Task: As the last peer review of the term, we were required to review one of our team member’s draft proposal report.

To: Jake Moh, Member of Jake’s Friends

From: Kelly Kim, Member of Jake’s Friends

Date: March 19, 2022

Subject: Peer Review of Formal Report First Draft

Thank you for submitting your first draft of the Proposal for Improving the Recruitment of Volunteers at Visual Cognition Lab.  This is a really well-written report with compelling arguments. Please note a few areas for improvement below.

 

First Impressions

• The objective of the report was very well defined.
• The data explanation is well-formed and thoroughly researched.
• The research addresses a prominent concern for the members of the lab and brings validity to why new members should be added to the team.

Organization

Overall, the report is well-organized with the introduction, the information about the data that was researched, the explanation of the data and concluding remarks. Following are suggestions to improve the organization of the report:

• Elaborate more on the recommendation. Other parts of the report are well detailed whereas the conclusion portion has only points.
  • It is only currently bullet points, “Hire Paid Developers”. Please identity why, how, and the affects of hiring paid developers.
• The fonts change in the table of contents and in the data selection portion as well. There needs to be consistency.

Title Page

The title page includes all of the required elements and the title describes the objective of the research.

Table of Contents

The table of contents is well organized and displays the outline of the report. If the figure numbers and its respective pages are also added, it would become a better table of contents.

Introduction

The introduction provides a clear context of the research. Why the research is being conducted and the lab environment that the team functions in. It also successfully outlines the hiring process for the coding team.

• The interview with the lab manager and programmers are part of primary data. Secondary data would be scholarly articles or journals.

Data Selection

• The survey is well organized to address the concern.
• The data is portrayed in graphs that can be easily understood to show why the numbers of this data is important. Graphs add to the context. Very nicely visualized overall.
• Number of Backlog Experiments:
  • Well written with a good summary of why the question was addressed. It clearly shows why there needs a call for action to hire new programmers.
• Number of additional programmers:
  • A description of the definition of active members would be beneficial to understand the analysis.
• Project of higher priority:
  • What is the objective of this question? Difficulty understanding why there needs to be a question for understanding which projects have priority. The link between hiring and understanding priority between two projects are missing.
• Desired Skills
  • Good interpretation of the data in this section
  • An interesting insight is that although the team is looking for a coding programmer, the majority favour behavioural skill and interest more than technical skills.
• Technology
  • Clearly shows which programming language skills are desired for the team.
• Years of Experience and Number of Programming Courses Taken
  • This portion seems repetitive with the desired skill and technology.
  • The part, “for a qualified applicant, the average year -” portion has been mentioned in previous sections.
• Method of Advertisement
  • Concise and explains effectively the mode of advertisement that would be used.
• Time of Recruitment
  • Concise and clearly shows when the best timing is to effectively hire new programmers.

Conclusion

• Conclusions are very succinct.
  • Recommend elaborating more on the solution
• More details about the cost of hiring paid developers could be beneficial in strengthening the report.
• More information about how it would benefit the current lab members if hiring was conducted. Though adding new members, who would benefit? How efficient would the project perform? Providing more future-oriented effects of the solution.

Grammar and Technical Errors

There were a few grammatical errors throughout the report.

• Instead of “this” in page 7, change to “The”
• Need bibliography
• Abstract and letter of intent should also be added in the beginning.

Concluding Comments

This report was well written, straight to point, well-explained and a pleasant read. The survey and data points support the argument seamlessly and portray why the solution needs to be implemented. There are a few suggestions:

• Kindly check the grammatical errors
• Expand on why some of the data was relevant for the solution
• Expansion of solution provided and how the solution will solve the problems currently.
• Further elaboration on the impact of solution is needed.