COMP 504 Fall 2016	Communications Assignments General Guidelines

Communications assignments use the same teams as the corresponding Homework assignment.

For a Communications Assignment, create a collaboration (see below) in Canvas and submit the URL of the Google Doc that you and your partner(s) create, without the ending "/edit".

SUBMIT THE URL OF YOUR EMPTY DOCUMENT IMMEDIATELY AFTER CREATING IT!!

Submitting your document URL immediately will ensure that peer reviews can be properly allocated for it.   Failure to submit your document on time may result in a lack of peer reviewers which will result in an automatic zero for the assignment!  DO NOT WAIT UNTIL THE DOCUMENT IS "FINISHED" TO SUBMIT IT!! -- Don't worry, the URL of a document does not change after it has been edited.   Once the document URL has been submitted, no further submission-related action is needed other than to complete the editing of the document..

All communications assignment documents MUST contain:

• The assignment name, i.e. COMMXX
• The names of ALL team members
• The problem/question statement, either as a stand-alone copy of the assignment instructions or woven into the response.

The following are evaluation criteria that apply to ALL communications assignments:

• Answering the Question -- Does the discussion directly and completely address the question put forth by the assignment?
• Specificity -- Is the discussion being specific and focused or is it vague and overly generalized?
• Clarity -- Is the presented discussion explained in a manner that is easily understood or is it confusing or poorly worded?
• Completeness --  Are the presented issues completely covered by the presented discussion or are there holes and/or gaps in material or important parts of the discussion that are missing?
• References -- Are proper references provided for facts, ideas, concepts, etc. that are either not original to the author or would not be obvious to the reader?

Examples of software code are NOT acceptable as "real world" examples!

Remember you are bound by the Rice Honor Code for all assignments.   Amongst other things, this means

• You may not copy any discussions from another student for the current assignment though you may reference a discussion from a previous assignment.
• While you are free to discuss the issues with your classmates, any submitted work must be the sole product of you and your partner(s), if any.  
• All ideas, concepts and facts from outside sources must be properly acknowledged and referenced, e.g. explicitly identified plus with a hyperlink to the original source.

Suggestions:

• Longer != Better  -- Short, concise and specific is always better than long, vague and confusing.    Most discussions should be between 1/2 to 1 page long, though some may be longer.
• Ask for help!    -- If you are having trouble with coming up with the right wording or are not sure how to approach the question, ask your fellow classmates and the staff!

DO NOT SUBMIT PDF OR OTHER NON-EDITABLE, NON-COMMENT-ABLE DOCUMENTS!   ONLY SUBMIT GOOGLE DOCS!

Recommended!   Here's a great article on learning how to spot fallacies in arguments:  http://www.fromquarkstoquasars.com/heres-fallacy-handy-guide-bad-arguments/  (Local copy of logical fallacies poster -- See https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/ for easier reading of the individual fallacies.) (The "Red Flags of Quackery" poster is from the sci-ence.org site -- the somewhat NSFW video is most entertaining even if you disagree with it!)      [Disclaimer:  This post is strictly for information, entertainment and to stimulate discussions on the topics.  In no way is this posting a statement advocating that students are expected to believe in or follow the opinions expressed in the linked materials.   My apologies in advance to anyone offended by the less-than-politically-correct presentations of some the authors' opinions.  My hope is for everyone to simply take these materials in thought-provoking fun.]

Using Collaborations in Canvas

IMPORTANT:  In order to use Google Docs with your Rice account, which is required to enable sharing with other students, your Rice account must be properly associated with a "netid@rice.edu" Google account.  If your account is not already set up properly or if you are not sure, please follow the directions on the Rice IT web site, "Orientation Tools/Google Accounts".

Collaborations is an integration of Google Docs with Canvas that enables one to easily collaborate on a document with other members of a class.   For most students, Canvas will default to using the Google account that is associated with Rice, but for those who do not have a Rice-affiliated Google account, please be sure you have created a Google an account that you can use for course-related documents and be sure to select taht account if asked by Canvas.

To create a new Collaboration:   This only needs to be done one person in a team and doesn't matter which one:

1. From the top-level navigation bar in Canvas, select "Groups".
   • The name of your team will be something like "COMPXXX HWYY ZZ" (the ZZ's team in assignment YY), e.g. "COMP504 HW01 23"
2. Select "Collaborations" from the submenu.
3. Click the "Start a new collaboration"" button.
4. Type in an appropriate, informative Document name that includes the assignment name, i.e. "COMMXX".
5. Put the team member names in the Description. (You may need to add this later if you don't initially know all your teammates' names.)
6. For  "Collaborate with", under the "Groups" tab, your team members should already be selected.
   •  A collaboration can also be created from "Collaborations" menu item below "Courses" in the Navagation bar in Canvas but the group permissions won't be automatically selected.
7. Click "Start Collaborating" to create the Google Doc.

