Unit Synopsis
In this unit you will study the structure and function of the immune system and be introduced to foundational concepts that underpin how the immune system works. You will explore the mechanisms that control the human body’s ability to detect, contain and remove or destroy harmful pathogens whilst retaining tolerance to its own cells. You will also demonstrate your competency in understanding and analysing laboratory tests in the assessment of the immune response. Depending on your discipline, you will be required to attend a residential school.
Details
| Level | Undergraduate |
|---|---|
| Unit Level | 1 |
| Credit Points | 6 |
| Student Contribution Band | SCA Band 2 |
| Fraction of Full-Time Student Load | 0.125 |
| Pre-requisites or Co-requisites |
Pre-requisites: BMSC11001 Human Body Systems 1 OR BMSC11007 Medical Anatomy and Physiology 1 OR BMSC11010 Human Anatomy and Physiology 1
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). |
| Class Timetable | View Unit Timetable |
| Residential School |
Compulsory Residential School View Unit Residential School |
Unit Availabilities from Term 1 - 2026
Term 2 - 2026 Profile
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 Undergraduate 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.
Assessment Tasks
| Assessment Task | Weighting |
|---|---|
| 1. Online Quiz(zes) | 20% |
| 2. Portfolio | 0% |
| 3. Written Assessment | 50% |
| 4. Examination | 30% |
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%).
Past Exams
All University policies are available on the Policy web site, however you may wish to directly view the following policies below.
This list is not an exhaustive list of all University policies. The full list of policies are available on the Policy web site .
Term 2 - 2025 : The overall satisfaction for students in the last offering of this course was 93.75% (`Agree` and `Strongly Agree` responses), based on a 14.95% response rate.
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.
Source: SUTE
Assessment was set up so it connected the dots between the content provided weekly.
To continue to keep the current format of assessment items.
Assessment items continued to adopt the format that allowed content to be provided week to week.
Source: Student feedback and self-reflection
Lecture recordings could be broken down into the sections they are presented.
To block the lecture recordings as per subheadings to break up the length of the videos.
Lecture recording were broken down into chunks based on topics.
Source: SUTE and unit coordinator reflection.
Many students felt anxious about the invigilated exam as it was their first exposure to this format, even though mock exams were provided and reviewed in tutorials.
Enhance exam preparation scaffolding, including expanded practice questions, annotated exemplars, and clearer guidance on expected depth of responses, to better support students with limited prior exposure to invigilated assessment formats.
In Progress
Source: Moodle, unit coordinator reflection and student feedback.
The unit introduces a substantial amount of new terminology, which many students experience as learning a new language in the early stages of the course.
Retain and further develop terminology flashcards as a core learning support, given the substantial volume of new discipline-specific language introduced in the unit.
In Progress
On successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:
- Outline the role of the major cells and tissues in the induction of an immune response
- Explain the processes of self/non-self-discrimination
- Describe how the non-specific and specific arms of the immune system work together to effect an immune response
- Explain how the structure and function of antigen recognition molecules facilitate interaction with antigens
- Outline the typical mammalian immune system responses to various challenges such as proteins, bacteria, viruses, protozoa, helminths, fungi and other representative multi-cellular organisms.
- Demonstrate competency in basic laboratory tests in the assessment of the immune response relevant to the discipline.
| Assessment Tasks | Learning Outcomes | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | |
| 1 - Online Quiz(zes) | • | • | • | • | ||
| 2 - Portfolio | • | |||||
| 3 - Written Assessment | • | • | ||||
| 4 - Examination | • | • | • | |||
| Graduate Attributes | Learning Outcomes | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | |
| 1 - Communication | • | • | • | • | • | • |
| 2 - Problem Solving | • | • | • | • | • | • |
| 3 - Critical Thinking | • | • | • | • | • | |
| 4 - Information Literacy | • | • | • | • | • | |
| 8 - Ethical practice | • | |||||
| Assessment Tasks | Graduate Attributes | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 10 | |