Student Obligations & Requirements

Student Obligations to Employer

Students recognise their obligation to their employer to observe all the requirements set down by the company for their employees. This includes the hours of work, breaks, working on tasks as directed and to submit progress reports on his or her work as required.

Any work done by students during placement is subject to the normal arrangements regarding intellectual property as they apply to employees of the company.

Course Requirements During Placement Period

During the placement period students are required to achieve the learning outcomes specified for the industrial placement and in addition must complete the requirements of the distance education subjects in which they are enrolled. The rationale for the distance education is to instil an ethic of life-long learning and to condition students for continuing study during their professional working lives.

An additional requirement of the industrial placement is the completion of a detailed report at the end of the industrial experience. This report is assessed by the Faculty. The report is to be completed with the full knowledge and approval of the employer (which is indicated by the signature of the industrial supervisor). Where the student is working in an area involving information that the organisation regards as sensitive the Co-op Director will provide, on request, a written assurance that any such information included in the report will be treated with the strictest confidence.

Work Capability of Co-op Students

Students are expected to carry out a useful specialised activity for the employer. For example, it can be office, field or laboratory work, design, measurement, quality assurance or testing.

Students in their first placement period already have skills in computing, mathematics, laboratory methods of measurement and report writing, as well as a technical background in their chosen field.

Students in the second Co-op placement are more mature and have a greater knowledge base as a result of their continued studies. They can be expected to be "results oriented" and can be given problem solving tasks and be assigned individual projects. They have already worked with one Coop employer, and this usually means they are well aware of work practices and expectations.

An organisation may have a project that can be progressed by more than one student working in successive placements. In this way a project that requires more than six months to complete can be handed over to another student to take to a further stage. In this instance, employers should note that students in successive six month employment periods are likely to be from a different stage of the degree program.