 I think I'm gonna get started because we don't have a huge amount of time and we've got a slightly lengthy presentation to get through before we then open the floor to you guys because this is, you know, a lot of this is to tell you what we're offering but also then to hear about, you know, your thoughts about that and the questions that you have. What we're gonna discuss today and who is going to discuss it to you. My name is Andy Neucham. I am the convener of the Climate Change and Development MSC program but we have other variants of it as well, PG certain, PG climate but I'm guessing most of you are interested in the MSC. So I work here at Southam, the Centre for Development, Environment and Policy. One of the main areas that I've worked on is climate change adaptation in the context of Southern Africa and also Latin America. So I'm, yeah I guess I've got some long-standing research interest in this area and we've been really excited to try and get this new program launched for some time now so it's really exciting for us to see what's going to happen in October. So what we'll discuss today is first I'll take you a little bit through SOAS itself and why SOAS is a great place to study. Then holding on study via distance learning, you know how this fits, how this program fits with our current offering. Climate change department, why would you study it? So we aim some of the skill sets you get from studying it. The program structures, the study options, the modules and dissertation study, the entry requirements, fees and funding and finally key dates. So that's what we're hoping to cover in the next sort of well hopefully 10-15 minutes at the most. So firstly just something about SOAS itself and what makes SOAS special? Why is SOAS a particular place that you would apply for? And one of the biggest reasons is just our regional expertise in parts of the world where there are really important changes that are happening right now and that students very competitive in the workplace. So there's something about the focus that we have on Asia, on Africa and on the Middle East for example that means that you can pick up a lot of knowledge which is really very politically relevant right now and this is reflected in a lot of the spread of what we do in our distance learning at work as well. We have the largest concentration in Europe of academic staff concerned with Africa, Asia and the Middle East. We have very highly and consistently rated teaching experience from our students. We are the largest provider of the graduate programs to the University of London international programs. We're very enthusiastic. We have a and we have very enthusiastic diverse dedicated students and we have this national research library which is really great to have access to from many particular points of view. So we actually do quite a lot of distance learning teaching here as well. As far as it's probably better known for its programs up there, there are about 3,800 online and distance learning students with us worldwide. We've got 25, well more now, years of teaching experience with distance learning covering 170 countries, so that's where our intake is from. We have 19 master's degrees. We've got lots of short courses and modules. We've got an increasing number of MOOCs happening as well. So there's a huge amount happening in terms of distance learning and online learning at SOAS and it's only going to grow in the future. So there's only going to be more and more stuff that's also happening online in terms of what is already happening on campus. So I'll give you some sense of the amount of people that we have here because we're not a university which offers programs across the range of disciplines because we specialize in particular areas and within that particular disciplines. We're not the biggest of universities but we have this massive concentration of 9,300 students who are interested in those regions and as I say 3,800 are online and distance learning. So it's not quite as big as our on-campus but it's a pretty important part of what we do. So it's not just kind of like an add-on in a way that I don't want to be unkind to some of the universities who are starting to get into distance learning but it's something that has a bit of an attractive effect here and is a really important part of what we do. It's not just as I say an add-on. So coming around to online distance learning and particularly what we do here in the Centre for Development, Environment and Policy, we have a lot of master's programs that we offer from agricultural economics through to environmental economics, environmental management, poverty reduction, sustainable development and now we have climate change and development as well. So that's really what I want to sort of hone in on in the rest of the talk and I want to look at the question of why would you study climate change and development first of all? So as I'm sure you all know climate change is perhaps the most visible environmental problem in the Anthropocene and that is the sort of period of time increasingly seen as a geological era of time where human activity is the main signal if you like in the geological record of the day and is the main driver of environment. We do set of drivers of global environmental change and climate change is yeah it's the biggest of if you like of those changes that we are affecting in the global environment and because of that professionals working in one environment and development need to understand the implications of climate change for development trajectories. You know in the words of knowing the climate this changes everything. Climate change poses a fundamental sort of problem for capitalism itself but does it and that's where a lot of the debate lies and that's where a lot of the questions lie in terms of thinking well what are the implications of climate change for development and what would development have to look like in the kinds of changing climates that we may be exposed to in coming years. We also need to find a better balance between the energy development policy and emissions next and there's a lot of work going on within SEDEP and actually in other parts of SAS as well on climate and energy which of course is huge both