LLAW6054
General Course Information
1.1 Course details
| Course code: | LLAW6054 |
| Course name: | 9-credit Dissertation |
| Programme offered under: | LLM Programme |
| Semester: | First and Second |
| Prerequisites / Co-requisites: | No |
| Credit point value: | 9 credits |
1.2 Course description
An individual research project on an approved topic carried out under the supervision of an assigned teacher, resulting in the submission of a research paper with required range from 8,000 to 10,000 words (excluding tables of cases and statutes, notes, appendices and bibliographies). The dissertation must provide evidence of original research work and a capacity for critical legal analysis and argument.
1.3 Instructions and Important Dates
If you hope to undertake a research dissertation as part of your programme, you should first contact a potential supervisor as early as possible to discuss the proposed topic. Begin by checking the research interests of faculty members listed at Faculty’s website. You may also approach Programme Director/Deputy Programme Director of your programme if you wish to seek further advice.
It is the responsibility of each student to find a full-time member of the academic staff to act as the supervisor of their dissertation. Different faculty members have different considerations and requirements on the decision to supervise a student, but it is typically expected that the student when approaching the faculty member should have a reasonably viable research topic/proposal that falls into the research/teaching interest of the faculty member.
Please also pay attention to the following important dates for add-drop and submission for LLAW6014 18-credit Dissertation and LLAW6054 9-credit Dissertation (“dissertation courses”):
| To do list and deadline | LLAW6014 18-credit Dissertation |
LLAW6054 9-credit Dissertation |
|
| Full-year course | 1st semester | 2nd semester | |
| Add-drop deadline | Sep 21, 2022 | Sep 21, 2022 | Feb 11, 2023 |
| Submit dissertation title and name of supervisor (via Moodle) | Oct 6, 2022 | Oct 6, 2022 | Feb 27, 2023 |
| (Optional) Making request to change the dissertation title | Mar 31, 2023 | Nov 11, 2022 | Mar 31, 2023 |
| Submission of final dissertation (via Moodle) | May 1, 2023 | Dec 1, 2022 | May 1, 2023 |
| Submission of electronic copy of dissertations (ETD) to HKU Libraries (see Note 2 below) | Sep 2023 | ||
[Note 1] For students who submit their dissertation on/before Dec 1, 2022, they will receive their grade by the end of January or early February 2023 (Subject to the approval of Board of Examiners). (Non-local students are advised to submit their dissertation by this deadline; see the important note below.)
For students who submit their dissertation after Dec 1, 2022 and on/before May 1, 2023, they will receive their grade by the end of June or early July 2023 (Subject to the approval of Board of Examiners).
[Note 2] For students who achieved grade A- or above in dissertation, the General Office will approach for their consent to make their dissertation accessible in the Scholars Hub under the licensing of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. More information about ETD can be found at etd.lib.hku.hk.
Learning Outcomes
2.1 Course Learning Outcomes (CLOs) for this course
CLO 1 Formulated a thesis that a member of staff has supervised;
CLO 2 Undertaken a sustained piece of legal research under the guidance of the supervisor;
CLO 3 Developed skills in legal research;
CLO 4 Refined their abilities in legal writing;
CLO 5 Developed their capacity to identify good legal writing; and
CLO 6 Completed a substantial written paper that aims to be of publishable standard.
2.2 LLM Programme Learning Outcomes (PLOs)
Please refer to the following link: https://course.law.hku.hk/llm-plo/
2.3 Programme Learning Outcomes to be achieved in this course
| PLO A | PLO B | PLO C | PLO D | PLO E | PLO F | |
| CLO 1 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| CLO 2 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| CLO 3 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| CLO 4 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| CLO 5 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| CLO 6 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Assessment(s)
3.1 Assessment Summary
| Assessment task | Due date | Weighting | Feedback method* | Course learning outcomes |
| Dissertation | 1st semester due: 1 Dec 2022
2nd semester due: 1 May 2023 |
100% | 1 | 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 |
| *Feedback method (to be determined by course teacher) | |
| 1 | A general course report to be disseminated through Moodle |
| 2 | Individual feedback to be disseminated by email / through Moodle |
| 3 | Individual review meeting upon appointment |
| 4 | Group review meeting |
| 5 | In-class verbal feedback |
3.2 Assessment Detail
To be advised by course convenor(s).
3.3 Grading Criteria
Please refer to the following link: https://www.law.hku.hk/_files/law_programme_grade_descriptors.pdf
Learning Resources
5.1 Resources
The Graduate School has a number of publications which you may find useful during the preparation phase:
5.2 Links
Please refer to the following link: http://www.law.hku.hk/course/learning-resources/