The course of Microbial Ecology consists of two modules, which have been programmed in an integrated way so that the student will have to relate throughout the course the content and activities scheduled to achieve the skills indicated in this guide.

The two modules are:

Theoretical lectures. Within this module, master or expository lectures represent the main activity to be carried out in the classroom and allow basic concepts to be transmitted to a large number of students in a relatively short time. They will be complemented with Power Point presentations and diverse didactic material that will be delivered to the students at the beginning of the course.

Laboratory practices. This subject will be taught in small groups with a maximum of 24 students per laboratory session. Each student is assigned to a group of practices and can not change groups without the permission of the teacher responsiblefor the subject.

Attendance at all practices is mandatory and it is necessary to be very punctual. Once the teacher has begun the explanation of the practice, students will not be allowed to enter in the classroom. If a student, with a justified cause, has not been able to attend a practice session, he/she will have to contact the teacher responsible for the subject and present the corresponding proof. In this case he/she will be assigned a new day to do the practice. If the practice has already been done and the student can not retake it, it will not be considered as a lack of attendance.

At the beginning of the course the student will receive a Handbook with the practices work to be developed during the course. The objectives of these activities are: a) facilitate the understanding of the knowledge presented in the theoretical lectures, b) acquire manual skills, c) interpret results, and d) integrate theoretical and practice knowledge.

It is mandatory to wear a labcoat in all practices sessions that take place in the laboratory and also the use of protection glasses in those sessions indicated by the teacher. In addition, each student will have to bring the corresponding Practices Handbook and a notebook to record the results of the work.

Additional Information:

In order to support the above mentioned training activities, individual tutorials can be carried out at the request of the students by the teachers Olga Sánchez (C3-335) and Maira Martínez-Alonso (C3-329).

Students will have at the Moodle space all the documentation delivered by the teachers for the good monitoring of the course. He/she will also be able to consult the teaching space of the Degree Coordination to obtain updated information.

In these practical activities the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is permitted but in a restricted manner. Therefore, for this subject, the use of AI technologies is allowed exclusively in support tasks, such as bibliographic or information searches, text correction or translations. The student must clearly identify which parts have been generated with this technology, specify the tools used and include a critical reflection on how these have influenced the process and the final result of the activity. The absence of transparency in the use of AI in this assessable activity will be considered a lack of academic honesty and may lead to a partial or total penalty in the grade of the activity, or greater sanctions in serious cases.

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.

The evaluation of the course will be individual and continuous through the following tests:

Assessment of the theoretical lectures module (65% of the overall mark): During the course two written exams of this module will be scheduled, which are eliminatory. Each test will have a weight of 50% of the mark of the module and it will be necessary to obtain a score equal to or superior to 5 to average them. Each test will consist of multiple choice questions, which will allow for assessment of a large part of the contents, and/or short answer questions aimed at assessing whether the key conceptual objectives have been achieved.

Assessment of the laboratory work module (20% of the overall grade): The evaluation will include a written test with multiple choice questions and problems (20%), an oral presentation of the practical results (5%), and the individual daily monitoring of the practical skills acquired by the students (10%).

Final considerations:

To pass the course the student must obtain a score of 5 or higher in each module. Students who do not pass any of the two modules will have to retake them in a second-chance exam on the scheduled date for the final evaluation of the subject, where the whole theory and/or laboratory work content will be included. Practical skills can not be retaken.

To be eligible for the retake process, the student should have been previously evaluated in a set of activities equaling at least two-thirds of the final score of the course. Thus, the student will be graded as Non-evaluable if the weighing of all conducted evaluation activities is less than 67% of the final score.

The presentation of the student to raise the mark involves the renunciation to that obtained with the partial exams and he/she will have to perform the re-assessment of all contents of the course on the day scheduled for that purpose.

From the second registration, those students repeating the course will not have to carry out the teaching activities, nor the assessment of those skills passed in the laboratory work module. That is, the mark obtained in the lab work module will be saved, as long as it has been passed.

Any irregularity in an assessment act (academic fraud, plagiarism or improper use of AI, unless this use is expressly authorized in the teaching guide), which may lead to a significant variation in the grade, means that this act will be graded with a 0. In the event that the teaching guide provides that in order to pass the subject it is an essential requirement to have obtained a minimum grade in this assessment act or that several irregularities occur in the assessment acts of the same subject, the final grade for this subject is 0. Apart from this, a disciplinary process may be initiated against the student who incurs any of these irregularities.

Single evaluation

This subject considers the single assessment system that consists of a single summary test in which the contents of the entire theory program of the subject will be assessed. The test will consist of short-answer questions aimed at assessing whether the key conceptual objectives of the subject have been achieved, as well as multiple-choice and/or true/false test-type questions, which will allow a large part of the content to be assessed. The grade obtained in this synthesis test will account for 65% of the final grade for the subject and must be equal to or greater than 5 to average with the laboratory work module. The single assessment will be done on the same day as the subject's assessment 2.

The evaluation of the laboratory work module will follow the same process as the continuous evaluation. The grade obtained will account for 35% of the final grade of the subject. The laboratory work module is compulsory for all sessions. It is required to have passed the laboratory work module (grade of 5 or higher) in order to pass the subject.