LIBR 246-11 Web 2.0 (Summer 2011)

Printer-friendly version

I wanted to remind you to email me your Group Experience Report after you've completed your group project and to explain why this requirement exists. This is a part of the grade for the final project and it's critical that I receive one from each of you by Thursday at the latest. To refresh your memory:

Experience report: Each of you will need to email me a brief summary of the group experience and your perception of each group member's contribution to the finished product. This doesn't have to be formal; just a brief summary. 25% of the total grade for the group project will be individual and will be based on the reports I get from you and your group members.

The report can be very brief and informal -- just an email explaining what each group member contributed to the project and how you feel the group worked together. It can just be a quick paragraph though if you feel like you want to provide more detail, that's fine too.

I wanted to explain why I require each person in the class to submit a group experience report. Frequently, when people are assigned a group project, their first concern is "what if someone doesn't pull their weight?" Often, one or two people will end up doing a lion's share of the work to make up for their teammates' lack of commitment. While I believe group projects are valuable learning experiences, I do not necessarily think that everyone in the group should receive the same grade, particularly in situations when some did not carry their weight and others did the bulk of the work. I've been in situations where the work of one person lowered the group's grade and once had a situation where I discovered one member of the group was plagiarising content from a website. A group should not have bear the full weight of the mistakes of one or two people. So, while 75% of your grade is based on how the group did as a whole, 25% is based on what you did as an individual. And how I determine what your contribution was is based on the reports from you and your teammates. Last time I taught the class, I only had one group where students received different grades because of their widely varrying contributions, so, in most cases, everyone does receive the same grade because everyone's contributions were relatively equal and executed at an equivalent quality level.

If you have any questions about this, just let me know.