Final Projects

--- same as http://wikieducator.org/User:Vtaylor/Computers_and_Society/Final_Project_Guidelines

also see Collaboration and Group Projects

Final Project Guidelines

The Final Project is an opportunity to demonstrate the application of everything that you have learned in this class.

Everyone proposes a final project outline based on one of the topics provided in the Final Project selection list. With a small group, you are required to work with your team members to refine the proposal, then research and prepare one project presentation for the group.

See Final Project information on WikiEducator.org page for this semester for specific topics.

Be sure to include your own original ideas and suggestions for improving and benefiting society. Why is this issue interesting? What important information do we need to know about the topic? Your presentation should conclude with a summary and a statement about the implications for society in the future.

You must include references from the web. More information about the Project Proposal and Project Groups are provided below.

Module 7

Groups of 4-5 students work together to prepare a presentation on the Final Project topic. The final presentation is developed and presented as a wiki page collaboration. Include references to a minimum of 8-10 online articles that are appropriate to your discussion.

Review Collaborative Projects - Collaboration and Group Projects for an overview of the process of collaborating online.

Select the project topic that you want to work on, based on the theme for this semester.

Module 8

Divide up the work so everyone will make a contribution to the final presentation. Prepare a timeline or schedule with due dates. Include dates for final presentation outline, individual research, individual section completion, introduction and conclusion writing, review and editing. Prepare an outline of the entire presentation.

Module 9

You should be working with your team on your Final Project.

Module 10

Every member should be participating in the final presentation review and editing as well as contributing suggestions.

Final Project submission

When you have completed your Final Project place a link to your project in the Final Projects discussion. Use Final Project quiz to "submit" your project evaluation. There are several questions to answer.

Peer Review

Review and provide feedback on at least 2 projects. Post your reviews to the Review and Feedback discussion. Use the Rubric in the Grading Criteria as a guide to evaluating the other project presentations.

Learn more...

• project proposal
• project groups
• suggestions for project work
• project presentation
• suggestions for group writing

These are discussed in detail below.

Project Proposal

Everyone will propose a final project presentation. Don't write your part yet - just a proposal. Remember, the project must be completed by the group, so you need to be thinking about your selected Final Project topic's global social issues and how they can be helped or hindered by technology. Make sure the topic is broad enough for several people to work together to cover the subject.

The proposal should include:

• the importance of your selected Final Project topic, and associated social and technology issues

• 2-3 sentence description of the objective, point of view and list of subtopics that might be addressed.

• describe some research that you would expect to find about the subject that would support these views

• suggest some roles and responsibilities for the 3-5 team members who will be completing the project presentation

Work on forming a project group. Set up a discussion area for your group. Make sure you know who is working in your Final Project team. Everyone who selects a topic will participate on the team building that project presentation.

Review and comment on your classmates' proposals. You can modify your proposal during this process. By reviewing and commenting on proposals, modifying and refining proposals with these suggestions, your group should have an outline for the whole presentation.

Project Groups

For the project work, everyone will be part of a project team. For final project groups, 3-5 people work best. There isn't enough discussion with just 2 people. It is hard to get the job done with more than 5.

To help with organization, here is a list of roles and responsibilities. Someone in the group should be assigned to each. One person can have more than one role. Everyone on the team should have at least one role.

If you think of other roles and responsibilities, let me know and I'll add them to the list.

• Project manager - oversees project goals, timeline

• Team coordinator - follows up with team members, reminds others to get deliverables done on time

• Recorder - keeps project notes, summarizes information

• Writer / Subject matter expert - everyone is the expert in their area of responsibility

• Editor - consistent "voice" throughout project

• Content manager / librarian - keeps versions, member submissions

• Style coordinator - ensures standards, conventions followed by all. This should be someone familiar with college writing and appropriate use of reference citations.

• Tech wiz - helps the team with web delivery of the project presentation

• Reviewers - everyone reviews the final presentation

Suggestions for Project Work

• List all the things that need to be done and the order they must be completed - team brainstorm so everyone participates, use collaborative writing on your topic wiki page so everyone is adding to a shared list

• Choose roles - works best if people pick what they are good at and are interested in doing. Or try something you have never done before - this is supposed to be a learning experience!

• Divide up tasks, set time times, assign responsibilities

• Communicate, communicate, communicate - let everyone know how you are doing, ask for help if you need it.