AFTER CREATING THE DOCUMENT, MOVE IT TO AN APPROPRIATE FOLDER:  Canvas will only create a document in the root of your Google Drive folder.   After the document is created, open your Google Drive eithe directly from your computer or via Google's web page, and move the document to a folder just for this class.   Moving the document to another folder should not affect the sharing link that your collaborators are using to access the document.

Set the permissions on the Google Doc so other can read it:

By default, setting up a Google Doc via the Collaboration mechanism in Canvas will give "Edit" access to everyone in the group, but not to any permissions to anyone else, including the staff and the peer reviewers. 

Rather than manage permission requests one-by-one, set up your document so that anyone using the link can get proper access:

1. Open your Google Doc file.
2. Click on the Share tab on the upper right-hand corner of the window.
3. In the upper-right corner of the dialog that pops up, click on "Get shareable link" to turn on shareable link.
4. Change the permission to "Anyone with the link can comment".   (See the left-hand image below) 
   • Note that if you have used your Rice email-based Google account to create the doc, the available permissions may be limited to "Anyone at Rice University", which requires others also use their Rice email-based Google account to access the document.  ( See the right-hand image below)
5. Then, click the "Copy link" button and use that link as the URL to submit for your COMM assignment.

Immediately after the due date for an assignment, please monitor your Google account closely so that you can quickly respond to access requests from the assigned peer reviewers!   (This should not be necessary if the permissions were set properly as described above, but it does happen.) Reveiwers should be granted both Read and Write privileges to the document.  Remember that the reviewers only have 48 hours in which to complete their multiple reviews so it is critical to grant them access permissions quickly.

Peer Review Guidelines

Peer reviews are ALWAYS due within 48 hours after the assignment to be reviewed was due. 

Right after the assignment is due, peer reviewer assignments will be created.  

Each sutdent is responsible for IMMEDIATELY contacting their assigned submission's team to request read/write or comment access to the document.

To request access to a document, simply attempt to open it.   If you do not have access, Google will pop up a dialog box for you to request access. 

Tell the staff IMMEDIATELY if you were accidentally assigned to review your own team's submission!

Fundamentally, the purpose of the peer review is to provide feedback on the assignment criteria above.  Each student is typically responsible for reviewing 3 submissions.   

A peer review should include feedback, positive or negative, on ALL 5 criteria above plus an "Overall Impression" where you can express issues that are not covered by those criteria.

Comments can be placed anywhere in the text and all comments should

• Be in a contrasting, clearly readable color (no light/pastel colors!).
• Be prefaced with the team's NetID's, e.g. "[netid1, netid2]"  or if only the comment is only from one of the team members, just "[NetID]"
• The grading rubric includes a text box for each criteria that needs to be filled out with an overall comment on that criteria (as opposed to comments on specific issues placed in the text next to the issue under discussion). 

The following should be part of any peer  review:

• Praise for any parts that are well done.  Be specific!  Simply saying "Good job!" is not helpful.  Instead, say something more like, "The part on [...] was very helpful and clear because of the way that you [...]"
• Be specific in your comments.  Simply saying something vague like  "Looks good" is NOT acceptable!
• Helpful suggestions for improvement.  Once again, be specific.   Don't just say "That was confusing!"  It is much more helpful to say something akin to "The part on [...] was [confusing/misleading/difficult to understand] because of where you said [...] was [incorrect because of/missing a description of/etc.] this reason [...]"

The peer reviewers will be presented with a grading rubric based on a set of criteria.   Each criteria generally has the following general gradations with associated point scores:

• (10 pts) "Absolutely Amazing Spectacular" -- So astoundingly good that it should be published for all to see and learn.  You should not give out more than a couple of these scores all semester!
• (9 pts) "Exceeds Expectations"  -- Goes well beyond the norm and is highly accomplished in what it is trying to do.
• (8 pts) "Meets Expectations" -- Accomplishes its goal but not any more than that.   This is a "normal" score.
• (6 pts) "Does Not Meet Expectations" -- Has a couple of minor flaws or one major flaw.
• (4 pts) "Has Serious Problems" -- Has several major flaws.
• (2 pts) "Not Acceptable" -- Has so many flaws that it essentially does not address the criteria.
• (0 pts) "Missing"  -- There is no evidence that the criteria was addressed at all.

(The "names" above are just to give one a feel for what level of accomplishment each numerical score represents.   A score may have any numerical value between 0-10, e.g. if you think that there were just a few minor flaws, you might award a score of 7.5.)

If the reviewer feels that a criteria is not applicable, then a "Meets Expectations" score can be entered but a written explanation of why the reviewer felt the criteria was not applicable  MUST be included!    If the submitting student believes that a criteria is not applicable, then they can include a rationale for this in their submission but the reviewer is NOT required to agree with the submitter.

It is left to the reviewers' discretion as to what constitutes a "major" vs. "minor" issue -- something that should be well clarified by the feedback comments.

The final communications assignment score will be calculated from the peer review scores and may include input from a staff-assigned score.

© 2016 by Stephen Wong