Editing Building Successful Online Communities (Fall 2024) (section)

=== Project 2: Final Project ===

For the final assignment, I want you to take what you've learned in the class and apply it. Because this class is being taught in both the Communication Leadership and the Department of Communication MA/PhD, I'm going to offer two options for final projects:

;(Option 1) Community Advising Project: Serve as an expert advisor to the leaders and members of an online community to provide evidence-based insights into how to better address a specific challenge they face. This will be a ''client based'' project. In most cases, you can bring your own client (e.g., your workplace, a community you participate in) but I'm also happy to work with Commlead to help pair you with a community. I expect that most Commlead students in the course will choose this option.

;(Option 2) Original research project: Complete an original research project that takes the form of (1) a detailed research plan/proposal; (2) a replication/revisit of an important and influential study; (3) a completed original research manuscript (i.e., a "submission-ready" draft of a journal article or conference paper). I expect that most students in the course doing research degrees will choose this option.

==== Final Project Identification ====

;Due Date: November 22
;Deliverables: Turn in [https://canvas.uw.edu/courses/1774897/assignments through Canvas]
;Maximum Length: 500 words (~1 page double spaced)

;(Option 1) Community & Challenge Identification:

:For students conducting a community advising project, you should identify a community you are interested in and the challenge you hope to address in your final project and 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.

:For this initial assignment, I am asking you to write 1-2 paragraphs explaining what community you want to study, why you care about it, and to identify a challenge you think the community is facing or could be facing.  If relevant or possible, it might be useful to also provide a link.

:I hope each of you will pick a community that you are intellectually committed to and invested in your personal or work life. You should also remember that you will be presenting this publicly 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.

;(Option 2) Abstract/proposal:

For students following the original research project path, you are also required to submit an extended abstract and/or proposal for the project. Because I understand that the most useful specific shape of this might vary, I'm happy to go back-and-forth with you on the details if you believe that a 500 word extended abstract that lays out the proposed work is not going to be sufficient or appropriate.

In either case, I will give you feedback on these write-ups and 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.

==== Final Deliverables ====
;Final Presentation Dates: Tuesday December 3
;Paper Due Date: Friday December 13 @ 11:59pm
;Maximum paper length: 4,000 words
;Deliverables: 
:*Details on final presentations including due dates, instructions, and dropboxes will be posted to [[/Final presentations]] {{forthcoming}}
:*Turn in a copy of the paper [https://canvas.uw.edu/courses/1774897/assignments in Canvas]

For your final project, I expect students to build on the final project identification assignment to describe what they have done and found. I'll expect every student to give both:

* A final presentation (see instructions on  [[/Final presentations]]) {{forthcoming}}
* A final report that is not more than 4,000 words.

Each project should include: (a) the description of the community and challenge you have identified (you are welcome to borrow from your Final Project Identification assignment), (b) a description of how you would use the course concepts to address the challenge in question.

You will be evaluated on the degree to which you have demonstrated that you understand and have engaged with the course material and not on specifics of your community. Your audience is people who are interested in the community and the general public. A successful project will tell a compelling story and will engage with and improve upon the course material to teach all of us—that is, an audience that includes me, your classmates, and students taking this class in future years, how to take advantage of online communities more effectively. The very best papers will give us all a new understanding of some aspect of course material and change how I teach some portion of this course in the future.