LIBR 246-12: Web 2.0 and Social Networking Tools (Fall 2008)

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. I've been in situations where the work of others 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 to pay for 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 your teammates. Last semester, 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.