User:Ryan McGrady/spring2014/com257/grading

The Wikipedia article assignment counts for 15% of your final COM 257 grade.

The assignment grade will be determined as follows:
 * Each of project milestones (as reflected in the timeline and course schedule) count as 1 point for a total of 5 points.
 * The first milestone, "article ideas," is an individual grade whereas the others are group grades.
 * 5 points are based on my assessment of the final article, using the good article criteria as a loose rubric. This score will be awarded to all members of the group.
 * Being part of a group means working with the group. If you either did not contribute anything to the article or failed to communicate and coordinate with your group for most or all of the semester, you will not receive any points for the group part of the grade.
 * 5 points are based on your individual contributions to the final article.
 * Everybody's had the experience of being in a group with someone who didn't pull his or her weight (or maybe you've played the latter role). This becomes quite obvious with Wikipedia-based assignments as the software makes it easy to see who is doing what work as well as when the work was done.
 * Individual contributions are not quantified by a number of edits or number of words but on the substance of your work. If you find yourself worried about how much you've added to the group at the end of the semester, making 20 inconsequential edits probably won't help.
 * "Contributions" here refers to additions to the article itself as well as work behind the scenes researching, coordinating, taking pictures, etc.
 * Contributions are visible through the article's history page, the article talk page, classroom discussions, and any other venue used for collaboration.
 * Don't turn it into a competition. You are not expected to have exactly equal numbers of edits, words added, changes made, etc. I've been using Wikipedia and writing papers long enough to understand that sometimes tasks like finding and citing a single good reference or concisely summarizing complex information can take as much time as making dozens of grammatical changes or writing a big block of text.
 * There will also be an opportunity at the end of the semester for internal group assessment.
 * Total: 15 points