Lab days will include as many of the following dates as are necessary to complete the journals. This is probably more time than we’ll need, which is a good thing as later in the class schedule it would be good to have more time for emerging areas in scholarly communication. If you are not able to attend, perhaps you could do some research or preparation to make things easier for the rest of your group.
May 24, 11:00 – 11:50
June 2, 9:00 – 10:00 OR 11:00 – 11:50
June 9, 9:00 – 10:00
June 16, 9:00 – 11:50
Marking
Since this assignment is worth a fair bit of your grade, and how I’ll be marking will not be obvious, I will be talking about this more in class, but here is just a brief outline of how this will work:
The mark is for the work of creating the journal and publishing an issue, if only temporarily (likely the case for the Scholar’s Biographies). There are NO marks for content. If you choose to publish your presentations or papers, marking is for the presentations or papers. I will NOT be looking at the quality of peer reviews, only whether your group has gone through the process (and there is no right way, just got it done).
If your group gets a practice journal set up (addressing most of what is covered in the instructions, which are available here, and published one issue (scholar’s biography), then your group has met the expectations for this assignment (in SLAIS standards, that’s a B). Most groups are already pretty close to this as of May 18.
Achieving a higher grade for all for this assignment is definitely doable, even if all the work is done within class time. A journal that looks like everyone in the group would be proud of it and likely to want to point to it when looking for jobs (if this is relevant to the job, of course), seems a likely B plus. A journal that shows some skill in OJS and insight / innovation into scholarly communication is likely an A. Highly skilled, creative and insightful, probably A plus. Because I think this exercise works best collaboratively, I would encourage all of the groups to aim for a high mark and help each other out, not compete. A class-wide A is definitely achievable for this particular assignment.
Optional Summary of Contributions
Students are INVITED (not required) to submit a one-page (maximum) summary of contributions to the OJS exercise, and participation in class. Were you there and actively participating in all or most of the lab work? Did you do something a little extra – whether technical for OJS, or research, for your group that I wouldn’t know about – especially important to note if you were not able to attend in person every time. Similarly with class participation – were you attending as often as you could, having done the readings and actively participating in class? Did you listen carefully to other students’ presentations and ask questions or provide feedback? A quick note about something you contributed in class (or outside to share with the class) could help to jog my memory. In addition to helping me to mark as appropriately as possible, this simple summary can be a good way to approach preparing for job interviews.