30% of your course grade will result from a 3-person research project on a topic of your choosing (but subject to my approval). The primary output of your research will be a collaboratively written wiki article in http://citizendium.org/ , and you will present an overview of your topic to the class at the end of the course.
There will be nine groups of three (or fewer) people. You may choose your partners, or I will appoint you to groups. During the first 3 weeks of class, I will allow some time during class for you to meet briefly with your group members.
The goals of this project are:
- Learning to research a possibly emerging technology topic that might soon become important using not just the web, but also one or more deep web resources in Penn's world-class online engineering library.
- Learning to describe to others, in writing and in person, why a new technology is about to become important, and to evaluate it (both positives and negatives) for the benefit of your "work team".
- Experiencing first hand what it is like to collaborate using your real name on an article in a wiki.
Please note: your group will not have exclusive control over the article. You will be collaborating with other authors in Citizendium who may or may not take an interest in, or "meddle with", your writing. I will not deduct your grade for any meddling done by non-Penn authors; instead, any interactions you may have with such possible authors should exhibit professional courtesy, and I will judge the sincerity of your effort. You may make up your own mind, after having experienced Citizendium, whether the collaboration was helpful or not.
Each person's grade will be divided up among several aspects of the project, as follows:
- 15% - wiki article on your group's selected topic
- all three students get the same amount of credit for this
- the amount of credit depends on the progress of the article (see rules at bottom of page)
- 5% - each person's individual contributions to all articles in Citizendium
- to see if you deserve this, I will look at your activity trail in Citizendium
- did you do any work? was it all on one day, or scattered more evenly? what was the nature of your contributions?
- all your edits may be on your chosen article, but I will also count authorship done on any article in Citizendium
- I expect everyone to earn all points here, but reserve the right to deduct if a person has done very little or no work in the wiki
- If there is a long delay in getting our CZ accounts registered (always possible), I will accept your writing articles in this wiki instead; those can always be transferred to Citizendium later with a minimum of trouble
- 2% - for a 20-25 minute presentation on your topic during one of the last two class meetings
- each student gets 2% for taking part in the presentation
- a drawing will be held to assign groups to days; six groups will present on Monday, and three on Wednesday (after the final exam)
- 8% - each student gets one additional percentage point for attending the presentations of the other groups (eight points maximum possible)
- Groups and Topics
This page last modified on July 11, 2008, at 06:07 PM EST.