for development and for climate change. From the development perspective we have you know 1.3 billion people living without access to energy we have a further 2.7 billion I think it is whose main access to energy is actually biomass which they burn and we also have energy as and the burning of fossil fuels is the main reason why we are changing the climate so if we're going to provide energy at what cost does that come and how can we do it differently again this is one of the biggest questions for for development in the context of climate change. So climate change and the process of changing development is at the heart of the sustainable development goals it's a huge focus for international organizations like the UN and national governments but it's also increasingly something that the private sector is becoming interested in so it's kind of an issue of our time it's really important in its own terms of you know intellectually speaking but also in terms of you know somewhere that you might try and get a job from because you have a expertise in this area it's a really quite handy thing to know a very handy thing to put on your CV and I wouldn't have gotten a job that I've got now for example without my expertise in climate change so there's a big sort of intellectual area there but there's also a strategic to it okay and what are the aims of the program so what in terms of what we're hoping our students will will get from it is around offering critical insight into how current development models produce environmental problems like but not limited to climate change which themselves then threaten the objectives of development think of the you know the planes that have been unable to take off in recent years in heat waves in particular parts of North America because the tarmac on the runways has melted you know and that being it linked to the anthropogenic forms of climate change and how our own effects on the climate are actually already threatening some of our fundamental modes of economic activity which it's looking at that sort of relationship and really having a critical perspective on it which is really what will give you an advantage if you know in the job markets and or even for areas of further study and that of course is the focus of the masters we want to pose the question that means you can change the plans to confront problems of climate do we need reform or revolution is maybe at the heart of that agenda and there's lots of our modules that speak to that question in a variety of different ways so we want to help students to develop analytical skills to solve adaptation problems and to be able to identify low carbon development options these being some of the key areas of work in relation to the climate change and development question we want to contribute to producing the next generation of environment development professionals which are working on climate policy and practice and of course we're always interested in providing the most academically gifted of students with a route into PhD studies on climate change and development which of course is a field which is pretty well established now and continuing to grow so we hope you've come up with this of this degree with a bunch of new skill sets as well if you're doing the MSc then and I'm guessing that most of you are interested in that as opposed to our diploma and postgraduate certificate options and we would think that you would be coming out with what you would be coming out with research design project management analytical and writing skills because of the research that you learn more about what is the research process and you acquire methodological expertise that would help you identify a question a research question and then see how you might answer and what methods you might use to do that we'd want you to come out with capacity for reflective independent learning for communication of complex ideas for intercultural awareness and sensitivity flexibility and ability to manage complexity your online networking skills you're already doing it and ability to analyze and identify the relevance of knowledge acquired through study to your world change development problems so there's a lot of stuff here which is not necessarily even about climate change which is going to be useful in a wide variety of different contexts albeit that we know intellectually we're going to be focusing that around climate and development issues okay so let's get down to sort of brass tacks and some of the questions about how it works as I've mentioned we have these different levels of study we have the postgraduate certificate which if you were just after one of those say you were in a job where you had to show that you had learned a particular set of skills and a particular you know sort of expertise if you like you might want to go for this and then you could gain promotion within your organization or you need for a particular job that you're going for and you could take two modules and be finished with that in a year on the basis of part-time study postgraduate diploma is all of the minus of this patient and with the the msc comes the research component and that's what makes the difference so you could spend almost as long on a postgraduate diploma as you would on an msc the difference being as I say primarily in terms of dissertation so in terms of time that it would take you to do this it can be anywhere between one to five years in terms of you know going for postgraduate msc well you wouldn't do an msc in just one year but the minimum you can do it in is two years and that's really what we're hoping a lot of our students will do in two or three years there is a five-year term that you are given to complete your studies but the best way really is to crack on and get it out of the way and move on and keep up the momentum from one module two to the next and we're hoping that the study sort of muddle throughout the year that we're moving to will help you to do that and I'll come I'll come back to what that looks like in terms of how we divide up the year and the time within the year itself but let me say something first about the the modules so the core module that everybody will have to take is climate change and development and then we