Overview
In this unit, you will explore adaptive capacity building within communities and community resilience from a partnerships perspective. You will come to understand policy levers, available tools, programs and information that support adaptation. You will also develop skills to help facilitate partnerships and networks across government, non-government and community agencies to build community resilience. A key part of this unit involves understanding how these processes influence community change.
Details
Pre-requisites or Co-requisites
The co-requisite for the unit is DSMG28001 Foundations of Emergency and Disaster Management.
Important note: Students enrolled in a subsequent unit who failed their pre-requisite unit, should drop the subsequent unit before the census date or within 10 working days of Fail grade notification. Students who do not drop the unit in this timeframe cannot later drop the unit without academic and financial liability. See details in the Assessment Policy and Procedure (Higher Education Coursework).
Offerings For Term 1 - 2025
Attendance Requirements
All on-campus students are expected to attend scheduled classes - in some units, these classes are identified as a mandatory (pass/fail) component and attendance is compulsory. International students, on a student visa, must maintain a full time study load and meet both attendance and academic progress requirements in each study period (satisfactory attendance for International students is defined as maintaining at least an 80% attendance record).
Recommended Student Time Commitment
Each 6-credit Postgraduate unit at CQUniversity requires an overall time commitment of an average of 12.5 hours of study per week, making a total of 150 hours for the unit.
Class Timetable
Assessment Overview
Assessment Grading
This is a graded unit: your overall grade will be calculated from the marks or grades for each assessment task, based on the relative weightings shown in the table above. You must obtain an overall mark for the unit of at least 50%, or an overall grade of 'pass' in order to pass the unit. If any 'pass/fail' tasks are shown in the table above they must also be completed successfully ('pass' grade). You must also meet any minimum mark requirements specified for a particular assessment task, as detailed in the 'assessment task' section (note that in some instances, the minimum mark for a task may be greater than 50%). Consult the University's Grades and Results Policy for more details of interim results and final grades.
All University policies are available on the CQUniversity Policy site.
You may wish to view these policies:
- Grades and Results Policy
- Assessment Policy and Procedure (Higher Education Coursework)
- Review of Grade Procedure
- Student Academic Integrity Policy and Procedure
- Monitoring Academic Progress (MAP) Policy and Procedure - Domestic Students
- Monitoring Academic Progress (MAP) Policy and Procedure - International Students
- Student Refund and Credit Balance Policy and Procedure
- Student Feedback - Compliments and Complaints Policy and Procedure
- Information and Communications Technology Acceptable Use Policy and Procedure
This list is not an exhaustive list of all University policies. The full list of University policies are available on the CQUniversity Policy site.
Feedback, Recommendations and Responses
Every unit is reviewed for enhancement each year. At the most recent review, the following staff and student feedback items were identified and recommendations were made.
Feedback from Teaching reflection Student assessment
Some students were confused about the case studies for Assessments 2 and 3.
Provide the same case studies for Assessment 2 and 3 so that students can build on understanding concepts with the same contextual material.
Feedback from Teaching Reflection Student evaluation Student assessment
Assessment 1: Group Discussion was valued by some students as it helped them understand unit content and key concepts.
Reiterate to students that the discussion board can help them further understand unit material. Reduce the number of compulsory topics to facilitate more in-depth discussion.
Feedback from Teaching Reflection Discussion with colleagues
Assessing the Assessment 1: Group Discussion was labour intensive.
Integrate marking within the Moodle site for discussion board.
Feedback from Teaching reflection Student assessment
Assessment 2: Presentation provides a good opportunity to check students' understanding and knowledge through questions.
Add a marking criterion for response to questions.
Feedback from Teaching Reflection Student evaluation
The Moodle layout and organisation . This may be because other DSMG units use Moodle Book.
Consider changing to a Moodle Book as per other DSMG units.
Feedback from Teaching Reflection Student evaluation
Students would like more video resources.
Integrate more video resources to replace or complement reading materials.
- Evaluate the relationship between both adaptive capacity building and community resilience and the contribution they make to how communities deal with change
- Critically analyse and prioritise strategies that support community resilience, considering diverse community needs and agency perspectives
- Critically evaluate the effectiveness of principles and strategies to build community partnerships
- Design community resilience and/or adaptive capacity initiatives in collaboration with communities.
