honor code- Students and faculty are expected to abide by the Georgia Tech Honor Code

grading

critical analytical doc - 20%

individual oral progress report -p/f- (failure lowers course grade by one half letter grade)

individual proposal - 20%

collaborative proposal + contract - 20%

collaborative analytical report - 20%

final oral presentation - 10%

attendance and participation - 10%

90-100=A, 80-89=B, 70-79=C, 60-69=D, 0-59=F

important note: All final assignments are due on July 25, 2005--no exceptions. Any assignment submitted after this date will receive a grade of 0. Documents received before this date but after their deadlines will not receive full credit.

assignments description

participation: Your participation grade will be assessed on the basis of your face to face (f2f) attendance in class, your interactions in f2f class, your participation in virtual environments, when assigned, and your interactions with group members in your collaborative projects.

You must sign the class role sheet every f2f class for your attendance to be counted. Class attendance is mandatory.

critical analytical document: Each individual must complete a critical analytical document that will become the basis of your collaborative work for the semester. Each of you must gather resource materials, conduct interviews, or undertake other forms of information-gathering to provide a knowledge base from which you will create your proposed work and then develop your analytical products. This document should be submitted in memo format.

Your critical analytical documents must draw on the content material we cover in class to provide a basis for decision-making (and justification) in determining credibility of sources you use, research methods you choose to pursue, and analytical structures you plan to employ.

These documents must include an annotated list of resources, which can be incorporated into your collaborative proposals and referenced in your individual proposals. They must also contain the basis of analysis that explains your understanding of critical issues in your field that lead to your identification of core principles in your field of study (as referred to in the analytical assignment).

You must consider issues in epistemology and supportive practical applications, visual rhetoric (typography choices/document design, graphics and graphics/text integration), audience analysis, source credibility, ethics, and intellectual property.

At its core, your critical analytical document will explain how you plan to apply theory to practice, as it relates specifically to the central principles of your field.

collaborative proposal: You and your collaborative groups will submit hard copy proposals to pursue your plans for analyzing your chosen core principles of your field. The proposals should be in memo format.

A successful proposal will be comprehensive, providing reasoning for all choices made in proposing the final analytical product.

You will describe your plans for developing your final product. You will begin by describing the need for the artifact, then indicate how the proposed products will satisfy that need. Next, you will describe in detail, the portion of the products that each of your separate group members intend to create, then assure your readers that the plan for production is feasible. You will conclude with a summary of all these points to persuade readers that you will be able to complete the analysis within the constraints of available equipment, skills, and time. Your final product description must be extensive in detail and well-justified from a basis of valid research.

The proposal must explain and describe each student's individual tasks as part of the collaborative team, then must also explain each student's duties involved in integrating the team's work with that of other collaborative members. Your collaborative duties must be noted and agreed upon by all group members and evidenced in a signed document (referenced again, below) indicating your agreement to the terms of your participation. You must use memo format for the proposal document and submit it to me in hard copy.

Your proposal must include a clear, detailed schedule of deadlines tied to group members' project tasks and responsibilities.

You should very clearly delineate your group members' capabilities for developing the end product that your propose and then create your proposal accordingly. A completed analytical report, due on July 25, 2005, will be the result of your proposal.

The proposal must include a well-developed bibliography, a list of applicable and useful sources to prepare your work in creating your final product. Your collaborative group must also include a signed contract noting the duties of each participant and his/her acceptance of those responsibilities in preparing the work. Since your grades will be determined by noting your work in regard to your accepted duties, you should be careful to balance the work load equally among group members. Each student is responsible for a portion of each of the assignments. Students bearing notably less responsibility for project outcomes will receive less grade credit in proportion.

In addition to the signed contract noting each group member's accepted duties, upon final proposal submission, students may also include individual memos indicating issues affecting their individual project contributions.

individual oral progress report: You will present individual progress reports that notate your assigned responsibilities for your collaborative projects, your assessment of how work is developing, what you have accomplished, and what you have yet to complete. Your report should indicate any problems you have encountered and how you have worked through them or intend to eliminate them, note any work that you have completed that goes beyond what you contracted to do, indicate any work that you failed to complete but that you were contracted to do, and assess your expectations for your work for the duration of the group project. You must deliver the progress report in oral presentation format.

individual proposal portion: Your individual portion of the proposal, which you will submit prior to that of the collaborative proposal, will follow the same structure described above in the collaborative proposal section, but will focus on your plans for the individual portion of your work. You may assimilate the material in your individual proposal into your group proposal to help delineate collaborative plans.

collaborative analytical report: You and your group members will identify and analyze the 3-4 most important principles that form the basis for your field of study. You will use analytical report format for your final document, which will be a bound, hard-copy product.

You will demonstrate that you used effective methods (rendering verifiable data) for gathering your information and that your conclusions in identifying the most important principles in your field are reliable.

You must include a thorough analysis of the core principles of your field and communicate why you chose those that you did.

After completing the analytical portion of the report, you must indicate the significance of your resulting knowledge for future practice in your field.

You may direct attention to cultural, economic, technological, or some other area of significance, but it would be best to focus only on one area to facilitate valid study since the course duration is limited.

group oral presentation: Your collaborative group will present the results of your analytical work; each of you must deliver a portion of the presentation, but the portions must be integrated as a whole.

Your presentation should flow seamlessly from one group member to the other, your material should be well-prepared and where helpful, supported by visual guides.