Editing Online Communities and Crowds (Spring 2025)/Community advising report (section)

== Community Advising Report ==

=== Overview ===
As a final project for the course, you will be required to complete a Community Advising Report. For this report, the goal is to take what you have learned in the class and apply it to an online community or crowd that you have observed or participated in. You are invited to serve as an expert adviser to the community or crowd and to provide evidence-based insights into how to better address a specific challenge they face. 

Unlike with the Wikipedia Advising Report, you will select your own community/crowd and challenge. You are encouraged to choose a community/crowd of which you are a member/leader and where you could, even if only in theory, deliver your recommendations to other members/leaders and have some chance of seeing the recommendations debated or adopted. You are expected to draw on sources and evidence from the course as well as any additional materials you deem relevant/useful. Please note that you are required to submit a proposal explaining the setting and topic of your planned report and to secure written approval of this proposal.

A note of encouragement and caution: Interesting, more complex problems often elicit more interesting, complex  advice. While you can choose something kind of straightforward and obvious and say the obvious thing (e.g., "Wikipedia should make it less confusing for newcomers"), this probably won't be very compelling or engaging and will likely result in a less insightful report. Better reports will tackle meaningful problems, marshall interesting insights, and draw on intelligent reflections and analysis to provide more concrete, specific, and sophisticated recommendations that carefully consider potential drawbacks and unintended consequences. 

=== Proposal (Due May 21, 5pm) ===

; Submit proposal as PDF via Canvas
; 300 words (max)
; Due May 23, 5pm

For the proposal, you should identify a community you are interested in and the challenge you hope to address in your advising report. I encourage you to choose a community in which you are a member or leader and where you could, even if only in theory, deliver your recommendations to other members/leaders and have some chance of seeing the recommendations debated or adopted. I expect you to draw on sources and evidence from the course and any additional materials you deem relevant or useful.

Please write 1-2 paragraphs explaining what community you want to study, why you care about it, and the specific challenge you think the community is facing or could be facing. If relevant or possible, it might be useful to provide (a) link(s).

I encourage you to pick a community that you are committed to and invested in through your personal, academic, or professional life. You should also remember that you will be presenting this project to the class. You will be successful in this assignment if you identify a community and clearly explain why you think it would be a useful community to study, if you identify a challenge that the community is facing, and if you outline why you think the conceptual tools taught in the class will give you an angle on this challenge.

You will receive feedback on the proposal that will let you each know if I think you have identified a project that might be too ambitious, too trivial, too broad, too narrow, etc.

=== Lightning talk presentation (June 3 upload) ===

; Submit slides as PDF and link to recording [https://canvas.northwestern.edu/courses/229769/assignments/1558680 via Canvas]
; Presentation materials due June 3 (see below).
; Presentation watch-party in class June 4 (optional)
; Peer feedback due June 5 (see below).

During the final week of class, our last session will be dedicated to short (~5 minute) presentations summarizing your (likely not-yet-finished) Community Advising Reports. The presentation is a chance to showcase the same project as the Community Advising Report, so you don't need to do anything different here. The goal is to share what you're working on with the rest of the class, answer questions, and solicit feedback or suggestions that might help you as you refine the written report (due the following week).

==== Requirements ====
For these presentations please create a 5-minute lightning talk that communicates (as much as possible of) the following:
* What is the context (community or crowd) for your project?
* What is the challenge you plan to provide advice on? (if possible, illustrate this with an example, screenshot, image, quote, video clip, or something to make it intelligible for the rest of us)
* What (preliminary) plans do you have for the recommendations you're making? (here, you might help link your recommendations to specific topics, sources, concepts, or cases that inform your thinking).

Your presentation may incorporate slides or similar media. My suggestion is to limit yourself to no more than 2-3 slides (about 1 slide per item listed above). You can create your slides in whatever software you like, but please plan to convert them to a PDF and upload them to Canvas as part of your submission for the assignment.

==== Submission (video recording) ====
Please submit via [https://canvas.northwestern.edu/courses/229769/assignments/1558680 the Canvas assignment]:
<!---* A PDF of your slides or any images. You can create your slides in whatever software you like, but please plan to convert them to a PDF and upload them to Canvas as part of your submission for the assignment.--->
* A shareable link to or file upload a video recording of your talk. In my experience, the easiest and most reliable way to do this is using your [https://northwestern.zoom.us Northwestern Zoom account]:
** start a meeting in your personal meeting room, and record yourself (along with screen-shared slides) in a "meeting" alone (please use the <code>record to cloud</code> setting as it tends to be more reliable). 
** After you stop recording and end the meeting, navigate to the [https://northwestern.zoom.us/recording/ <code>recordings & transcripts</code>] panel, click on the recording (it may take a while to "process"), and then click <code>copy shareable link</code>.
** Paste the shareable link into the Canvas assignment.

