Thanks to everyone who replied to this query. I had a few yays and
several nays; good logic on both sides. After taking that in, and
talking to several faculty and staff here I have modified the grading
rubric to include only 8 points for real-world performance. Those points
come from beating the class median on each of four different metrics
(Unique Visitors, Pageviews, Profit and Revenues.) I hope this will lead
to a discussion about how huge revenue does not always mean huge
profits, how easy it might be to get pageviews but not more unique users
or sales, etc. A paste of the Assessment page is found below. Note also
that it is still mathematically possible for an individual to receive an
A in this class even if his/her team bombs on the performance aspect of
this particular assignment.
NOTE: Our university has run an experiential exercise (the Venture
Challenge) for 11 years on campus. This year 70 on-campus students
raised $41,000 inside of five weeks. What I am doing here is brining
that same learning experience to the students who are in our online
program as the ONLINE Venture Challenge. I ran the Online Venture
Challenge once this past Spring. Those students built several great
websites but did not take them totally live with checkout functionality.
Sites like
www.govoluntouring.com were judged on promise not
performance. This Summer we are going fully live (hence the grading
question from yesterday). After this term I am hoping to invite other
professors to incorporate this exercise into their courses, and to
compete with my classes to see who is best at "making a difference while
making a dollar." Grading implications inside your own courses are
obviously up to you.
Thanks again for your feedback,
Geoff Archer, PhD
Geoff.archer@royalroads.ca
" Assessment Criteria
Part 1 - Mission-Driven e-Commerce Website Design (10 points)
This is not a course on web design, and you are not expected to be
professional web designers or graphic artists. That said, the success of
your Online Venture Challenge operation will likely be affected by the
quality of your site (seen through the eyes of potential customers). The
grading guideline below should help in prioritizing your efforts along
these lines. Note that while your site launches on August 22nd, Part 1
is not graded until September 5th. During these two weeks you are free
to update your site in response to real-world consumer feedback.
Look & Feel - 3 points
* general layout & use of space: clarity + simplicity over
complexity + density. Remember: white space helps people read
* ease of use - users can easily navigate the site and find
information
* visual appeal (design does not detract from message/content). Aim
for professional appearance (clean lines and simple colour schemes are
better than being overly "busy"
Tip: ask a friend or family member who doesn't know anything about the
project to "test drive" your site and give you feedback. If possible,
watch them as they first encounter and navigate the site - you can learn
a lot this way.
Content - 4 points
* specific mission or goals are clear
* clarity of grammar & use of language - spelling, punctuation etc.
No spelling or usage errors
* absence of duplication & repetition
* write for the web, not for an academic paper. You might be
interested in how users read on the web (hint: they don't, they scan).
Usability guru Jacob Neilson has lots to say about this stuff - don't
read it all, just skim for anything of interest/use to you.
Site Functionality (connected to goals) - 3 points
* contact info - how can they get in touch? Information should exist
on the site and be easy to find
* e-biz element - how can they give you money?
* it all works: absence of dead ends, dead links, & outdated pages -
everything on the site works
Part 2 - Performance (8 points)
Website Traffic (2 points): Each team will report on cumulative traffic
to their website in terms of unique visitors. These numbers will then be
ranked so that a median can be determined. The median team will receive
one point. The four teams (out of nine) with more than median website
traffic will receive 2 points.
Website Usage (2 points): Each team will report on cumulative traffic to
their website in terms of pageviews. These numbers will then be ranked
so that a median can be determined. The median team will receive one
point. The four teams (out of nine) with more than median website usage
will receive 2 points.
Profit (2 points): Each team will present a basic income statement to
depict how much profit their business generated for their chosen
charitable cause within this 30 day period. These numbers will then be
ranked so that a median can be determined. The median team will receive
one point. The four teams (out of nine) with more than median profit
will receive 2 points.
Revenue (2 points): Each team will present a basic income statement to
depict how much revenue their business generated for their chosen
charitable cause within this 30 day period. These numbers will then be
ranked so that a median can be determined. The median team will receive
one point. The four teams (out of nine) with more than median revenue
will receive 2 points.
Part 3 - Presentation (12 points)
During the last week of class (which is also the start of your 2nd Res.)
each team will have 15 minutes (+ 5 minutes for Q&A) to present their
business concept to a live audience (15 slides max.). Through this
presentation you should explain what you do, how you are planning to
incorporate, and demonstrate why your business is a great investment.
While awareness and real world profitability in this short-term
experiment say a lot about your business's prospects, they do not say it
all. Given that you are looking to attract investment to catalyze future
growth and expansion, your businesses will also be graded according to
the following criteria (informed by the Mainprize & Hindle reading in
Unit 4). Simply addressing each criterion will not earn you the point
for that line item; your business concept needs to score well (5 or
higher) on each 9 point scale or do a good job of explaining why that
might be impossible in your line of business.
Criteria
1. Innovation
2. Intellectual Property Protection
3. Market Receptiveness
4. Industry Attractiveness
5. Personal Aspirations
6. Social Capital
7. Revenue Model
8. Margins
9. Value Proposition
10. Target Market
11. Sustainable Advantage
12. Ability to Execute
You will not earn points for presentation quality, per se, but it will
nevertheless make a difference in your final course grade. Participation
in the delivery of a markedly terrible presentation (chewing gum,
mumbling, busy slides with tiny fonts or illegible color schemes,
generally acting in a manner that is not professional, etc.) will be
reflected in your personal Class Participation mark. "
-----Original Message-----
From: Entrepreneurship Division Listserv
[mailto:
ENTREP@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU] On Behalf Of Lohrke, Franz T.
