SDMM13006U Shelter and Settlements in Disasters

Volume 2013/2014
Education
Master's Programme in Disaster Management
Content

The course is designed to teach students strategies, methods and guidelines promoting sustainability in the shelter response from relief to recovery and reconstruction. Students will be prepared to address shelter and settlements challenges in accordance with local needs and build on local resources. It is an important feature of the course to teach students to integrate risk and vulnerability reduction strategies in recovery programming. The students will learn to consider local building technologies and materials as part of "building-back-better" strategies. The course embraces the common phases of the emergency cycle, emergency shelter, transition shelter, early recovery, and reconstruction.

Learning Outcome
At the end of the course students have acquired strategic and practical knowledge of shelter and settlements policies, methods, tools and procedures in the humanitarian response system and will be prepared to practice these in a sustainable manner from relief to recovery.

At the end of the course, the student should be able to:

  • Demonstrate a critical and practical understanding of the approaches, analytical tools, standards and principles applied in the humanitarian response to shelter and settlements in disasters
  • Apply the approaches, analytical tools, standards and principles applied in the humanitarian response to shelter and settlements in disasters.
  • Critically analyse a complex disaster situation (case study), define the needs, objectives and standards in order to prepare a "Consolidated Shelter Strategy", including the outline of a minimum of four shelter intervention.
The methodology of the three course components combines e-learning (Absalon system) with face-to-face campus learning. The course includes an initial four-week knowledge building phase followed by two weeks campus lecturing, group discussions, workshops and written assignments. This phase will incorporate visiting practitioners invited to share their knowledge and real-time experiences during lectures and discussions. The final two weeks e-learning is focused on a written assignment as the final thesis.

Some information about online learning
During the online weeks you will only meet and interact with your teachers and fellow students in the University of Copenhagen's online learning platform.

A typical E-module is composed of:

An introduction to the topic
An overview of the purpose, the subjects and the intended learning outcome
A short study guide
Learning resources (which can be text, audio and/or video files)
Several exercises called E-lessons.
The E-lessons are online learning activities which can be questionnaires, assignments or online discussions. The roles of the teachers are to assist student learning by serving as E-moderators for the various E-lessons.
  • Category
  • Hours
  • E-Learning
  • 60
  • Exam
  • 23
  • Lectures
  • 40
  • Practical exercises
  • 5
  • Theory exercises
  • 10
  • Total
  • 138
Credit
5 ECTS
Type of assessment
Written assignment
Home assignment
Aid
All aids allowed
Marking scale
7-point grading scale
Censorship form
No external censorship
More than one internal examiner
Criteria for exam assesment

To achieve the maximum grade of 12, the student shall be able to:

  • Demonstrate a critical and practical understanding of the approaches, analytical tools, standards and principles applied in the humanitarian response to shelter and settlements in disasters
  • Apply the approaches, analytical tools, standards and principles applied in the humanitarian response to shelter and settlements in disasters.
  • Critically analyse a complex disaster situation (case study), define the needs, objectives and standards in order to prepare a "Consolidated Shelter Strategy", including the outline of a minimum of four shelter intervention.