Assignment 3: Group research project

Deadline: Friday Dec 5 at 10:00 P.M.

Working in teams of 3-5 people you will pick a �Technology� and an �Issue� which may be business oriented, political, cultural, scientific, or artistic. The results of your work must be posted on the U of C Wiki for this course. (If you wish to create a PowerPoint presentation summary of your findings in addition to your wiki page for the in class presentation you are encouraged to do so but keep in mind that your slides are not to act as a substitute for the wiki). You can look at term projects from past semesters to gain ideas as to what projects have gone on before. You SHOULD NOT repeat a theme from a past project, without your TA's explicit approval. All the material you develop must be original, rather than sampled from past projects. If in doubt, check the U of C's honesty policy: http://www.ucalgary.ca/honesty/ and check with your TA.

Introduction

The assignment description is meant to provide some simple guidance in filling in the marking sheet for the term project. Throughout the term project, you have the opportunity to get guidance on your term project from your Teaching Assistant and course instructor. In general, groups that incorporate our guidance should do well. The marking of the term-projects requires judgment similar to the marking of an essay. Overall marks will focus is on the strength, organization, clarity, and effective presentation of the argument the students are making.  It is the student's onus to seek advice and feedback (in tutorial hours, CT hours, or by other means), we won't chase down each group to see how they are doing during the term.

There is usually a single mark/team. However there may be some students who have not contributed as much as their team mates, and hence will be scored lower. One way to check contributions is to use the "History" tab on the group's wiki to see who is contributing. If there are issues with contributions of group members (i.e., some group members appear to be putting in more work than others) then the following should be done in the following order:

  1. Try to discuss the matter among your group at the earliest possible opportunity. It's important to do this (much) sooner than later because the longer that you wait the more bad feelings start to develop. Something that could have been settled logically and amicably early on often becomes purely based on emotion if put off for too long. Also keep in mind that sometimes the apparent inequalities in workload are merely perceived inequalities (e.g., sometimes it takes longer to write up 2 pages of content relating to a tougher topic than it does to summarize 10 pages of pre-distilled work). Talking about things make clear up these misconceptions!
  2. If the previous approach has been tried (to a reasonable extent) then try to contact your tutorial instructor and see if he or she can help to straighten out things during class when everyone is around.
  3. If you still have no luck then you can take it a step further and try getting your course instructor (me) involved. Sometimes if things end up going this far then it's a bad sign (although not always!) so it doesn't hurt to make sure that you have a paper trail (i.e., document your wiki and presentation to show who did what) so if there is a need to sort through it all then there is clear evidence of inequality. (It may be difficult to do anything even if group members state that there was an uneven division of labor if there is no technical evidence to back it up).

 

Components

Initial research statement: 20 marks
 

This is a more formal write up of the project proposal that you provided your TA earlier in the semester. Provide a brief introduction about your project, how it works (don't assume that everyone will know the details of every project) what are some of the associated issues. Marking: 15 marks are allocated for providing informal proposals to the TA and incorporating some of his/her feedback in the final proposal, 5 marks are allocated for how well the research statement has been expressed.

Background research: 20 marks
 

The number of background references will vary depending upon the technology (e.g., if groups pick and new and/or obscure technology there will be less material available). The general rule of thumb is that each group member should have 10 reasonable references (e.g., citing someone's personal blog or in some cases even a commercial site such as Wikipedia are really reliable sources of information) . Marks may be taken off even if groups include more than 10 references but some of those references are weak. Examples of reasonably good sources information include: universities, research web sites1 (e.g., http://www.acm.org, http://www.ieee.org, software or hardware vendors (e.g., www.microsoft.com, http://www.ea.com, http://www.konami.com/), news websites that have reviews of new technology or pertinent articles (e.g., www.cnn.com, www.canada.com) or even trade magazines (e.g., www.pcmag.com, www.cnet.com, www.tomshardware.com, www.gamespot.com etc.) Note: You don't need 10 different sites to meet this guideline but you do need at 10 separate web address or articles (which can come from just a handful of reasonably good sources). Finally if your topic is about an established technology don't forget checking out the library as a source of information!

1 With many of these websites a membership is required. For the ACM portal you can freely access research papers if you are logged onto a university computer (not just the ones in the 203 lab but any one on campus should work).

Justification of your position or positions: 20 marks
 

Presentation: 10 marks.  Marks will be allocated for criteria such as how clearly arguments are presented, how well arguments hang together (one part of the discussion shouldn't contradict other parts), are points presented in a logical fashion etc. (Typically 7 marks will be given for the average projects, groups must work to present their points extraordinarily well to score higher than this).
 

Justification: 10 marks. Marks will be allocated in this section for how well groups back up the points that they presented in the previous section. This where groups that have performed in-depth research of their topics will shine because the references should be used as evidence to back up their positions.  (Typically 7 marks will be given for the average projects, groups must work to present their points extraordinarily well to score higher than this).

Wiki web page: 20 marks

 

Organization: 10 marks. How well are things laid out on the page? Is it easy or hard to find things. Are items grouped logically or does the reader have to hunt to find relevant information? (Some of the applied principles of Information Visualization such as C.R.A.P. (from the notes on spreadsheets) can be applied in this section).

 

Design and presentation: 10 marks. Are the representations appropriate and do they assist the reader in understanding the points in the wiki? Certainly having an appropriate mix of images and text is a good starting point but you should look at the discussion of different representations (e.g., the appropriate and inappropriate use of color, Gestalt principles etc., a summary of these topics can be found in the notes on spreadsheets).

In class presentation: 20 marks

 

Point of view: 5 marks. How clear a stand does the group take during the presentation? Is it clearly defined or does it waffle between the extremes?

 

Content: 5 marks. During the presentation, how well does the group back up their arguments. Although this information may be listed on the group's wiki at least a summary of major points should be provided during the presentation.

 

Design: 5 marks. Whether you use just your Wiki in presentation (not recommended because it's meant to allow groups to collaborate on the web not for delivering live presentations) or if you employ dedicated software for giving presentations (e.g., PowerPoint) this section evaluates how well your presentation materials were organized and designed (it will be marked in a similar fashion to how your Wiki web page was marked). If you do use something other than your wiki during the presentation make sure that you send your presentation to me and your TA.

 

Quality of the presentation: 5 marks. Was the presentation well rehearsed and prepared or did the group simply "wing it" during the presentation. Did 'glitches' occur during the presentation that could have been prevented had the group been better organized and prepared (e.g., Preparing a presentation using custom software and expecting that the custom software will work on generic Windows XP computer in the lecture room is not a good idea).

Marking Sheet for Term Project: [Excel spreadsheet]

Submission

For this assignment if you just use the wiki you don't have to email anything to the course instructor or the TA because right after the deadline the tutorial instructor will be downloading your work from the university site (that means that even if you do continue to work on it after the deadline your work won't be marked). However if your group decides to use additional software for their term project (e.g., PowerPoint presentation) then this needs to be submitted as per the assignment submission specifications before your presentation.

Original Work

All the work your group submits must be original, and developed by the group. If in doubt, check the U of C's honesty policy: http://www.ucalgary.ca/honesty/ and check with your TA. Also be aware of U of C's definitions of Plagiarism/Cheating/Other Academic Misconduct and the penalties and procedures associated with incidents of Plagiarism/Cheating/Other Academic Misconduct: http://www.ucalgary.ca/pubs/calendar/2007/how/How_LB.htm

Citation

Projects from past semesters

Examples from previous semesters can be found at:

Topics that have been repeatedly covered in past semesters are discouraged. If any past topics are cited, be sure to follow proper source citation procedures (see above).