LIDIS5232 Sustainable Cities and Communities Course Descriptor

Course Overview

At a time of profound global change, in the heart of a world city, this course provides an engaged introduction to the challenge of making cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable.

Taking off from UN Sustainable Development Goal 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities, and drawing on perspectives from the public humanities, social sciences, and data science – including the emerging field of urban analytics – this course will engage with diverse local organisations to explore and help to strengthen resources to build sustainability in our context.

Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of the course, students will be able to:

Knowledge and Understanding

Subject Specific Skills

Transferable and Employability Skills

Teaching and Learning

This course has a syllabus and online learning resources, including structured assignments to facilitate progress.

The teaching and learning activities for this course are:

• 40 scheduled hours (lectures, workshops, and scheduled assessment activities)
• 110 private study hours (with structured assignments)

Faculty hold regular ‘office hours’, which are opportunities for students to drop in or sign up to explore ideas, raise questions, or seek targeted guidance or feedback, individually or in small groups.

Students are to attend and participate in all the teaching and learning activities for this course and to manage their directed learning and private study.

Indicative total learning hours for this course: 150

Assessment

Both formative and summative assessment are used as part of this course, with purely formative opportunities typically embedded within interactive teaching sessions or office hours.

Summative Assessments

Further information about the assessments can be found in the Course Syllabus.

Feedback

Students will receive formative and summative feedback in a variety of ways, written (e.g. marked up on drafts or through email) or oral (e.g. as part of interactive teaching sessions or in office hours).

Indicative Reading

Note: Comprehensive and current reading lists are produced annually in the Course Syllabus or other documentation provided to students; the indicative reading list provided below is for a general guide and part of the approval/modification process only.

• O’Brien, Daniel T. (2018) The Urban Commons. Harvard University Press.
• Bibri, S. (2021) ‘Data-driven smart sustainable cities of the future’. Sustainable Futuress.
• Mikesell, L. Bromley, E., and Khodyakov, D. (2013) ‘Ethical Community-Engaged Research: A Literature Review’. American Journal of Public Health.

Indicative Topics

Note: Comprehensive and current topics for courses are produced annually in the Course Syllabus or other documentation provided to students; the indicative topics provided below is used as a general guide and part of the approval/modification process only.

• UN SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities
• Smart Cities and Urban Analytics
• Recognizing and critiquing data sources
• Data analysis and visualization
• Ethics of community-engaged research

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