The objective is to ensure that the student has developed the core skill of maintaining traceable records of their work as will be required in a professional engineering, scientific or business career. To prepare students for the need to maintain comprehensive and accurate personal records of work in business, industry or research for contractual, quality assurance, safety-related, patent and scientific verification, etc reasons, it is important that they demonstrate that they can maintain full records of their work in a Project Logbook.

In addition, to allow the Examiners to take into account the quality and quantity of the student’s input to their Project in a way that is verifiable by Moderators or External Examiners, and also so they can check the technical contents of the Final Report, then it is essential that the complete derivation of all results and conclusions in that can be traced ab initio from the Project Logbook. Where this is not possible, then the student may be required to attend an additional Viva Voce Interview with the Panel of Moderators before a mark is given.

The Project Logbook must be submitted twice:

• to the Project Supervisor at the start of the January End-of Semester 1 Examination Period for an interim formative review and summative assessment (half of Logbook total), and
• along with the Final Report (and Poster for MEng) to the School Office by the end of Week 1 of Term 3 (after Easter) to support the Final Report assessment and for summative assessment by the Project Supervisor (half of total, if agreed by the 2^nd Examiner on the basis of the evidence in the Logbook).

At the first submission, the Project Supervisor will primarily be assessing the student’s ability to apply the principles of project planning and management, their time-management skills and their commitment to progressing the Project and whether they have engaged with the background self-study necessary to understand the objectives of the Project. The Logbook at this time must contain evidence of progress to date:

• Clearly defined objectives for the Project placed in an appropriate background context (which will form the basis for an Introduction to the Final Report).
• A project plan, recording progress to date and indicating how the work required will be completed within the allowed timescale.
• Evidence of a good start on the project. The content will depend on the individual project, but might include a literature review, test rig designs, initial design studies, preliminary results, etc.

The Supervisor will provide formative feedback on the Logbook contents and the student’s progress with the Project to date.

At the final submission, the project supervisor and second examiner will both award a mark for the quality of the project work as it appears in the Logbook. The supervisor will be influenced by his knowledge of the student’s performance over the project period, but the second examiner will not. If the supervisor and second examiner award markedly different marks, then the student may be required to attend a Viva Voce interview.

Students should note the increased emphasis on the Logbook compared with the past. This is intended both to emphasise the importance of this skill and also to ensure that all elements of the marking can be verified by evidence. Lack of this evidence will preclude marks from being awarded.

Students should also note that it must be apparent that the Logbook submitted must represent a continuous and contemporaneous account of the work done on the Project. Where Examiners judge that the "Logbook" has been written up after the project work as a "fair copy" this will be penalised. It is important that students develop the skill of maintaining traceable records as they work. Students should regularly show their Logbook to their Supervisor at their meetings and the Supervisor may, at his discretion, "sign off" these sections.

The Project Logbook must contain a dated chronological record of the work of the Project. This should be in a bound scientific laboratory notebook. Additional material (photocopies, drawings, computer printouts, supplied information, etc) should be kept in a ring binder with separators and an index. The Logbook must be a record of every significant event in the project. Material recorded should include at least:

• The development of (and any subsequent alterations to) the Project objectives with relevant information on background and context.
• Evidence of project planning and of any revisions or adaptations to the intended schedule (with reasons for these).
• Adequate and traceable records of all sources of information and data (eg papers, textbooks, standards, manuals, personal communications, etc).
• Notes towards a literature review if required by the Project Supervisor.
• Outlines of all material taken from papers, textbooks, etc, such as derivations of expressions or calculation procedures, etc, with due emphasis paid to assumptions, limitations, etc.
• Descriptions of all experimental, design, computational, statistical, etc procedures followed to obtain results, along with the corresponding descriptions of apparatus, etc.
• All experimental or computational results, including raw results exactly as recorded on the apparatus which would enable independent checking of any test point.
• Details of all calculation, review or evaluation procedures.
• Evidence of how the principal deliverables or conclusions were arrived at.

It might also include dated records of meetings with supervisors, advisors, colleagues, etc.

The Project Logbook must be used by the student as the basis for the Final Report, Poster and Oral Presentation.