have a sort of list a and list b set up where you can choose from some of we can choose from it from the options that that are here that we have right now and so you will choose one or two from from from list a and then you can choose your let me see I think it's yeah you have to choose two from list a and then you can choose a further one from from list b so that then gives you a real focus on one particular element of climate change and development but it also allows you to look a bit more broadly to issues which intersect across both development and climate considerations such as gender and social inequality for example the political economy of public policy it's a range of our modules which overlap very well with some of the underlying issues which you have to understand if you want to you know get a handle on why we've got climate change and what we're going to do about it so that's the the range of modules that we're offering for this msc and just to clarify if you're doing the msc you'd have to take one core module three elective modules and one dissertation for the postgraduate diploma you'd take one core module three elective modules and for the PG cert you take one core module and one electric module from from list a basically so that's how it breaks down in terms of the the the options that you have to study and the structure of which ones you have to pick okay so um the study sessions structure itself is two weeks uh sorry it's two terms both of which are 16 weeks long time one starting in october and turn two in april uh that's going to be our our yearly sort of setup and between that you'll have these eight week breaks which you know they're they're sort of downtime but they're also if you're doing the msc um partly uh to give you some time to free up some time for dedicated uh dissertation study and we will study one module per session over that 16 week period so this is what it looks like in terms of the the scope of the year so if you look at subject module one there in the top right sort of uh quadrant of the of of this circular diagram that's our term one um so say if you were starting this year you'd be doing climate change and development core module then and then you'd be getting a bit of an introduction to dissertation study there is a MOOC that we uh offer here at SOAS which covers the basics it's like a sort of research 101 kind of uh how would i come up with a research question what are the ways in which i might be able to answer that research question just to get your head around what it is that you were being you would be asked to do as part of a dissertation and of course you can also start to do this anytime you want um during the first um you know the first sort of study session but that's the time when it's dedicated for for dissertation study so then um in um that would run from basically your your first subject uh study session would run from october till february and then you would start work again in your in your second one in april and that would work that would um uh run through then um until um i think it's gosh i forget my head around this new model myself but i think it's i think it runs through then to june or july so it's it's um it's another 16 week session and uh followed again by dissertation study in which you would then start to look more seriously at research methods training so by this time you hopefully have some idea of what you want to do what is your question what is the gap you'd like to contribute to in terms of our you know the gap in our knowledge and the research method is really helping you figure out how you would do that how would you be able to um robustly um address or contribute to the answering of of a question and you've learned some of the research training there with an idea to developing a much um more specific plan of what your dissertation would be about which is your assessed problem result so you then move on in uh your second year and again this is presuming that you choose to do all of this in in two years and this is what a lot of our students we anticipate will do and what a lot of the students who study on this particular model here at SOAS um you know the 10th definition in in two years so you then go on and do your um your other two years in the third study session in February and then the fourth study session starting in in April and in between those two periods you would actually be embarked upon your dissertation research and then be looking to write it up so that's that's the idea of of how it's going to work over over two years I mean you can defer you do have the option to do that if um if for example you know work is a little busy and it's it's a bit too much to get it in within two years then there is the option to take more time to do that but in the down periods of time you know uh of eight weeks between these two large 16-week uh sort of study periods uh hopefully also there's you know there's there's time to be um keeping up to date on your on your day-to-day stuff um and within the 16 weeks as well there is you know there are you have to sort of um you have to get through particular tasks at particular times um but of course because it's staged over the 16 weeks you work you know you'll have to find a fit especially every 15 hours per week say and um that is uh that that's something then that you know you can see how you might fit it into a broader sort of timetable or to to other commitments that you have so hopefully that gives you some sense of how it would work for you in terms of fitting what you're already doing um in terms of module study um I wanted to take you through a little bit what what it would be if you expected to do we've started to spell this out but you have um the modules broken down into 15 units to be studied each week in the study will consist of reading the study guide itself which is like a a guide to a particular area um you know climate change and development or energy and development or the political economy of public policy or whatever it happens to be and as I say you know 15 to 20 hours of study a week will will get you through what you what you need to do now we have one times uh one written assignment for every module um which is between 40 to 50 