Week 2 Tuesday

Good Morning,

Just a reminder that I'll be assigning to groups late this afternoon anyone who has not already signed up for a group. It was interesting to see yesterday that the groups for people who like to get things done early were filling fast and those for people who prefer to work closer to deadline were still empty. I'm hoping that means we'll have some groups that are compatible in terms of work styles.

Again, the best advice I can give you for getting this project off the ground is to make sure you have a handle on what the project is asking you to do, and then appoint a project manager.

What the project is asking you to do is to pick a city, develop a plan for doing research on that city (this becomes the Research Design Plan), do the research, and tell the company what information employees need to have before they arrive in their location (this becomes the final Recommendation Report.) You're trying to answer this question: What are the most important things for employees to know before we send them off to Tokyo or Christchurch?

A collaborative project does not mean you all have to meet face-to-face and collaborate on every aspect of the project. If you work out roles and responsibilities at the outset and put someone in charge of keeping things on track, you can do this without any face-to-face meetings.

I reserve the right to adjust the grades of individuals based on participation and contribution. Everyone – and I mean EVERYONE – must contribute to the development and construction of the texts for this project. It is up to the group to define what a fair and equal contribution is for everyone. It is your responsibility as an individual to do your part and to let everyone else in your group do their part.

In my experience, the “slacker” has derailed far fewer projects than the “overachiever” and the “gradegrubber.” I will reduce individual grades for each of these behaviors. In terms of learning, the benefit of doing this project is in learning how to collaborate and to produce work online with a group of people scattered all over the place. If you are a type-A student, don't let your concern with grades or with producing the perfect product trick you into believing that if you just do the whole thing yourself and make it perfect you'll get an A. I am as concerned with your process here as with your products.

No matter how important or unimportant your grades are in your mind, you have to allow everyone to participate and contribute fairly and equally. I understand how collaborative projects work. To document your process, it’s very important that your “conversations” take place in the Discussion spaces: that way I can see who is participating, who is not participating, and who is over-participating. This is also why the the Final Project Assessment Memo is so important for this project; it gives you a final chance to make an argument for what you learned from the parts of the project that went well, and the parts of the project that went less well.

I want everyone to have a positive and successful experience with this project. You have to trust that I have your best interests at heart. If there is something in particular that you think I need to know, please contact me individually and let me know.

Discussion spaces for the International Project groups are available on the disussion board this morning. I've posted an activity in each space to help you start thinking about what kind of research you'll need to do for this project. You don't have to do the activity formally, but you should give it some thought and perhaps discuss the questions.

Each team also has it's own chat room.  If you find you have trouble using the WebCampus chatroom (last semester one team just couldn't get it to work because of incompatibilities with their home computer setups), you can use any chat forum online that works for you. Chatting is not necessary, but is sometimes helpful.

I'll be evaluating group activity on Wednesday and Thursday. If we get to the end of the business day on Thursday and your group still has team members who have not checked in, please do let me know. I have an empty group where I can reassign people who are getting a later start on the project. I find it works best if we can keep the "early in the week" people in their own groups and the "late in the week people" in their own groups. Improves productivity and reduces bloodshed.

Have a great day! 

Julie