N/A
Alignment of Assessment Tasks to Learning Outcomes
| Assessment Tasks | Learning Outcomes | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | |
| 1 - Presentation - 40% | ||||
| 2 - Written Assessment - 60% | ||||
Alignment of Graduate Attributes to Learning Outcomes
| Graduate Attributes | Learning Outcomes | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | |
| 1 - Knowledge | ||||
| 2 - Communication | ||||
| 3 - Cognitive, technical and creative skills | ||||
| 4 - Research | ||||
| 5 - Self-management | ||||
| 6 - Ethical and Professional Responsibility | ||||
| 7 - Leadership | ||||
| 8 - Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Cultures | ||||
Textbooks
There are no required textbooks.
IT Resources
- CQUniversity Student Email
- Internet
- Unit Website (Moodle)
- PowerPoint
- Zoom capacity (web cam and microphone)
All submissions for this unit must use the referencing style: American Psychological Association 7th Edition (APA 7th edition)
For further information, see the Assessment Tasks.
e.rivera@cqu.edu.au
Module/Topic
Theme 1: Introduction to Communities, Adaptive Capacity and Community Resilience
1.1 Introductions
1.2 Introduction to Communities
1.3 Communities, Disasters and Change
1.4 Introduction to Resilience Thinking, Adaptive Capacity and Community Resilience
- Introduction to 7 Principles of Resilience
- Understanding Different Disciplinary Contexts
Chapter
Prescribed learning activities - combination of narrated PowerPoints, journal articles, chapter readings and online activities
Events and Submissions/Topic
Introductory Zoom Tutorial: including discussion on assessments. (week 1)
Module/Topic
Theme 2: Partnering with communities to build resilience and adaptive capacity
2.1 Why and How do Communities Act?
2.2 Working with Communities: Theoretical approaches
- Principles of Community Engagement for Disaster Resilience
2.3 Strength and Asset Based Approaches
Chapter
Prescribed learning activities - combination of narrated PowerPoints, journal articles, chapter readings and online activities
Events and Submissions/Topic
Optional Zoom Session on Assessment 1 (week 3)
Assessment 1 Presentation times arranged (week 3)
Presentations: Week 5
Presentation Due: Week 5 Friday (11 Apr 2025) 4:00 pm AEST
Module/Topic
Chapter
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
Theme 3: Strategies and approaches to build community resilience and adaptive capacity with communities
3.1 What is a community resilience or adaptive capacity initiative?
3.2 Working with communities on community resilience and adaptive capacity initiatives:
- Understanding your community
- Community Profiles
- Establishing and strengthening relationships
3.3 Choosing Appropriate Approaches
- Partner designs and delivers to community
- Partner leads with community input
- Community and partner work together
- Community leads with partner support
- Community designs and delivers
3.4 Strengths and Challenges of working with communities
- Critically analyse who may be left out of the process
Chapter
Prescribed learning activities - combination of narrated PowerPoints, journal articles, chapter readings and online activities
Events and Submissions/Topic
Optional Zoom session on Assessment 2 (week 9).
Module/Topic
Theme 4: Planning, Monitoring, Evaluation, Review and Reflection
4.1 Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation
Log Frame approach
4.2 Reflective Practice and Working with Communities
Reiterating the 7 Principles of Resilience
Chapter
Prescribed learning activities - combination of narrated PowerPoints, journal articles, chapter readings and online activities
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
Focus on Report Writing (Assessment 3)
Chapter
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
Chapter
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
Chapter
Events and Submissions/Topic
1 Presentation
Present a 10 to 15-minute narrated PowerPoint.
To prepare for this presentation:
- Choose a discipline that you are familiar with through work or study (e.g., emergency services, public health, Allied Health, nursing, business management, education).
- Research this discipline’s understanding of adaptive capacity, community resilience and community engagement through relevant policy documents and the peer reviewed literature.
- Critically discuss this discipline’s understanding of adaptive capacity, community resilience and community engagement with reference to the literature.
- Select one of four provided case studies of a community resilience and/or adaptive capacity building initiative relevant to this discipline. Please note that you will build on the case study for Assessment 2. More information will be on eReadings.
- Case Study One: Youth Climate Network, ADAPT Loddon Mallee, Victoria
- Case Study Two: Zuia Mafuriko/Ramani Huria flood resilience project, Tanzania
- Case Study Three: DisasterWISE, Australia
- Case Study Four: Community Fire Safe Program, The South Australian Country Fire Service (CFS), South Australia
- Alternatively, you may pick another topic subject to Unit Coordinator approval by Friday 28 March 2025.
