In the first term, each student maintained their own lab book. Beginning on January 7, 2002 we will change this situation:
Each experiment will have a single lab book.
This change makes the process of experimentation in the laboratory much closer to the way such work is done in the real world. For example, it eliminates the situation of two lab books containing identical tables of identical data.
The change also emphasizes that, as is common in the real world, the work is a collaboration between the two lab partners.
You and your lab partner will choose whose book will be the "master" book for each experiment. You may, if you wish, alternate books for each experiment. But each individual experiment will be written up in only one book.
You and your partner will need to discuss together how to do the analysis of your data, and agree on the conclusions drawn from the experiment.
We anticipate that the members of the lab partnership will both write in the master lab book for each experiment. It is up to you to decide which of you writes what part of the record. We encourage you to change this decision for each experiment, so both of you have a full range of practice in experimental technique.
We expect that each member of the partnership will contribute equally to the experiment. If you feel that you are being taken advantage of by your partner, discuss it with him or her. If that fails to resolve the situation, you may discuss this problem with your Demonstrator or the lab coordinators.
Note that both members of the partnership will receive the same Experiment mark. This again is the way the real world works: the success of a project is a single result, not a separate result for each member of the team who contributed to the work.
Your Demonstrator's subjective assessment of your effort in the lab, the In-Lab mark, can be different for different members of the partnership. In addition, the Lab Test at the end of the academic year will be done by students working individually.
Finally, next term you will be keeping your lab books instead of having your Demonstrator collect and keep them after each session. This is not a change in policy, but we include that information here to remind you. Your Demonstrator will take the master lab book when you have finished an experiment and it is ready to be marked.