Unless otherwise indicated in project descriptions, all team members will receive the same grade for collaborative projects. I expect all team members to contribute equally to collaborative projects. I also hope that if any friction arises during your collaborative project work, you’ll work internally to resolve any conflicts. Since each of you may have different course loads and other demands on your time, you need to maintain an awareness of how much you’re contributing to a team project in relation to your teammates. If, for example, you have a major project or exam in another class that is eating up your time at a certain point in your schedule, give your teammates a heads-up beforehand to explain your time constraints and how you plan on compensating for your lower contribution at some points (by, for example, agreeing to take on more work at another point in the project schedule). Similarly, if you have the feeling that a teammate is failing to contribute equally to the project, you should bring this issue up at a team meeting in a constructive and open way.

If your attempts to resolve the situation fail, you (or the entire team) can contact me for advice. In irresolvable cases, I may meet with you individually or with the entire team to help arbitrate the situation, but I expect you to attempt to address the issues within the team first. If after meeting with the team I determine that there are substantial and unresolved problems with workload allocation within the team, I reserve the right to assign different grades to each team member.

Online Communications among Team Members

We’re still missing the survey results section for the report, and we’re getting near the second draft phase of the project (we’re supposed to meet Thursday night — three days from now — to discuss the draft). Since none of us have seen the survey results yet — or even the survey — this is a major gap in our report. Have you had a chance to run the survey yet? We only have a week left to finish up the report, so if you haven’t run the survey yet, can you do it in the next day or so and get us results and summary data by Thursday’s meeting? Let me know if you need help working up the survey questions or figuring out how to distribute it to students. Text me at 555-3201 or e-mail me to let me know what’s up.

Thanks,

Your Name

Jose and Kate —

Any word from Jake about the survey or his section of the report? I’m getting really worried — without the survey info, we have a big gap in our report. And we can’t write the recommendations or conclusion sections for the report if we don’t have the data. If we don’t hear from him by tonight at some point, should we do the survey ourselves? He was supposed to have had all this info at the end of last week (for the first draft). I don’t want to have to do his work for him, but I want a good grade on the project.

- Your Name

We could bring the prof into this, but it might get ugly. I don’t think Jake’s worried about getting an A in the course — I think he’s thinking “D for Diploma” at this point. I can’t take a D on this project; I was counting on this class to bring my GPA up a little.

What do we want to do? Let this slide until the Thursday meeting and hope he comes with the survey results and a write-up? Contact the prof for advice? Do you have time to contact her before our meeting to see what she wants us to do?

- j

>Jose and Kate —.

>Any word from Jake about the survey or his section of the report? I’m getting

>really worried — without the survey info, we have a big gap in our report. And

>we can’t write the recommendations or conclusion sections for the report if we

>don’t have the data. If we don’t hear from him by tonight at some point, should

>we do the survey ourselves? He was supposed to have had all this info at the end

>of last week (for the first draft). I don’t want to have to do his work for him, but

>I want a good grade on the project.

>- Your Name

yourname: Jake, you there? hows the survey going?

jake: at class dude; leave me a note

yourname: can you get back to me by the end of the day? let me know whats up.

The syllabus says we can ask the prof to step in. But we’ll need to make a case and show that we’ve been trying to work with Jake, but he’s not stepping up to the plate. Can you work up something that details what we’ve done and make a case for giving Jake a lower grade than the rest of us get for the project? I’d like to be able to just leave out Jake’s part — the survey. It’d be nice to have that info to make our case in the final report, but I don’t have time to do both my work and his work, and I don’t think we should have to do extra work just to get a good grade.

I could meet during her office hours tomorrow (11:00 am to 12:30) if she wants to meet with us to discuss it, but we should probably send her something to read before then that lays out our reasons for wanting a different grade (this would also make sure that we’re all on the same page with our argument).

- Kate