==== In-class component (Wednesday, June 4) ====

Please upload your slides and recorded presentations no later than Tuesday June 3. This will ensure that everything is ready to go in class on the day of the watch party.

In class, we will watch the presentation recordings. After each one, we will have time for brief Q&A if the presenter is present. I will also ask you to provide written feedback (via Canvas) to a subset of the presenters (I will announce these feedback assignments on Wednesday, June 4). More on that below. 

==== Feedback ====

For giving feedback, I'd like you to spend 7-10 minutes writing specific, substantive comments, questions, and suggestions for each of the presenters whose work you are assigned to address. You will provide this feedback via Canvas.

'''Feedback is generally better when it is specific, concrete, and detailed.''' Saying you liked the pitch is fine, but focus on giving substantive comments (e.g., identify specific strengths, elements of the slides or ideas that you liked and explain what you thought they added). Critical feedback (delivered politely and directly) can also help each person make concrete changes and improvements to produce a better final project. Feel free to ask questions about things you were unclear about. Feel free to give specific suggestions for course material that might be useful or connections that might be helpful.

There will be no other reading or other assignments due this week, so the 30-40 minutes it should take you to give this feedback should not be a huge burden.

'''All feedback is due 24 hours after the end of class on the day of the presentation''' (i.e., noon on Thursday, June 6). You will also receive feedback from the instructor on your presentation.

==== Assessment ====

I will assess your lightning talks mainly in terms of how clearly and effectively you communicate about your work. The goal here is iteration and improvement, so I'm not looking for finished projects, but whether you convey key aspects of your work-in-progress well. I will also assess the feedback you give to your peers.

=== Final submission of Community Advising Report (Due June 10, 5pm) ===

; Submit completed report as PDF via Canvas
; 2000 words (max)
; Due June 10, 5pm

==== Format, style, and submission ====

The format of the final report you submit is up to you. If you want to use graphs, illustrations, bullet points, tables, or section headings, do so. But whatever their format, your report should feature clear, readable, correct, and persuasive prose. Citations should be consistently and properly formatted (Kate Turabian’s "Manual for Writers", available in the library, is a reliable guide as are various online resources for standard style guides such as the 7th edition of American Psychological Association style). Remember, you are trying to look good and provide a compelling, readable artifact that will persuade your audience to adopt your recommendations.

Your finished report should be submitted as a PDF via Canvas. 

Please include your name somewhere (prominent!) on the first page of the material that you submit as well as your last name at the beginning of the filename (e.g., "Shaw-occ-report.pdf").

==== Assessment rubric for Community Advising Reports ====

Your report will be assessed along the following dimensions and criteria, which overlap a great deal with Aaron's [[User:Aaronshaw/Assessment|general assessment rubric for written work]]. Keep in mind, these dimensions and criteria don't correspond to specific point values or anything like that. They also tend to escalate in terms of difficulty. An exceptional report does all of these things exceptionally; a very good paper does all of these things well; a good paper does most of these things well; etc.

'''Clarity & style:''' Is the paper readable and clear? Is it free of errors? Is the writing logically organized and coherent? Are sources appropriately cited/documented?

'''Quality of analysis:''' Does the paper provide clear, original, and well-supported arguments and interpretation? Does it identify and analyze the challenge(s) facing the community/crowd effectively? Where possible/reasonable, does the analysis draw on relevant evidence to support its claims and recommendations?

'''Scope:''' Does the argument adapt a suitable scope given the length constraints of the assignment? Does it provide a thorough and focused analysis of the key issues at hand? Is there an appropriate balance between high-level generalities and specific details?

'''Quality of insight:''' Does the paper propose a clear strategy, design, and/or actions in response to the challenge? Do the proposed strategy, design, and/or actions seem compelling and worth adopting given the evidence presented? Do the proposed strategies, designs, and/or actions reflect a creative and sophisticated synthesis of available evidence, relevant course materials, and other resources the author has chosen to draw upon?