• Schedule regular "check in" times - there is nothing worse than not knowing that a key piece is not finished.

• Rearrange roles and responsibilities if necessary - things happen that prevent well-meaning classmates from being able to put in the time they thought they could, so don't let that mess up the project for everyone else.

• Ask for help if you need it.

• Collaborate - it is ok to challenge ideas (nothing personal, though). If some other group member challenges your idea, explain your position again. Try using different words or a different explanation or add examples. This is how we learn best. You should be challenging your own ideas, anticipating the questions of others.

• Be flexible - do the best you can with what you have - time, resources, ideas. Pitch in and help if you have extra time.

• Have fun - this is your chance to really have a great learning experience. It will be as good as you make it for yourself.

Project Presentation

• Groups of 3-5 students work together to prepare a project on one of the topics covered in this course.

• The presentation will be a wiki page. The final presentation should include 5-8 subtopics and must include citations and references as links.

• Citations should be APA (American Psychological Association) style and used consistently. Citations should be in one final section and referenced in the body of the project presentation. APA includes formatting for web references. APA is preferable, but MLA format citations are acceptable. Pick one format and be consistent.

• This will be a web-based presentation. If someone in the group has some expertise or at least some familiarity with web page creation, that will help. However, the wiki tools are very easy to use, even for a novice.

• You will be sharing your work with the outside world. You will need to be extra careful about respecting the copyrights of materials you include. Reference all your sources. Include media that is explicitly open source or copyright free.

• Be sure to include a discussion about the impact on society. This can be opinion but it must be based on facts found in the references. Present both sides of a controversial topic, but be sure to back-up the arguments with references.

• Include references to 8-10 online articles that are appropriate to your discussion. If possible include the date of the article. Consider how current the information is for the topic. For subjects like viruses and copyright laws, articles published more than a year ago may not reflect the current situation.

• Create an outline for the report. This will help the group organize the work. Include an introduction and a summary. Be sure to discuss your conclusions - So what? Why should we care about this? Why is it important to society?

• Use headers as appropriate. Help your readers follow the main topics of the report.

• Use bullet lists sparingly if you have several short points to include in a topic.

Suggestions for Group Writing

Here are some suggestions to help your group prepare your Final Project presentation.

• Create an outline for your presentation. Include a brief description of the information that will be in each section. Making a very detailed outline and sticking to it will help keep everyone on track and reduce duplication of effort.

• Each team member should research and write one or more sections. Before any writing starts, be sure that you know how all the pieces will fit together. This will save time and ensure that your final presentation flows smoothly.

• Dividing the work in a way that each person’s section is related but not dependent on the others’ sections is effective. Each person takes one topic and explores it from the beginning to the end. This way integrating each person’s part to the final presentation is easier.

• This is a group effort, so writing should not include "I" statements.

• The final report review is everyone's job. Revision can be done by the entire group OR by the group member who volunteers to be the Editor with input and suggestions from the group. Everyone on the team still participates in the final review.

• If all groups members are revising the final presentation, use the page "discussion" to explain changes for your team.

• If there is an Editor, that person makes changes to the final, combined document. Others should review the presentation and make suggestions for final edits. However, the editor for the group project reports should not be making significant changes to the submission of others. If the editor feels that there should be revisions, discuss it with the author of the section. Correcting spelling and minor grammatical errors is ok.

• Spelling and neatness count. Even though this is a course in the Computer Information Systems (CIS) department, all writing, citations and formatting are being graded by college-level writing standards.

• Online writing assistance is available for distance learning students taking classes that involve writing assignments. In order to use the service, students must register by filling out a tutoring application, which you can access online from the URL. However, check the dates of service - the tutorial service usually ends before the end of the quarter, so you may need to plan accordingly. http://faculty.deanza.fhda.edu/writingcenter/

• Allow more time than you think you will need. Create a timeline and stick to it. Schedule rough drafts to be done early so there is enough time to review and revise the combined report. Collaborating online takes time.

• The wiki automatically tracks changes so you can view previous versions as History. The main view is always the current version so there should not be any issues when working collaboratively on the writing.

• There is a forum for questions about the Final project assignment. If you have questions, please ask!

More about Group work ...

Do your part and be responsible for your work. It is critical that you check on the groups' progress as often as you can. A one man team cannot be called a group.

