English Language Foundation

This unit focuses on your ability to understand and use the English language accurately when you read, speak, listen and write. We will concentrate on the English you need for undergraduate level study in your chosen subject area, covering grammar, subject area vocabulary and the four language skills of reading, writing, listening and speaking.

A key element of the unit is the grammar of the language, and particularly the verb tense system in English, because your ability to use the verb tense system accurately will be extremely important when you come to write essays and reports. This unit will focus in particular on the grammar of the language.

We will also focus on reading, listening and speaking skills in the context of your chosen subject area. Beginning with short texts, we will practise each skill and practise it again, so that gradually you will see, hear and feel that your command of the language is improving. 

A recurring focus of the unit will be your acquisition of 'learner autonomy'. This means your ability to acquire the language yourself, without needing a teacher's help. This is important because from next year you will not have an English teacher to help you. So we will consider and practise strategies to help you gain confidence in your own ability to increase your knowledge of and ability to use the language, including for instance guessing meaning of difficult words, deciding which words are important in a text, recognising differences between formal and informal language, and other strategies, so that as the first semester continues, you begin to feel more confident in your use and experience with the English Language.

Academic Skills Foundation

When you begin your undergraduate level studies, you will be expected to have knowledge of and ability to use a large range of 'study skills'. You will also be expected to have some knowledge of the subject area you will  be studying. This unit deals with both of these aspects of your preparation for undergraduate level study. 

All of the academic skills are practised in English, so you will use your developing acquisition of the language from the partner unit 'English Language Foundation' to practise and gain mastery of these skills. You will also use your language and study skills as you learn the foundation of your subject area, putting the skills into practice as you learn.

Developing English Language Skills

This unit builds on the progress you made during its partner semester 1 unit 'English Language Foundation' and increasing your level from that which you had achieved by the end of semester 1. 

We will recycle the tense system in English and other elements of the grammar system, but you will  now learn how to use other aspects of the grammar, including the passive voice, as well as linking words and phrases and devices which enable you to write longer sentences but retain grammatical accuracy. 

You will notice that we gradually introduce more specialist language that you need in preparation for your degree and we will expect you to use and develop the skills that you gained in the previous units so that you are able to work more independently.

Academic Skills Development

This unit builds on the skills learnt and practised in its partner semester 1 unit 'Foundation Academic Skills'. We will add more skills to the list, including summarizing and synthesising, argumentation, critical thinking and referencing and citation skills, as well as several others and practise and test them in the same way as with the semester 1 unit.

We will also investigate the research skill and you will learn how to prepare a research proposal and conduct a literature review, and how to plan a research project, learning about the research tools available and how they can be used to conduct research in your chosen field. 

You will continue to broaden your knowledge of key current issues and theory in your chosen subject area, and apply the critical thinking and argumentation skills you acquire in this unit to argue for and against propositions you have studied in the form of in both essays and presentations and in seminar situations, ensuring that you are ready to step up to your chosen undergraduate course with a base level of subject area knowledge from which to continue your academic development as you progress to level 4 study.

Applied Numeracy For Business

This unit is part of a core spine of units that all Business students will encounter as part of their learning journey. This journey takes you through the begin stage at Level 4, to the thrive stage at level 5, to succeed stage at level 6.  
This unit is designed to support your Begin stage at level 4, it develops the numeracy skills and abilities you need to succeed in your studies and in the business world. The unit is designed to support you and develop your confidence in essential mathematics and statistics techniques, it applies these techniques in business context to give you an understanding of how they are used to solve problems and make decision in business organisations.

The connected core spine of units also enables you to network with peers from across the faculty just as you will be expected to work with colleagues throughout the organisation in the world of business.¿¿¿ 

The unit aims to achieve 

• provide students with the fundamental knowledge and understanding of numeracy in business.   
• develop student confidence in a range of numerical and statistical techniques.
• enable students apply a range of numerical and statistical techniques to practical business problems.   

Evolution And Revolution Of Business

The unit is designed to provide an introduction to business and the context in which businesses operate. It explores business advances allowing students to acquire an understanding of how businesses have developed, their impact on society, and how business may progress in the future. The unit aims to achieve:

1.       The identification and examination of key developments within business and management practices and their impact on trade and commerce.

2.       Awareness of management models and approaches and their context.

3.       Identify the progress and breakthroughs achieved in various business sectors and management practices. 

4.       Awareness of revolutionary developments in business and its future potential direction.

5.       Explore new opportunities and risks that exist for business. 

Relevance: The unit explores past and future developments in business and will allow students to apply context and develop a basic level of business acumen.

