Presenting and submitting the group project

INFM 718J / LBSC 708P - Communities of Practice and Online Communities

Group Project: “Communities of Practice Learning Center”

Presenting and submitting the group project (The plan for the last two weeks of class - 12/1 and 12/8)

Penultimate class presentation (12/1)

The week before the final class each project team will present its work as fully as possible. The aim of this presentation is to identify work that needs to be done before final submission of the project the following week. This presentation will not be a basis for grading. Drs. Diker and Preece will also be involved in reviewing the project components and providing feedback at this meeting. You can think of this presentation as a more structured version of the "team debriefs" we had twice in the past. This presentation should not exceed 10 minutes for each team, so that we can have time for discussion and team work.

The format for this presentation is that one or more people from the project team will present the team’s work. One person could be assisted by the rest of the team as necessary or two people may present. You may want to select someone other than the project manager and liaison in order to spread the work around the team. You can decide who the presenter(s) should be.

We could start with a presentation from any of the teams but in the absence of a better idea we will start with a presentation from “Design”; they will tell us what they suggested the design should be and why. Then “Implementation” can tell us why the actual implementation is as it is. Then the teams that follow can use the implemented system to demonstrate what they have contributed.

Each team should be able to describe what its members have done, why they did it, and most importantly, what remains to be done by next week.

If you wish you can base your presentation on the suggestions for the final class presentation listed below. Obviously the closer your penultimate presentation is to the final presentation the less work you need to do for the final presentation!

Please don’t forget that the aim of this presentation is to identify what must be completed by the deadline the following week. You will not be graded on this presentation. It is OK, and in fact expected, to have unfinished work, problems, and other issues with your contribution to the project. These should be laid on the table, so that we (the students and the instructors) can address them to the best of our abilities.

Final group project submission, presentation and grading (12/8)

Submission

You should submit all your work online, including a record of who contributed what to each of the teams. This will be achieved by the final project narrative document that will be compiled by the editorial team. To clarify this further, individual teams are not expected to submit separate documents, but submit their contributions to the editorial team. Our understanding is that this process is already working under the leadership of the editorial team.

Presentation

Each project team should present in class the work of that team and a brief description of who did what and why you made the decisions you made.

The presentation should take approximately 10 minutes

Your presentation should take the form of an online demonstration of your team’s part of the project.

One team member or a pair of team members may be the presenters with the rest of the team members feeding in comments and answering questions. For example, often one person talks and another person drives the display. Or one person presents part and another person presents a different part. Alternatively you may have more presenters.

Grading

We aim to give the same grade to the whole team because the project is a team effort. However, for various reasons the world is not perfect and not everyone contributes the same amount. Consequently, some people end up contributing a lot more than others. Therefore, in order to be fair we take the team grade and raise it or lower it in order to give an individual grade to each of you.

In order to make an assessment, three components feed into determining each person’s individual grade: (i) the opinions of the rest of the team, (ii) the opinions of other teams about our team, and (iii) the Professors’ assessment of the project and our interpretations of the teams' opinions. While this may sound like an inaccurate method, experience has shown that the majority of people are honest about their team members, and other groups. People are eager to give credit when deserved or to provide feedback about a person who has not contributed to the team, or a team which has not contributed to the overall project as expected. In fact, there are no more grade challenges for group project work than for individual assignments.

This is what each of you will do. You will complete an email or a hard copy form that you will return to Drs. Diker and Preece with the following information. This information is absolutely confidential. Having received this information and after discussion we will award a grade to each student. You will also be told whether your grade is the same as that for the project team as a whole, or whether it is higher or lower and why. Team managers should also send the instructors an evaluation of the other teams after consulting with their teammates. An example form is below, following the individual evaluation form. The team evaluation form can be send as email or hardcopy.

This is the information that the email will ask you about.

Individual Evaluation Form (Each student should fill out this form evaluating his/her teammates, and submit it via email or as hardcopy.)

Please provide feedback about the contribution of each of the other four members of your project team. Please paste and copy this form to your email message, or print it out and submit a hard copy. First give the name of your team and then give your name. Then, for each member of your project team please:

(i) give the person’s name

(ii) rate the person’s contribution to the group project by checking the box to the left of the statement that best describes that person’s contribution. (You may type XX in the appropriate box, or delete the other rows and just keep the appropriate row if you are sending an email.)

(iii) add any additional comments that help to explain your rating. Please be as specific as possible but do not write pages!

Project team name:

Your name:

(i) Name of project member:

(ii)

	+2	Exceeded substantially expectations
	+1	Exceeded slightly expectations
	0	Met expectations
	-1	Fell slightly below expectations
	-2	Fell substantially below expectations

(iii) Additional comments:

(i) Name of project member:

(ii)

	+2	Exceeded substantially expectations
	+1	Exceeded slightly expectations
	0	Met expectations
	-1	Fell slightly below expectations
	-2	Fell substantially below expectations

(iii) Additional comments:

(i) Name of project member:

(ii)

	+2	Exceeded substantially expectations
	+1	Exceeded slightly expectations
	0	Met expectations
	-1	Fell slightly below expectations
	-2	Fell substantially below expectations

(iii) Additional comments:

(i) Name of project member:

(ii)

	+2	Exceeded substantially expectations
	+1	Exceeded slightly expectations
	0	Met expectations
	-1	Fell slightly below expectations
	-2	Fell substantially below expectations

(iii) Additional comments:

Team Evaluation Form (Team managers should fill out this form evaluating the other teams, and submit it via email or as hardcopy. Only one submission by each team is expected.)

Please provide feedback about the contribution of each of the other five teams. Please paste and copy this form to your email message, or print it out and submit a hard copy. First give the name of your team. Then, for each team (excluding yours) please:

(i) give the team’s name

(ii) rate the team’s contribution to the group project by checking the box to the left of the statement that best describes that team’s contribution. (You may type XX in the appropriate box, or delete the other rows and just keep the appropriate row if you are sending an email.)

(iii) add any additional comments that help to explain your rating. Please be as specific as possible but do not write pages!

Project team name (Your team):