• Make sure that you do your best to get assigned with others that work as frequently as you. You do not want to hold back the faster ones.
• Try your level best to contribute equally.
• If possible, let your group know ahead of time if you will have any bumps along the way.
• Plan a schedule with the other group members and stick to it.

Hopefully, at the end you would have had fun working with other students and have learned something valuable in the process.

• punctuality - everyone has a crazy schedule of some sort but considering that we are in this class, we should consider it as part of our busy schedule. It's good to respond to your group at a reasonable time and be on top of the tasks with the group because sometimes your group is waiting to include you.

• one benefit of having group work, incorporated within an online class, is that it allows the students to understand the subject matter from the perspective of his/her peers. Three or four heads are better than one. However, in any group work setting, communication is the key component to achieving successful results. We have the technology to communicate with our group members from anywhere in the world, so lets use it.

• group work eliminates the need of meeting physically. I may sound silly, but believe me, in some of my online class, students decided to meet outside in library etc, which is totally inconvenient for many. Some don’t understand that this is online class and there shouldn’t be any need to meet outside. Meeting outside not only waste time, but also takes longer time to come to an agreement. I also totally agree that disciple is the key concept for any online work.

• the most important thing when we do a discussion for online group work is the matter of time. We don't have much time, and how to make everyone anticipate in a discussion which is not a easy matter.

• time is a huge concern with group work. It is essential that everyone in the group meets and discusses the topic on time so that we can have a concise answer. I totally understand that everyone is busy, hence why we are all taking online classes, so maybe the best thing for group work is not to have it at all in the online setting.

• Since punctuality is a huge concern with online group work, utilizing the Catalyst chat functionality may be beneficial. Schedule a time with your group when everyone can come online and discuss the material. This will allow the discussion to flow like in class and would prevent the long delays that take away from the dynamics of a discussion.

• be ready to work - At first I felt a bit overwhelmed with the work because the workload included many assignments and due dates which seemed like a lot. Now, heading into the fourth week I feel confident in knowing I can pass this class because I have been actively engaging in conversations with many of my classmates and checking the site daily. Consistency is key for online group work or any online class. Checking the website daily to respond to my online group or just to make sure your on top of things helps out a lot. In addition, I would also like to say motivation is a must because it's 6 weeks crammed full of information and assignments which is normally meant for a full 12 week class.

• make sure to check the forums everyday to help stay on track. Group work is beneficial because it can make an online class feel more interactive rather than just reading the book and doing assignments. It makes the class a little harder to manage schedule wise, but as long as everyone does their part it isn't that bad.

• really put yourself out there and not to think of the class as any less important or serious simply because it is online only. You should still contribute even more because you are missing out on so much without being in a classroom environment. I also think that you should really try and allow everyone in the class, and the instructor, to get to know you, because that will make working together easier and a lot more fun!

• It should be better if the Group leader divides the works and other members picks the assignment by their own preference. Everyone should do their part on time, this is very necessary. We should often keep in touch with each other to update with all the works.

• the most important things for group work is knowing who's in charge of what and being flexible but also punctual, depending on the task at hand. Working together can be difficult depending on the people, so having a good group to work with would consist of every person being responsible and ready to work.

• Stay up to date and keep checking your email! Don't make the mistake of falling behind when everyone else is moving ahead of you. Since you can't meet anyone, there will be no one but yourself to remind you to stay on track. If you suddenly see a drop in emails or people begin to disappear from the topics you're on, you're falling behind.

• I do not agree with the assumption that setting aside a time to chat is easier than posting to the forums. Con: Grant it, we all log in at different times and can not all talk at once. Pro: However, everyone has very different schedules, and makes it really hard to meet at a specified time in a chatroom.

• an online class that meets electronically over a six week time-frame and has no other form of communication it is very inefficient to complete group assignments and tasks. In order to complete an assignment it will take much more time and energy to do it over the internet rather than if we had time to work at a physical location.

According to http://library.riohondo.edu/Info_Comp/WhatIsInfoComp.htm ‘An information-competent student or graduate doesn’t just know how to find information; s/he has the ability to determine whether the information is useful and appropriate.” I actually went online to see if there was a good way to “determine if someone is ‘information competent’” and found an excellent website, http://library.csudh.edu/infocomp/quiz.html . The quiz which is presented has 27 multiple choice questions, and the program determines if you actually are ‘information competent’. ..nb 08m