This experiential learning paper is designed to encourage each student to fulfill their potential in contributing towards managing an event for a specific, REAL client whose requirements should be fully respected. The paper will cover all aspects of event planning, that is, students will research, design, plan, implement and evaluate an event for the client. Students will implement their event towards the end of the semester (from the 18th to 31st of May) after having carefully planned it and handed in an event feasibility proposal.

The paper will be conducted through a mixture of lectures, discussions, conversations and co-construction of learning. Co-construction of learning means that you are an active and responsible participant in your own learning and that you make every effort to fulfill your obligations as a student in this paper. The course convenor and the tutors, as well as the client will be available to help you at all stages of the paper.

For this course there is one one-hour lecture and you should also attend one two-hour tutorial per week. In the first seven weeks of the semester (until the teaching recess) lectures will focus on event contexts and concepts, including research, identifying purpose and objectives, and planning the event. The second part of the semester will focus on event preparation and evaluation. A local industry guest speaker will be invited to complement the weekly topics. Lecture notes, tutorial notes, grading criteria for assignments and other documents provided by the client will be available online.

Some lectures may be recorded and made available on mooddle for you to watch. The convenor will remind you in class and by email/moodle announcement when these are available.

General assessment guidelines:

Activities and assignments are designed to help you achieve the learning outcomes of this course. All written assignments are to be web-submitted. They will be passed through the antiplagiarism software “Turnitin” (see plagiarism section). To avoid plagiarism, you must not pass other people’s work off as your own without proper acknowledgement and appropriate referencing. In addition, you must not use assignments or parts of assignments assessed in other papers for credit in this paper. You cannot resubmit assignments from your past course work if you are repeating this paper. When you web submit, please use a file name that gives the name of the assignment and your name. For example Event evaluation Joe Bloggs.docx would be a good file name. Please avoid apostrophes and ampersands (&) as the system cannot open the files and hence we will not be able to mark your work.

Presentation of written assignments:

Unless otherwise stated, written assignments should:

1. Have a front cover sheet which indicates the name of the paper and course code, your name and ID number, your tutor’s name, the due date, and a word count.

2. Use 12 point font, Times New Roman.

3. Use one and a half spacing and left justification.

4. Leave margins of 2.54 cm so that your marker has space to write comments.

5. Number pages beginning with the first page of text.

6. Use proper paragraphing. Leave a blank line between paragraphs or indent the first line.

7. Follow the APA referencing system. See the library APA referencing website to check your referencing at: http://www.waikato.ac.nz/library/study/guides/apa.shtml

8. Be within the word limit (plus or minus 10%). Your word count does not include your title page, your reference list or any appendices.

9. Demonstrate evidence of revision and proofreading.

Please see below for a precise description of the various elements of the assessment.

Other important points to note:

Attendance and participation: This paper requires every student to actively participate in all activities. This means that you should attend the lectures and all tutorials. Other students in the class depend on you to fulfill your responsibilities as a team member and to be available for consultation and team meetings (teams will be formed in the first tutorial).

In-class worksheets: In some of the lectures or tutorials, you will need to complete in-class worksheets (there will be no forewarning in which classes these worksheets will be distributed and collected for marking).

Communication and peer evaluation: Good communication and collaboration is essential in event management. In order to make sure every member contributes equally to the team's effort, you will be asked to assess your own contribution to the event process as well as peer assess each of your colleagues in the event management team (see peer evaluation 1 and 2). These evaluations will have an impact on your mark so it is in your interest to work as a team from the start and contribute and share workload equally.

Lecture notes and resources such as extra readings or videos will be accessible from the course page. More details will be given in class.

Some lectures may be recorded and made available on Moodle for you to watch. The convenor will remind you in class and by email/Moodle announcement when these are available.

You are expected to attend one one-hour lecture and one two-hour tutorial every week.

Please note: tutorials start in the first week for this course.

In addition you are asked to read one chapter from Dawson and Bassett (2015) each week to complement or reinforce what has been covered in class. You are also expected to spend between 3 and 5 hours a week to plan and prepare your event with your team outside class times (this will vary depending on what needs to be achieved every week).