- Analyse how this initiative was guided (or not guided) by the National Principles of Community Engagement for Disaster Resilience (Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience [AIDR], 2020). (e.g. were some of the principles used by stakeholders, were some not used).
- Based on your analysis, provide recommendations for your discipline (e.g. How could your discipline work with communities on community resilience and/or adaptive capacity building initiatives, what needs to be done, how could they use the National Principles of Community Engagement for Resilience?).
Suggested presentation outline:
- Introduce your presentation.
- Present an introduction to the discipline and its context (e.g., understanding/definitions of community engagement, community resilience and adaptive capacity building) with reference to relevant policy documents and the peer reviewed literature.
- Briefly outline your case study initiative (Who, What, Where, When: Community and stakeholders involved.)
- Critically discuss how this initiative was guided (or not guided) by the National Principles of Community Engagement for Disaster Resilience (Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience [AIDR], 2020).
- Outline your recommendations.
- Provide a closing statement/summary/take home message.
Presentation Format
Students must present live to the Unit Coordinator by the due date. Presentation times will be arranged by week 3. There will be additional time (up to five minutes) for questions from the unit coordinator.
A PDF version of the Presentation and a Word version of the presentation notes should be uploaded to Moodle under Assessment 2.
References
Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience. (2020). Community engagement for disaster resilience. https://knowledge.aidr.org.au/media/7989/aidr_handbookcollection_communityengagementfordisasterresilience_2020.pdf
Use of Generative AI
Permission to use Generative AI for the Following Purposes in DSMG29003: Assessment 1:
- Understanding/exploring course concepts, topics, and terms
- Unpacking/understanding the assessment task
- Understanding the marking rubric
- Deriving relevant research search terms
- Deriving relevant databases
- Guidance on how to paraphrase
- Checking of grammar, punctuation, and syntax
- Checking formatting of in-text citations and reference list
For further details see the GenAI Permissions Document on the Moodle under Assessment 1.
Week 5 Friday (11 Apr 2025) 4:00 pm AEST
Present Live to the Unit Coordinator. Upload PDF version of presentation and Word Version of speaking notes to Moodle.
Week 7 Friday (2 May 2025)
The presentation will be marked using criterion-referenced assessment. There is a detailed marking criteria available on the Moodle site you should refer to. This assessment will be marked according to the following criterion:
- Critical understanding of the key concepts of adaptive capacity, community resilience and community engagement in disciplinary context. (25%)
- Critical discussion of the application of the relevant National Principles of Community Engagement for Disaster Resilience (AIDR, 2020) (30%)
- Succinct recommendations based on the critique (20%)
- Responses to questions are succinct and clear (10%)
- Presentation skills (10%)
- Visual aids/PowerPoint (5%)
No submission method provided.
- Evaluate the relationship between both adaptive capacity building and community resilience and the contribution they make to how communities deal with change
- Critically analyse and prioritise strategies that support community resilience, considering diverse community needs and agency perspectives
- Critically evaluate the effectiveness of principles and strategies to build community partnerships
2 Written Assessment
- Expanding on your Assessment 1, write a 3000-word report outlining the process of building a community resilience and/or adaptive capacity initiative with a community.
- Important: You will use some information from you Assessment 1 case study in this assessment. Choose the same case study number (1, 2, 3, or 4) that you selected for Assessment 1.
- While the locations are real to provide contextual and community background, the scenarios are entirely fictional:
- Case Study One: Developing a Student Climate Network for CQUniversity, Melbourne Campus
- Case Study Two: Implementing a Community Flood Resilience Initiative in Kampong Cham, Cambodia
- Case Study Three: Increasing First Nations’ Participation in the DisasterWISE Communities Network
- Case Study Four: Implementing the Community Fire Safe Program in Coffin Bay, South Australia
- You are encouraged to draw on your own work and/or experience in a community. If you developed and submitted your own case study for Assessment 1, build on the same case study for Assessment 2.
In your report, you will need to:
- Provide an overview of the community and the disaster or issue that needs to be addressed.
- Referencing appropriate community engagement processes from the AIDR resources (see references), outline how you would plan, implement and evaluate the community resilience and/or adaptive capacity building initiative in partnership with the community/organisation.
- Provide an overview of the emergency services, health, business, or community organisations that could work with this community on the resilience and/or adaptive capacity initiative.
- Identify and justify the most appropriate community engagement approach from AIDR resources for planning, implementing and evaluating a community resilience and/or adaptive capacity initiative in the chosen community case study/your community (AIDR, 2020, AIDR, 2020a, AIDR, 2020b, AIDR, 2020c).