percent of the module mark it depends on the module that you're doing and the written exam which may likewise be 40 or 50 percent of the the module mark there's also an elements of online participation which is 10 to 20 percent of the module mark there are particular discussions or particular tasks and activities that you have to do um you'll pick up your your your marks there basically and mainly for some that it's about learning how to use an online library it may be for others that you are having a particular exercise where you review an article and you say what that article is about and you offer some kind of critical commentary on it for example so those are the kinds of activities that you will be doing um throughout the the module itself and as I say this will be all supplemented by specifically written course guides with textbooks and readings as well you have a dedicated tutor and discussion forum for each module you get access to two sets of libraries the one at Southast and the one at the University of London and of course plenty excuse me of opportunities to network with other students within the context of the module itself and through the online platform okay so we've talked a lot about the dissertation because it's a very important component of the um of the msc itself and as I've explained it's broken down into four sessions and it can involve desk based and uh or field based research depending on what your question is and how you propose to go about answering it you don't need to go to the field but that's something that that is an option for you if you'd like to do it and as I've mainly gone through most of this stuff about you know you're trying to figure out what doing original research entails in year one and in year two you're doing it and writing it up and during that process you will write your assessment your assessed proposal which is 20 percent of the mark that's the detailed plan that I was referring to previously that you put in roughly at the end of the first year and then you've got your 10 000 word dissertation that's about 80 percent of the mark itself and again we've got lots of guidelines and lots of support there's a dissertation convener and there's a supervisor that you are assigned who will take you through the process sort of step by step and give you one-to-one guidance on on the writing of of the dissertation okay so um let's talk a little bit about entry requirements then what we're looking for for the msc is for you to have a good first degree in an appropriate subject area as accepted by the University of London now there is a little bit of leeway here I've got some really interesting people applying at the moment and they've clearly done some extra curricular study of their own to find out and become interested in climate change and development even though their undergraduate degrees can be in in stuff that's quite different and if you can make a case and presumably you've got good grades as well that definitely helps if you can make the case that actually you have an interest in this and you've got relevant work experience for example then even if you've studied something quite different and undergraduate you know something that's not either say hard environmental sciences or you know social sciences related to to this science it might be human geography even it might be anthropology it might be economics um then if you haven't got one of those and you can still make a case as long as your case is compelling we will definitely consider it and it will come to me as the convener and um I will be as open minded as as as I can about about seeing if we can get you on if if if the case is made so if you're going for the postgraduate diploma um a degree uh or a technical or professional qualification and experience considered appropriate and relevant by the University is the criteria that we by the criteria that we use and then for postgraduate certificates um we have sort of similar entry requirements for those for the postgraduate diploma so there may be scope for picking up some kind of qualification in climate change even if you haven't got a full undergraduate as long as you have some kind of experience to supplement that with or if you have a degree or other professional qualification then we can very happily take that into account okay um so much for 15 minutes but I'm almost at the end now um climate change and development fees if you want to do the whole msc it's 9500 pounds it's cheaper for a postgraduate diploma because you don't do a visitation and for the postgraduate certificate it's 3800 pounds so you make one payment of 1900 pounds for each module that you enroll on and msc students will make two additional payments of 950 pounds for the visitation so that's that's how the price works and as I say every time you sign up to module that's when you pay for it so it's kind of pay it yeah as you learn as it says in this slide um there are various sources of funding this you UK postgraduate loans are available for those uh if you're if you're eligible keep it a resident in England for three years there's more information there there's um scholarships from SOAS there is employer sponsorship um you could have a look at the research councils overall for everyone there is a book which um I should have put in this slide actually which is called the grants register I'm just going to write that as a comment um so that you've got it there and you can get it it's just something you can search online it used to just be a book you had to go to the library to read it will be in big British libraries it will be in the the British library itself for example but it you know it'll be in the kind of town hall and city libraries if you live in the UK if you don't there will be the British council they I think they should have access to the book if they don't there may be other institutions universities for example your country that may have access but the grants register basically um shows what funding is available for what kinds of study in the UK according to who you are whether you are a British person whether you are international student whether you are from particular regions whether you have particular expertise in specific areas and you can