Management In Practice

This unit aims to develop management skills in the following areas

1.       Management and strategy setting 

2.       Leadership and entrepreneurship

3.       Management analysis and decision making

4.       Teamwork and critical thinking

5.       Finance and Marketing

Beginning Your Professional Business Journey

This unit is part of a core spine of units that all Business students will encounter as part of their learning journey. This journey takes you from the Begin stage at Level 4, to the Thrive stage at Level 5 through to the Succeed stage at Level 6. This unit is designed to support the Begin/Thrive/Succeed stage by introducing you to the skills that you will require in order to develop your professional practice.

The connected core spine of units also enables you to network with peers from across the faculty just as you will be expected to work with colleagues throughout the organisation in the world of business.  

This unit will help you to begin your journey in Business and provide you with the support you will need to develop your professional practice.

In this unit you will be presented with Business challenges which will allow you to collaborate with peers, and provide an insight in to a professional Business environment. 

Data Analysis For Finance And Economics

This unit aims to provide detailed knowledge and skills to apply and interpret the results of a variety of statistical techniques from both descriptive and inferential statistics. You will use appropriate software in order to collect, summarize, and process primary and secondary data, identify relations between economic variables and use this information to interpret the outcome in the context of economic policy or business decision making processes.
The central question that the unit intends to address is: How statistics is used in the process of asking a research question, gathering the data to address this question(s), analyzing the data, and making conclusions.

Smart Business

Latest developments in AI Technology are contributing to the rapid digitization of business processes. Business functions are seeing internal and external integration and adapting to the available technology support for survival. This unit is designed to help you develop knowledge and skills required to function in a technology driven business environment with confidence

The unit aims to:

1.       Develop your awareness of the trends in technology and its application in all areas of business   

2.       Enable you to develop a systematic understanding of the challenges with technology 

3.       Explore how Big Data provides a basis for technological solutions for smart business operations

Employability And The Future Workplace

This unit aims to :

1.       Prepare the student for the future work environment after they graduate

2.       Develop awareness of their skills and attributes in preparation for interviews, psychometric tests and assessment centres

3.       Provide opportunities for students to carry out self-analysis, and link these to a career focus 

4.       Enable students to evaluate their ability to use all aspects of social media and virtual recruitment

5.      Showcase student readiness and employability to interested stakeholders.

Risk And Responsibility

The unit is designed to develop a holistic understanding of the challenges facing a business and the principles of responsible management from the perspectives of various business functions. The aim of the unit is to enable you to demonstrate the following: 

·       Knowledge and critical understanding of enterprise risk and management exploring systemic, financial, operational and strategic risk

·       An understanding of holistic approach to risk management exploring business ethics and responsible management in global context.

·       The ability to apply risk management frameworks in investigating risk and implementing risk mitigation strategies.  

·       The ability to risk assess investment, operational failure and operating in international markets 

·       Confidence in engaging with quality and compliance needs of a business

Managing Business Complexity

This unit aims to achieve:

·      Knowledge and understanding of various types of business complexity arising from structural, process, and environmental factors

·      Apply the knowledge and skills gained during previous units to a real-life, complex business issue to create a realistic and viable solution for a client

·      Develop project management skills through working on a contemporary business problem 

·      Develop skills in planning, undertaking and reporting upon primary and secondary research

·      Enable you to develop critical employability skills around team working, time management, presentation and communication 

Develop your critical awareness of contemporary business issues and enable you to apply theoretical concepts to real-world situations

Data And Research Methods For Business

This unit is part of a core spine of units that all Business students will encounter as part of their learning journey. This journey takes you to the Thrive stage at Level 5 and the unit is designed to support the Begin/Thrive/Succeed stage by building on the academic study skills and numeracy skills acquired during your first year and introduces you to both theory and practice of research and prepares you for the final year Research Project. 
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The connected core spine of units also enables you to network with peers from across the faculty just as you will be expected to work with colleagues throughout the organisation in the world of business.¿¿ 
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The ability to conduct research and to interpret information is a key skill in both the academic and commercial worlds. Effective managerial decision-making is heavily dependent on high-quality data and information in a variety of forms and from a variety of sources.  Gaining an understanding of research and of the research process, and experiencing it as part of a research community will provide valuable transferrable skills for a career in business or further study.  
 
This unit aims to achieve: 
an understanding and appreciation of the central role of data in business. 
an ability to evaluate information sources appropriately to support arguments and to inform decision-making at all levels. 
an appreciation of the benefits and limitations of common research approaches and quantitative and qualitative research methods. 
an understanding of common qualitative and quantitative research techniques including sampling and data collection approaches as well as data analysis. 

