Smart Ageing and Gerontology Project

HSCI 8621NEF

Course Guide

SMART AGEING AND GERONTOLOGY PROJECT

HSCI 8621NEF

Course Guide

SMART AGEING AND GERONTOLOGY PROJECT

Course Start Date

Spr 2026

Course Level

Postgraduate

Length in Terms

1 term

Credits

6

Language

English

Fees ($) (including lab fees)

Details

Future Terms

Quota and Schedule

Course Start Date	Course Level	Length in Terms	Credits	Language	Fees ($) (including lab fees)	Future Terms
Spr 2026	Postgraduate	1 term	6	English	Details

Quota and Schedule

Course Coordinator:

Dr Tam Chun Wai, BSc, MPhil, PhD (HKU)

Introduction

HSCI 8621NEF Smart Ageing and Gerontology Project is a one-term, six-credit-unit, postgraduate level course offered to first year students of the Master of Science in Smart Ageing and Gerontology programme. This is a joint course with SAG603 Capstone Project of Lingnan University.

Smart ageing and gerontology is the intersection of ageing and technology, generating social science insights and offering new opportunities for a competitive advantage. New digital technologies have fundamentally changed our everyday world in the ageing society over the past years and have led to a dramatic shift in various fields, including health care, social service, and family and living. This course invites students to independently undertake a project in the field of smart ageing and gerontology. This course is in the form of a capstone project where students are expected to put the theoretical and experiential knowledge they have obtained from the programme to use. Students are also expected to produce a research report that meets the standard academic project.

The project can be undertaken either individually or in a group of 2–3 students. It can be undertaken in three ways as follows:

Case study approach: Students opting for this approach will be expected to address a clearly stated research question. Aside from engaging critically with the theoretical debates and empirical literature on the selected topic, students must support their arguments with a case study from activities involving relevant agencies or institutions involved in ageing research or service provision. Students can report their experiences and lessons learned as part of experiential field trips in the course. They can also present cases from their own workplaces or experiences and/or observations from other experiential courses in this programme.
An empirical study: Based on skills obtained in data analytics and other methodological lessons, students can embark on a manageable study involving primary or secondary data.
A critical literature review: In this approach, students are expected to produce a body of work aimed at addressing specific research question(s) using existing literature as the primary source of information.

Aims

enable students to gain a community-based understanding and practise that around the smart ageing issues;
discuss new models and strategies that could help to develop a smart ageing society;
critically examine current issues and problems brought by smart ageing;
identify and analyse problems and issues by utilising case studies, textual analysis and various methods for data analysis; and
enable students to develop scientific thinking and critical writing skills.

Learning outcomes

Upon successful completion of the course, students should be able to:

gain an overview of smart ageing, gerontology, and gerontechology through various activities;
identify appropriate analytic tools to develop understandings on current social, economic, political and technological issues around ageing;
apply advanced techniques to design and discuss the major concentration of developing a smart ageing society;
present findings and recommendations based on rigorous analysis and sound reasoning; and
engage with a community-based practice for knowledge mobilisation and transferring.

Contents

Fundamental elements
Critical literature review
Survey design
Implementation science
Approach to data analysis
Get your research disseminated

Learning support

Lectures , workshops, tutorial, consultative session

Assessment

Continuous assessment includes two individual presentations, a progress report and a final report.

Electronic submission of assignments is allowed.

Required/Essential readings

Bell, J., & Waters, S. (2014). Doing your research project: A guide for first-time researchers (6th ed.). Open University Press.

Fico, G., Montalva, J., Medrano, A., Liappas, N., Mata-Díaz, A., Cea, G., & Arredondo, M. T. (2017). Co-creating with consumers and stakeholders to understand the benefit of Internet of Things in Smart Living Environments for Ageing Well: The approach adopted in the Madrid Deployment Site of the ACTIVAGE Large Scale Pilot. In H. Eskola, O. Väisänen, J. Viik, & J. Hyttinen (Eds.), EMBEC & NBC 2017, IFMBE Proceedings 65 (pp. 1089–1092). Springer Singapore.

Morsi, Y. S., Shukla, A., & Rathore, C. P. (2015). Supporting active and healthy aging with advanced robotics integrated in smart environment. In Y. S. Morsi, A. Shukla, & C. P. Rathore, Optimizing assistive technologies for aging populations(pp. 46–77). IGI Global.

Sykes K. E., & Robinson, K. N. (2016). Making the right moves: Promoting smart growth and active aging in communities. In K. G. Fitzgerald & F. G. Caro (Eds.), International perspectives on age-friendly cities (pp. 197–211). Routledge.

Online requirement

Access to OLE

Equipment and software

A computer with a word-processing software, preferably Microsoft Word, installed.

Set book(s)

To be included in the course materials