A LETTER TO GROUPS WHO HAVEN'T SUPPLIED INDIVIDUAL REPORTS

I have just started to mark your 773 assignment. I can find no sign of any statement on who did what. I draw your attention to these excerpts from the assignment notes :

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"Design : 1 week.

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GROUP : Decide who's doing what and when. CAREFULLY design interfaces between your several areas of responsibility : record them so that any parts which need to communicate can be constructed separately. Develop contingency plans in case something turns out to be harder than you expect......"

"MY REQUIREMENTS.

This is a list of what I expect to get from you during the course in connection with the assignments, and what I must get if you're hoping for full marks. ( That doesn't mean that you'll necessarily get full marks if you hand it all in; I do take some notice of quality. ) I won't badger you for it, so it's your responsibility to make sure that I get it at the appropriate times; if I feel nervous because no one has given me anything, I might mention the fact in lectures or by electronic mail, but it's your decision whether or not you want to spend time writing up 773 assignments.

.......

No later than a week after the beginning of a type B assignment : a statement by electronic mail from each group or loner identifying the project to be undertaken, the planned schedule, and ( for groups ) who's doing what. ( It's not set in concrete; you can change it any time you like, but if you do you should record the changes too, and the reasons for the change, in your weekly report. )

........

At the end of a type B assignment : a report from each group or loner. This should contain :

An introduction describing your aims for the assignment, the results of the specification and design stages, and ( for groups ) who did what. ...... All members of a group take joint responsibility for this part.

For a group : separate sections from each member of the group describing their own contributions. ......

This isn't just a whim. Occasionally groups have complained that they can't separate their individual contributions, and demanded that they be assessed as a whole. I can't do that; I am required by the conditions of my job to assess you individually, and if the assignment won't do that then it's a bad assignment. Obviously activities like design and coordination are group tasks, and should be identifiable as such, but I'll expect that most of the work will be attributable to individuals."

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I also warned you of the problems :

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"I introduced ( strictly reintroduced ) group assignments in 1992 by popular demand, and they work well if you're determined to make them work, but they haven't been as good as anyone expected. That's mainly because few groups have really got down to the planning and organisation that's necessary to define and coordinate the group members' contributions."

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( The excerpts might not be quite how they appeared at the beginning of the semester, because all I have at the moment is my current copies, but something of the sort was certainly there. )

That all seems to me to be clear enough, and it's not unreasonable of me to wonder why you haven't done it.

I point out particularly this bit : "This is a list of what I expect to get from you during the course in connection with the assignments, and what I must get if you're hoping for full marks.". I haven't got it; I can't give you full marks.

The easiest way out of this is for you to send me - VERY SOON - a note saying which parts of your work belong to which of you. I can then try to apportion blame, or even credit, appropriately.

The alternative is for me to reduce your marks by a significant fraction. I could argue ( speciously, but I can't think of a plausible alternative ) that the whole of the assignment as you've given it to me is the "joint responsibility" part, and that what I haven't received is a bit from each of you of comparable size, for which you therefore get zero marks. That reduces your mark to half its face value. I DO NOT WANT TO DO THAT, but you have painted me into a corner.