Data Visualisation

Data interpretation is a key part of descriptive data analysis which is largely dependent on visualization methods and requires proficiency in using various software tools. Data visualization is useful in communicating insights to others. The unit is designed to explore visualization methods for both small and large data sets. The unit aims to: 1. Develop your awareness of working with different types of data collected through various methods 2. Expand your a proficiency in data visualisation design 3. Explore a range of visualisation methods and when/why to use them 4. Provide opportunities to gain practical experience of applying visualisation concepts

Data Optimisation

As data is created and consumed at a rapid pace, businesses are increasingly becoming dependent on it for strategic decision-making. To ensure that the data is reliable and the insights provided from predictive analysis provide trusted perspectives and can be operationalised. Data Optimisation techniques can ensure the data used for decision making is relevant and appropriately structured for the analysis.

This unit aims to:

1.       Develop a broader understanding of data optimization techniques and its application in the context business decision making 

2.       Explore methods of data cleansing 

3.       Apply optimization methods to derive business insights to support decision making 

Business Continuity And The Planet

This unit will develop your understanding and appreciation of the major challenges to ensuring business continuity in a dynamic and evolving environment

The unit aims to:

·       Investigate major areas that pose strategic risk, including climate and environmental issues, cyber-security and supply-chain challenges amongst others 

·       Assess the likely impact of climate change and environmental challenges on business operations

·       Understand the dynamic and challenging nature of supply chain risks and the range of responses available to businesses

·       Explore the increasing threat of digital security issues for modern businesses and available mitigations

·       Understand and evaluate the range of crisis management tools and techniques available to businesses

·       Develop the ability to devise specific plans and approaches to ensure business continuity, as well as work collaboratively with colleagues to identify and explore issues within the broader global context. 

·       Develop skills that are transferrable in a wide range of contexts across different industries

Business Analytics

Analytical skills are highly demanded for making risk-aware decisions and maximising efficiency of business within the reality of market uncertainties. The subject knowledge and skills will allow students to reliably quantify the uncertainties existing in business and develop data-driven models to efficiently solve analytical tasks in areas such as: Credit scoring, Marketing, Retail analytics, Pricing, and Product design. The offered analytical technologies are based on intensive computational methodologies, such as Monte Carlo simulation, Bayesian decision making, and model aggregation, which are available in data analytical software using R language.
The unit aims to provide students with:

• advanced data analytical strategies of solving business tasks
• benefits of computationally intensive methodologies used for making risk-aware decisions
• knowledge and skills of performing experiments required for finding efficient business solutions
• validation and comparison of developed solutions on real data
• optimising decision models.

Business Project

This unit is part of a core spine of units that all Business students will encounter as part of their learning journey. This journey takes you from the Thrive stage at Level 5 through to the Succeed stage at Level 6. This unit is designed to support the Succeed stage by enabling you to network with peers from across the faculty just as you will be expected to work with colleagues throughout the organisation in the world of business.   
 
This unit will help you consolidate your research journey with the aim of helping you thrive. It aims to bring research to life by addressing it from an application point of view.  
 
It aims to help you develop and deploy relevant research skills while engaging you in the process of making decisions based on quality research. Effective business decision and problem-solving involve many complex processes which depend not only on accessing high quality data but also processing, analyzing, deconstructing and extracting meaning from it.  
 
Hence, this unit aims to take students through these practical processes in order to develop cutting edge problem solving skills required in a fast business terrain. 
 
This unit aims to achieve: 

1) This unit will help students achieve a broader and deeper understanding and learning of the practical use of data in business and how this shapes critical business decisions. 
 
2) This unit will help students achieve the ability to critically evaluate the core knowledge at the forefront of their fields of study in informing their investigation, demonstrating an awareness of the provisional and evolving nature of knowledge. 
 
3) This unit will help students achieve the ability to take ownership of their own research journeys by independently selecting, planning, managing and executing an in-depth research investigation of a business problem with the aim of producing a research with potential for useful or unique outcomes. 
 
4) This unit will enable students achieve the ability to critically review evidence, including reliability, validity and significance, and interpret with reference to the core knowledge in the area, identifying contradictions and inconsistencies and exploring possible reasons, leading to reasoned conclusions and recommendations. 
 
5) This unit will enable students achieve an awareness of their personal responsibility and professional ethical codes of conduct, particularly in relation to confidentiality and informed consent.