CSc 302 Computers and Society
Group Project Guidelines
The Objectives
- To practice reading, scholarly inquiry, and communication skills.
- To engage in an intellectual and creative activity that requires
you to synthesize, explain, and critique CSc 302 issues for others.
- To learn how to function as an effective member of a team in
cooperative efforts and problem solving to achieve shared goals.
The Group
Each group consists of at least three and at most four students.
Students must take the initiative to form their own group.
The instructor will be happy to serve as a resource if you need
assistance.
The Proposal
Your group must submit a proposal for your presentation. The
proposal must contain:
- A list of the names of the group members.
- The topic or issue you have selected for your presentation.
- A description of your presentation. (See "Presentation"
below).
- A schedule (dates) and a list of specific research and
preparation tasks to be performed by each
person in the group.
The proposal is due at the start of class on the date indicated on the
course calendar.
Presentations will be scheduled during the final exam period.
The Research Notebook
Each group is required to create a notebook that documents the
background research you performed to become knowledgeable about your
chosen topic. The notebook is a standard three-ring binder with
loose leaf pages.
Each page contains a copy of some specific
reference or source material relevant to your topic such as a magazine
article, a newspaper clipping, a company brochure, etc. If your
source material was a book, television documentary, or other reference
that can't be physically included in the binder, just place a
bibliographic citation at the top of the page. There is no
instructor requirement for number of references; you have to decide for
yourself when you have reached an appropriate level of competence or
expertise about the topic.
Each entry
must include a typewritten summary of the item. The summary
should be proportional to the length of the reference. A
newspaper article can be summarized in a short paragraph; a book may
require a page to summarize. The summary must also include an
analysis, opinion, or reflection by one or more group members. Be
sure to identify the group member who wrote the summary.
Any other items that you gather during your research or preparation for
the presentation would be appropriate for the notebook. Examples
include, notes from interviews with experts, sketches of visual aids,
informal scripts for skits, or storyboards for a video.
The Presentation
Each group must present the results of their explorations to the
class. The presentation may be in
the form of a debate, a mock meeting of company executives or
government regulatory agency, an interview with an expert, a dramatic
reenactment of an actual event, a music video, or other creative
production to impress your audience with the relevance and importance
of the issue and help them understand both the pro and con
perspectives. (Lectures and Power Point presentations are not
allowed). Presentations should be about twenty minutes
long.
The Grade
There are three components to the group project grade:
Proposal
|
5%
|
Notebook
|
25%
|
Presentation
|
70%
|
The Presentation will be evaluated using the same criteria as the Guidelines
for Oral Presentations. However, because the group
presentations will be more creative than the structured individual
talks, less emphasis will be placed on the organization of the material
and more emphasis will be placed on the creativity brought to
interpreting the topic and how successful you are at engaging the
audience.
Each group member is awarded an individual grade on the project; there
is no "group grade." The group must submit a credits page
with
the notebook that
lists the specific tasks, roles, responsibilities, and work products
contributed by each group member. The entire group should be
involved in writing the credits page. The assigned grade can be
different for each individual depending on
the quantity and quality of their contribution to the group
effort.
Document History
10/25/04 Version 1.0
10/27/04 Added more examples of notebook items