Evaluation

Evaluation will vary depending on whether you are taking the course for a full credit (open to all students) or a half-credit (open only to students enrolled in engineering programs).  If you are eligible for the half-credit course and think you might be interested in taking the full credit, the main difference is that you won’t have an exam, and you will be evaluated on seminar participation and an essay. 

• • All assignments may be shared with other students for heuristic value, without the names attached, unless requested by the author.
• • All written assignments will be submitted to online similarity software (Turnitin). This protects your original work from being copied without credit.

POE372 for half-credit

• • Online quizzes (one per module) – 40 percent  
• • Weekly participation online – 20 percent
• • Final exam (short answer and essay) – 40 percent 

POE374 for full-credit

• • Online quizzes (one per module) – 20 percent
• • Weekly participation online – 10 percent
• • Book review – 20 percent
• • Written assignment – 50 percent
• •     Proposal – 10/50
• •     Annotated bibliography – 10/50
• •     Final paper - 30/50

Experiential learning alternatives to traditional written assignments are available on instructor approval but must be confirmed with phased delivery dates before the end of the second week.  See below. 

Quizzes

Quizzes will be available on Moodle in the final week of each module, and will generally take about 30 minutes to complete. All questions on the quiz will be drawn from readings and presentations during the module.  Answers will be visible after all students have completed the quiz. 

Participation

Participation will be evaluated by quantity and quality of contributions online.  You will get feedback on this at the end of each module.  

Half-credit students are not required to participate in the weekly seminars, but will receive participation points if they do. 

Final Exam

The final exam, for half-credit students only, will consist of short answers and a problem-solving essay. It will be a three-hour open-book exam.  Practice questions will be made available before the beginning of the exam routine. 

Book Review

The book review is an opportunity to read and comment on any recent book relevant to science, technology, policy, and society.  This includes any of the books referenced in lectures and presentations.  If in doubt, tell me what you are interested in, and ask for suggestions. 

The book review must not be longer than 1000 words. 

Here is a guide to writing book reviews in political science.

Written assignment

The written assignment consists of three parts, each of which must be completed. Marks lost on earlier parts can be made up on subsequent parts.

Proposal

The proposal includes an initial research question, tentative answer, definition of key concepts, outline of the paper, and statement of relevance (QADOR).  

Here’s how to approach writing the proposal. (See link) 

Here’s the wrapper or marking rubric for the proposal

Here’s an example of an excellent proposal (although not for this course) - it’s a lot of work and more than a page, but  it has already accomplished most of the work of the essay. (See link)

Here’s an example of an adequate proposal (also from another course) - it took about 15 minutes and will get you to the next step.  (See link)

If you don’t get full marks on the proposal, you can make them up with the final assignment. 

Annotated bibliography

The annotated bibliography should include tertiary sources for definitions and concepts (e.g. specialized dictionaries and encyclopedias), secondary sources reflecting recent research (peer reviewed journals and monographs), and primary sources (data and reports emerging directly from the subject under study, including government or industry web sites).  The quality and quantity of sources should be sufficient for the task you have set yourself in the proposal.  Usually, one or two primary and tertiary sources, and half a dozen secondary sources represent a good start. 

Here’s an example of an annotated bibliography for a course. (link)

Here’s the wrapper or marking rubric for the annotated bibliography (link). 

If you are not sure how to start, this link has an exercise for developing research bibliographies (scroll down to the annotated bibliography exercise). Note that in your submission, you skip the copy-and-paste research material, and include the comments about how you are going to use the material, so it’s a step beyond the basic bibliography that you would have at the end of the exercise. 

Final paper

The final paper should be about 3000-5000 words, but it can be shorter or longer. It might be shorter if you use tables or annexes to marshal evidence, or longer if you are less efficient at presenting the information. Shorter is better. 

Here’s the wrapper or marking rubric for the final paper (link).

General matrix for evaluation of written work - ideas, expression, support (link)

Experiential learning alternative

Experiential learning is the process of learning through reflection on doing. For example, you might decide you want to apply for a patent, or plan a business start-up, or seek clarification on business regulations, zoning or tax laws.  The learning takes place in four phases: 

• • Conceive and plan the project
• • Conduct the activity (there may be iterative stages)
• • Reflect on what you learned from the activity
• • Report on the learning

Your proposal for an experiential learning alternative should include the same basic elements as the proposal described above, but also includes a description of the activity.  

If you are interested in the experiential learning alternative, please arrange to speak to me in the first two weeks of class.