search it in in every which way and it's the best most comprehensive um way to figure out all of your funding options so that's something to to think about now um key dates then I think this is our final our next our nearly final slide um it's a final substantive one anyway um so if you are looking to get uh your um application in and get studying for um uh with us um in October at the start date which is the 17th of October we need to have your application and you're supporting documents by the 13th of September at the latest we are already receiving applications and I've been processing some of them um but we can still take them up to the 13th of September after that it may become administratively difficult to to to uh to ensure that we can take on further um students so for this first study session two looking like it'll be the 13th of March 2018 this will be the latest that you can apply if you want to start um in April so the enrollment deadline um will be that that's for enrolling on your modules um will be the 3rd of October 2017 and um we're thinking it'll be the 3rd of April 2018 for um for those of you thinking about starting next year so yes and just to repeat those starting dates then you can start in the 17th of October this year or on the 17th of April 2018 so that's pretty much everything from my side um now um the idea is to use the rest of the time as a Q and A session so um we can take um questions either in the chat box itself or we can do it uh if you'd like to speak into the into the microphone um you can open your microphone or you have to switch it on before you can actually speak um and it's uh a little bottom which looks like a microphone it's got a sort of a line through at the moment but if you if you have it off anyway but if you click on it then it will go green and you should like Adam one of our um uh one of our participants here um he's already been able to do that and the rest of you should be too there's another little icon to the right of that which uh has got a little person with their arm up I think that's to you can put your hand up to raise a question if you want and you can also write stuff in the chat box and um Beth is going to help me here by copying and pasting questions from the chat box into a little spreadsheet that I can see so that I can hopefully um get you some some answers basically so we've got some questions already but I think I would like to start with um questions from people who are actually here so um who would like to ask a question well I could start um will are there are there like any well it's an online course but are there any like physical meetings at any point right so um there can be it depends on if you live in the UK it's very easy to do because we are all physically here I mean I say that we all commute into London but we can very easily meet in London you can go to the library for example and you know you can meet the academics you run the courses the tutors don't necessarily all live in London and it might be more difficult to do you can always write to someone and try and have a Skype chat with them but of course you're talking about physical meetings um the other the other place where where you can do that is at your graduation where we we often meet up with our students then and that's actually sometimes the first time I thought it was actually meeting it you know obviously because if you're you know living in Indonesia or something and you're studying with us it's quite difficult to to to get across but if you're in the UK and you want to meet up then send an email to the relevant academic and you know we can make the effort to be available and to ensure that we're in on the same day and you know that's I guess that's how how it works in terms of uh the prospects for actually meeting meeting up okay so there's a question about exams and are they done online there um uh so I'm just picking it up as it is that is let me just bring it down a little more we do at the moment the exams will continue to be in an actual exam hall the University of London has a worldwide sort of network of exam halls that that our students go to and you physically go there to sit the exam and at some point in the future there is a you know we're looking into the prospects for for online um and but you know we have to be able we have to be sure that there that the scope for fraud is is dealt with by the software and you know with people being at a distance anyway one of the good things about exams is you have to physically turn off and read your identity so for us from that perspective that they're a they're a good choice but we are looking into the software and when the software becomes compelling enough we will be very keen to adopt it will the exams be at the end of each section or module yes they will be a few weeks after each each module apart from in the first year we'll only have one exam sitting because the University of London can't organize two for the for the first year but then thereafter you'll have two chances to take your exams um so how many students do we expect to take on this year well um gosh there's quite a lot of questions um I guess it depends and we're hoping to get somewhere in the region of I guess 30 to 60 students um we'll see you know sort of what the what the interest is and certainly next year we've we've had a lot of hoops to jump through which has meant that we've come to market with this course much later than we would have wanted to so um it depends but we've got about 115 expressions of interest right now and it depends on how many of those sort of um convert next year we'll be hoping I guess to double the amount of people that we've we've got um and you'd be joining an already vibrant sort of student body so how would you be able to grade online participation if time zones are repeatedly an issue well what you do is you don't have it where everyone tries to meet up like this you have what's called asynchronous sort of assessment which is where you have an online discussion forum you have a question set and say you have one or two weeks to deal with it and um so everybody deals with it in their own time but by the end of that time you have to have written something and then you'll give a mark