Advanced Certificate of Competence in Report Evaluation

Reports are an important product of every technical process. A report represents the final product of a project and a poorly written report can undermine the work that has been completed, obscure important findings and potentially alienate stakeholders.    Writing and reading reports can be a time-consuming chore for the author, the person responsible for reviewing and authorising them and the recipient.  

This 3-day course provides the skills required to critically read and evaluate technical reports in acoustics.    While the course is appropriate to a wide audience it is aimed primarily at those people responsible for signing off on reports for quality control (for example peer reviewing or reviewing reports from junior colleagues in consultancies) as well as those reviewing reports for compliance purposes such as senior positions in pollution control, environmental health practice or planning, and anywhere else that technical reporting is important.   

The course makes considerable use of group discussion and reviewing of a wide range of real-world and mock acoustic reports to assess them for completeness, technical accuracy, presentation of content and overall evaluation.  

Candidates will:

• Explore the key principles of good reporting
• Assess a range of real-world and mock reports
• Consider the quality of method, data and analysis in reports.
• Evaluate whether an assessment correctly reflects the results.
• Annotate reports and provide constructive feedback.

Candidates will undertake the Certificate at an Accredited Centre.  Attendance at the Centre is normally two days for tuition, plus a half-day for a written assessment on the third day.

Candidates will be provided with a case study report to read and review critically. Candidates will review and mark-up the report for feedback, and answer a number of specific questions on the content of the report. The assessment is under exam conditions but is open-book, with candidates able to access appropriate reference materials.

23-25 March 2026, held at KP Acoustics Research Labs in Southampton

22-24 April 2026, Scotland (location TBC).

For further information on either course please contact education@kpacoustics.com 

KP Acoustics Research Labs in Southampton

Scotland - Location TBC

For further information on either course please contact education@kpacoustics.com