To begin your team’s collaborative project, the first things that you will need to do are: 1) introduce yourselves, 2) provide other contact info, and 3) choose a topic for your research report.
To accomplish these things, I will start a new email thread for each collaborative project team (remember that these teams are different than your peer-review teams).
During this week, each team member should “Reply All” to my email to introduce yourself (including your major, hobbies, and interests, and make a note if you already know someone in your team–perhaps from the peer-review teams or another class), provide a phone number or suggest another way for your teammates to communicate besides email (Facebook, Whatsapp, etc.), and list three possible scientific or technical problems that you can potentially research for your team’s research report (for example, Moore’s Law, specific computer exploits like rowhammer or types of exploits like privilege escalation, etc.).
The purpose of your report is to present what you can learn about the problem and provide some solutions also based on your research, so think about these possible problems based on your studies and interests. Since you are all studying computers and/or electrical systems, I would recommend that you focus on problems related to that instead of problems not directly related, such as global warming. Coming up with three possible problems might require a little bit of library research, so don’t be afraid to check out the databases!
Now, after you and your teammates begin exchanging these emails, look at the possible problems for similarities or connections. Everyone should reply all to comment on the problems, generating ideas, and arguing for or against some of the options. After this discussion, a clear winner might emerge, or one team member can devise a vote of the top two or three candidates.
At this point or even before after you’ve made your first introductions via email, your team can decide if they would like to hold the rest of the conversation over email or another communication medium of your choice. For the weekly writing assignment, I will be looking for your first email with your three possible problem topics. The rest of the conversation is for your benefit to choose a topic for your project by Wednesday, 11/11.
After you’ve selected a problem for your research report, I would like one member of your team to send me an email and cc (carbon copy) all the other team members on that email. In the email, let me know what scientific or technical problem your team has selected. Email me your team’s topic by Wednesday, 11/11.
Watch this week’s lecture for more details and explanation. I will post it on Wednesday following our established schedule.
