesis test with multiple-choice questions and short-answer questions to be developed on all the contents of the theory and problem syllabus. Likewise, on the day of the test, students must submit the problems proposed in the classroom, which will account for 5% of the mark.

The mark obtained in the synthesis test represents 80% of the final course mark; the mark obtained in the practicals represents 15%, and the submission of classroom problems represents 5%.

The single-assessment test will be held on the same date established in the calendar for the second continuous-assessment test, and the same resit system as for continuous assessment will be applied.

To pass the course, a minimum final mark of 5 out of 10 must be obtained in the synthesis test in order to average it with the marks for practicals and problem submissions.