EDIT 7320
Researcher's Virtual Notebook
Assignment Description and Rubric

Value: 10 points

updated 6-6-08

Task

• Tour AP examples from the last cohort.
• Remember that it took three semesters for each project to get to this point!
• Choose an online tool that allows you to post your materials and continually update them as your project moves along.  The tool should make it relatively easy for you to create organizer pages, to provide a professional look and feel, and to post files such as Word documents, spreadsheets, etc.  Choices of tools include GooglePages, a blog, or a wiki.
  
• Using the examples as a guide, along with the requirements for this class, set up a shell for your online notebook. This organization will evolve over time. 
  
• The most efficient thing to do (probably) is to create an outline based on the final product.  This hierarchy might contain:
• Overview
• Research Idea
• Problem Statement and Justification
  
• Literature Review
• Annotated Bibliography
• Article Notes
• Literature Graphic
• Presentation of Literature Graphic
  
• Methodology
• Results
• Discussion
• Basic navigation (perhaps on the side or bottom): link to your Assignment Page and/or other UGA materials; Resources (bookmarks)
  
• For this semester, at minimum, create these elements and placeholders. These are all included in the outline above:
• link to your Assignment Page
• Research Idea
• Annotated Bibliography
• Article Notes
• Literature Graphic
• Presentation
• Problem Statement and Justification
• You may also want to create storage for other useful project-related materials of your choice.  For example, you might link to a del.icio.us tag page where you "keep" bookmarks related to your project.
• The relationship between this AP Virtual Notebook and your Assignment Page is up to you. It would be fairly easy to have two organizer pages, linked to each other, each organized logically, but linking to many of the same items.
  
• Self-assess on the rubric provided below.
  
• Keep this Notebook up to date.  While assignments will be submitted to WebCT dropboxes for grading, you never know when I will need to see everything in context.  This notebook provides context for me.  You will find that it does the same for you.  If I need to see something from the Notebook later on and it's not there, I may dock your score even after this assignment is graded!
  

Guidelines

• It does not have to be beautiful.  Try to make it mechanically clean.  Above all, it should be easy for you to update.
• Sans serif fonts like Verdana and Arial are far more readable than serif fonts for online and projected materials.
  
• Depending on your tool of choice and levels of access provided, keep privacy in mind.  Throughout the project, protect confidentiality of yourself and any participants or institutional stakeholders.  In other words, don't publish things that would compromise or embarrass people.  If you need to provide materials that might compromise someone's identify, provide a pointer to a file hidden behind a password. For example, say
  

Submission Format

• In this class, each student will have a private discussion board, viewable only by me and you.  First, send me a message on this board that contains the URL to your Notebook.
• Submit the URL to the Notebook Page Keeper, so that we might have a handy page that references each classmate's Notebook.  If you change your URL later, notify the Keeper! (hbogue at habersham.k12.ga.us)
• Finally, submit the URL to the dropbox along with the rubric below.
  

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