- Identify challenges that might arise during the process of community engagement/partnership building and critically discuss viable solutions. (see AIDR, 2020a).
- Use relevant literature throughout.
References
Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience. (2020). Community engagement for disaster resilience. https://knowledge.aidr.org.au/media/7989/aidr_handbookcollection_communityengagementfordisasterresilience_2020.pdf
Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience. (2020a). Practitioner’s Guide: Understanding and addressing challenges in community engagement. https://knowledge.aidr.org.au/resources/handbook-community-engagement/
Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience. (2020b). Practitioner’s Guide: How to choose between community engagement approaches. https://knowledge.aidr.org.au/resources/handbook-community-engagement/3
Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience. (2020c). Community Engagement for Disaster Resilience: Program logic template. https://knowledge.aidr.org.au/resources/handbook-community-engagement
Use of Generative AI
Permission to use Generative AI for the Following Purposes in DSMG29003: Assessment 2:
- Understanding/exploring course concepts, topics, and terms
- Unpacking/understanding the assessment task
- Understanding the marking rubric
- Deriving relevant research search terms
- Deriving relevant databases
- Guidance on how to paraphrase
- Checking of grammar, punctuation, and syntax
- Checking formatting of in-text citations and reference list
For further details see the GenAI Permissions Document on the Moodle under Assessment 2.
Review/Exam Week Tuesday (10 June 2025) 4:00 pm AEST
Three weeks after submission
The report will be marked using criterion-referenced assessment. There is a detailed marking criteria available on the Moodle site you should refer to. This assessment will be marked according to the following criterion:
- Identification and analysis of the context of the community and key stakeholders and the disaster/health issue (20%)
- Critical justification of the most appropriate community engagement approach for developing the partnership in the chosen case study / context (referencing AIDR (2020) resources) (15%)
- Critical application of the community engagement process that would be undertaken with the partner community to plan, implement and evaluate the community resilience and/or adaptive capacity building initiative (referencing AIDR resources) (35%)
- Clear and coherent identification and analysis of challenges that might arise during the process of community engagement/partnership building and critical discussion of possible solutions and recommendations (20%)
- The presentation of the written task is persuasive and compelling and is consistent in voice across the assessment piece. The purpose of the text is clear and there is appropriate use of spelling, grammar, and syntax (10%)
No submission method provided.
- Evaluate the relationship between both adaptive capacity building and community resilience and the contribution they make to how communities deal with change
- Critically analyse and prioritise strategies that support community resilience, considering diverse community needs and agency perspectives
- Critically evaluate the effectiveness of principles and strategies to build community partnerships
- Design community resilience and/or adaptive capacity initiatives in collaboration with communities.
As a CQUniversity student you are expected to act honestly in all aspects of your academic work.
Any assessable work undertaken or submitted for review or assessment must be your own work. Assessable work is any type of work you do to meet the assessment requirements in the unit, including draft work submitted for review and feedback and final work to be assessed.
When you use the ideas, words or data of others in your assessment, you must thoroughly and clearly acknowledge the source of this information by using the correct referencing style for your unit. Using others’ work without proper acknowledgement may be considered a form of intellectual dishonesty.
Participating honestly, respectfully, responsibly, and fairly in your university study ensures the CQUniversity qualification you earn will be valued as a true indication of your individual academic achievement and will continue to receive the respect and recognition it deserves.
As a student, you are responsible for reading and following CQUniversity’s policies, including the Student Academic Integrity Policy and Procedure. This policy sets out CQUniversity’s expectations of you to act with integrity, examples of academic integrity breaches to avoid, the processes used to address alleged breaches of academic integrity, and potential penalties.
What is a breach of academic integrity?
A breach of academic integrity includes but is not limited to plagiarism, self-plagiarism, collusion, cheating, contract cheating, and academic misconduct. The Student Academic Integrity Policy and Procedure defines what these terms mean and gives examples.
Why is academic integrity important?
A breach of academic integrity may result in one or more penalties, including suspension or even expulsion from the University. It can also have negative implications for student visas and future enrolment at CQUniversity or elsewhere. Students who engage in contract cheating also risk being blackmailed by contract cheating services.
Where can I get assistance?
For academic advice and guidance, the Academic Learning Centre (ALC) can support you in becoming confident in completing assessments with integrity and of high standard.
What can you do to act with integrity?