on that and you know you have a an essay deadline for example or you know we call them exam assignments because they can be not just essays but they can also be powerpoint presentations and other formats um where you'll you'll be told one in advance and we have discussions about how to do them okay so you mentioned further phd study are you planning to introduce one in the future so um not an online phd we don't have a plan at the moment to to to do online phd study i'm not entirely sure why that is um but at the moment it's you have to sort of come and live here to do to do your phd with us maybe that will change in the future but i'm not sure what the status of that as if i'm honest you would be able to get access online to journals through salas library yes and then another question here from from margarita would be would you consider doing at least one conjoint webinar session per module to make the course more interactive so um for all of our modules we have webinars um schedule rules um they sometimes about this subject matter they're often about the examined assignment you'll do or they're about exam prep or they're about meeting up and networking um so for all of our modules that will be something that we do um rob louis is interested in environmental impact assessments how specific to the modules get um so in the modules that we that we have i'm just going to look at my other computers so i can see the list of uh of modules that we're offering um we have something on environmental impact assessment in our current um environmental management um uh degree program and they're at the the coverage of that is expanding i'm just as i say let me just see if i can bring up the list on another screen uh of the ones that we are offering this year so yeah but i mean the modules uh they are to a master's level it's 300 hours of study per per module you read a big study guide and then you read um key readings as well so there's a there's a fair amount of specificity but it depends on them on the module and of course there's always a a balance to be struck between introducing um particular topics and between um between going into them there are always key readings but there are then further readings that you can you can go into uh so there's a there's sort of a chance to get specific as you like in a way okay oh something we are hoping to our distance i think she's in five years hurrah that's good news um in the climate change adaptation module you'll be providing guidance on managing water resources will this also cover disastrous reduction yes there is coverage of disastrous reduction in climate change adaptation there's also coverage of it in the climate change and development module i should know because i'm really writing some of that coverage now for the module that'll go by when hopefully when some of you guys come and study it with us uh in october okay um i um oh here we go another question currently living in Bangladesh internet is good we are looking to move to malawi where it's slow will this be an issue so where it might be an issue is for the webinars um these are always optional and and they're not um summative that is to say um there's no marks attached to going to them and they tend to be about practical things how do i do this exam how do i do my exam and assignment how do i you know can we all meet up and introduce ourselves and have a discussion sometimes they're about the substance of the module but frequently not so that's where you may struggle but for everything else you wouldn't because it is something you'll have two weeks to do so as long as you have two weeks rub in which you can get online at the relevant points in at those times then you should be able to do um any any assignments that that that you need to be basically and and to post any comments that you may have um so it still works even for areas of the world where bandwidth is not great is there a way to audit or try out a module before making a final selection my adder so um yes there is um we have um i'm not sure actually i might like a bit of input here from from uh from beth because i know that we have prepared some um stuff to give you guys one of the units from the new climate change and development module in the new format that we're trying it out in but beth will be able to answer that question um referring to a lecture title module by understand these will be about practical issues correct in reference to the webinars yes that's correct okay gen great to meet you sorry oh yes she's gone okay never mind um and um sorry am i keeping up here uh yeah okay would the course be useful and informative jasmine to his question um if already working with an international development agency on water and climate change yes it would because we're going to have a water climate change uh element in in our new climate change and development module but we're also going to have a water management module and i'm guessing that whatever you know about it now would be expanded through doing that particular module um and here is the link to the um sample of the climate change and development module right i don't think i've missed any questions have i just put up your hand or repeat the question if i have yeah can i ask another question adam yes you can i prefer talking to writing do you have any physical master programs in this yes uh like in environmental uh or climate change and development on and so is sorry i don't think i quite got your question there what was that yeah i was wondering um why you've chosen to do this course online or if you also have like courses at the university uh of the of london in the climate change and development development or studies right so we um why have we chosen to do this online um there are existing um on-campus climate change and development master's programs and um i get i guess that one of the calculations was that there was um greater opportunity in the distance learning sector because there are master's programs you can do but there's nothing quite like this and we also um you know the the idea that it started in a part of so us in my department the center for development environment and policy which is already uh focused wholly on um online distance learning basically so i guess um those are the main reasons why we're doing it um as a distance learning offering we don't have a climate change and as i said development master's program that's how us but we have three people there's a master's program and environment politics and development which does some elements of climate change in fact i'm going to be convening that from uh not too long from now and i'm going to be beating up the climate change um coverage of that but it won't become a master's in climate change and development does that answer your question Evan yeah yeah i think it does um but how come i'll just continue my question like how does the like the oh wait i'll i'll write the question instead sure no problem doesn't seem to be any other questions like how do you get to know the other students because that's quite a big part of being a student like getting to know other students and networking and yeah it seems like a little bit yeah it's strange not meeting with people that you're interacting with yeah i mean of course you do distance learning is it's very different from that perspective you can't just go into the you know sort of the the refectory or whatever the main student building and hang out with your peers in that way but there are lots of um ways to do that online these days and we have our we have our virtual learning environment which is where a lot of the interaction can go on what happened is that for every module you have a you have a discussion forum where you know discussions related to the to the module materials and assignments can be started where students can start their own interactions where the tutor will post questions and discussions and post you know bits of useful information um so there are if you like there are there are you know opportunities for interaction built in in that way and for each module you will have your chance to you need to introduce yourself both on the discussion forum itself and through the the first webinar that tends to be about people just meeting up from there there are also lots of surprising things that our students do and that happen in relation to particular modules so we have a module at the moment called NGO management and there's actually a LinkedIn group linked to that because there's a bunch of people who already work for NGOs who take that module and they they sometimes communicate through the LinkedIn group and sometimes we just do it through through the forum itself sometimes there are study groups that students set up for themselves to you know to share their thoughts on particular materials in addition to the structured discussions relating to the learning objectives of each module yeah okay uh yes and questions about having missed the presentation no problem okay um so we still have um quite a few people here um are there any other questions yes there are some other questions coming on what from margarita for example do you recommend any advanced reading list prior to october so somebody else asked about this um and i think we need to have a sort of a that's something that we would send out um once you've uh you know we've got your application but i can i can put in some suggestions uh i'll put them into the chat box and one of them is um the uh textbook for climate change and development module uh which is also called climate climate change and development and that's by um tom tanner and leo horn like always trying to send uh pan for night i think it is i'm just going to check online yeah okay so it's tom tanner and horn pathetic that's one coming up in the chat box there um it depends on the perspective that you want to start with so i work a lot for example on climate change and agriculture and sometimes from a political ecology perspective um which is a varied and broad field and not one that can easily be defined in in just one way but i guess it's the ways in which um social political economic phenomena um play into issues of environmental degradation whether you want to see that from a political economy perspective whether you want to do some of the sort of i guess the um the post structuralist world you know that's not perspective it's come in you know as as post modernism has been playing its its way out into the 21st century some of the new kind of um sort of new ontological re and concentrating on um sort of materialist sort of perspectives and how and how they are very important but all looking in in the ways in which society and nature are very very difficult to separate out from each other because they to some extent co-produce and each other and one of the writers who takes people pretty well through some of those issues is a guy called Marcus Taylor he's got a book called the political ecology of climate change adaptation so that's a good one to be looking at um now if you if you write to him um he said i forget where is a or if you look him up online first you may find a sample of the book is is available um so look him up online and uh that's a good person to to be looking at and then um of course uh ip t uh fifth assessment report and try the summary for policy makers or technical summary if you're feeling very brave i'm just putting those in as well um they're easily obtained online just look him up oh and there we go uh some other one suggested we can find on the module pages uh so this is what we've got already and this these are existing uh modules so you can have a little look there as well do the low carbon development i guess that's module address sectors mining and industrial uh no problem just to go back to labose question then does the carbon development module have uh sectors like mining and industrial i think it does i haven't seen it yet but i'm pretty sure that it must do and there is some of that in other um modules as well such as climate change and development okay so i think i'm going to call it a day there um but thank you all so much for your time it's been really good to uh to you need to speak to you and and to uh to get some questions and feedback from you and uh we shall hopefully be receiving some of you um on the masters paper or indeed and thank you for all of the little hand claps and uh and faces indeed so uh so good luck everyone and we shall speak again bye