Sent: Thursday, July 08, 2010 3:47 PM
To:
ENTREP@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
Subject: Re: [ENTREP] Appropriate percentage of overall course mark for
experiential exercise?
Hello Geoff,
I concur with Emeric's advice to explore alternatives to the amount
students raise as a grading criterion. Although the percentage of their
overall grade on your assignment is fairly low at 16%, it's still
consequential enough to impact behavior.
You may ultimately decide to leave some portion of the grade linked to
the amount raised as an incentive to do well, but I would suggest
stepping back and thinking about what you want students to learn from
this experience. We recently did a micro-business assignment in our
junior level Entrepreneurship Concepts class, and, like you, we thought
seriously about including amount of profit generated as a grading
criterion.
In the end, based on suggestions from many on the listserv, we realized
we actually might be giving students a disincentive to take risks by
linking their grade to performance (i.e., go for the safe bet), which
seemed counterintuitive in an Entrepreneurship course. (In case you
missed my earlier email to the ENTREP listserv, our assignment and
suggestions from others on the listserv can be found on my website under
"Microbusiness Resources" at
http://bit.ly/beXJrj ).
In the end, we decided that, along with the experience of starting a
microbusiness, we wanted students to become more comfortable with
financial statements. This seems to be a perennial issue in our upper
division Entrepreneurship classes...students have issues recalling their
accounting concepts by their junior or senior year, at least enough to
generate good pro forma statements. Thus, of the 20% that the project
counted toward their course grade, we made half of it filing a correct
balance sheet and income statement every two weeks for ten weeks.
Although this seemed incredibly easy to us, it caused many students to
revisit their accounting professors to review how to account for
revenues, expenses, and investments. Thus, this half of the project was
far from the "slam dunk" we worried it might be.
We also accounted for how well students did by making them present their
results at the end of the semester and talk about issue such as "What
was the biggest obstacle you had to overcome?" and "What did you learn
from this experience?" This was also worth half of their project grade,
and it allowed us to distinguish those who worked hard and learned a lot
from those that put minimal effort into the project. We actually had
one microbusiness lose money, but they did very well in terms of their
grade because they filed all their financial statements correctly and on
time (not all students did), and they communicated the lessons they
learned from the project. In fact, they have continued with their
business now that the project has ended, which is an additional benefit
to our microbusiness project.
I hope this helps. Please contact me directly if you have any
questions.
Franz Lohrke
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Franz T. Lohrke
Brock Family Chair in Entrepreneurship
Chair, Department of Entrepreneurship, Management & Marketing
301 DBH
Brock School of Business
Samford University
800 Lakeshore Drive
Birmingham, AL 35229
Office: (205) 726-2373
Fax: (205) 726-2464
http:// www4.samford.edu/~ftlohrke
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
________________________________________
From: Entrepreneurship Division Listserv [
ENTREP@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU] On
Behalf Of Emeric Solymossy [
E-Solymossy@WIU.EDU]
Sent: Thursday, July 08, 2010 2:42 PM
To:
ENTREP@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
Subject: Re: Appropriate percentage of overall course mark for
experiential exercise?
Hi Geoff
I applaud your use of experiential learning and real-world application.
I have some concerns (on multiple levels) with tying any assessment to
the funds raised. What about having the students work with some
charity(ies), and rather than the fund raising being the evaluation
criteria, having representatives from the charity(ies) do the
evaluation? I use this approach for entrepreneurship and International
Management, with great success (and no ethical conflicts). Over the
past 12 years, our students have worked with over 60 firms (profit and
not-for-profit). It increases the community service nature of our
school, and has yielded many job offers for students (for us, fewer than
5% of our students start and entrepreneurial venture within the first 5
years of graduation).
Dr. Emeric Solymossy (Dr. E.)
Fulbright Senior Specialist - Technology Transfer (Argentina, 2010)
Fulbright - Hall Distinguished Chair in Entrepreneurship for Central
Europe (2008-2009)
Professor of Management - Western Illinois University - Quad Cities
3561 60th Street, Moline, IL 61265
Phone: 309-762-9481 Ext. 249
E-Mail:
E-Solymossy@wiu.edu
Skype I.D.: EmericSoly
Web site:
http://faculty.wiu.edu/E-Solymossy
----- "Geoff Archer" <
Geoff.Archer@ROYALROADS.CA> wrote:
|
|
I am including an experiential learning exercise in an undergraduate
introductory entrepreneurship course. The assignment is to launch and
operate a mission driven e-commerce website that raises funds for a
charity. This team-based exercise is worth 30% of the overall mark for
the course. About half of that 30% is determined by actual business
performance ( profit and unique visitor count). I wanted to ask for your
feedback on that breakdown. Specifically, how do you feel about having
16% of the overall course mark determined by the real-world performance
of this in-class business venture?
Geoff Archer, PhD
Geoff.archer@royalroads.ca<mailto:
Geoff.archer@royalroads.ca>
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************************************** This message is from ENTREP which
is sponsored by the Entrepreneurship Division of the Academy of
Management. Please do not post messages with attached files. Commercial
messages or spammed messages are not allowed on the list. The use of
auto-responder "out-of-office" messages may also lead to your removal
from the list. You can manage your subscription options, including
joining or leaving the list here:
http://aomlists.pace.edu/scripts/wa.exe?SUBED1=entrep&A=1 If you have
questions or need help, please contact Dr. John Bunch
jbunch@benedictine.edu. Ventures HO!
**************************************
This message is from ENTREP which is sponsored by the Entrepreneurship
Division of the Academy of Management.
Please do not post messages with attached files. Commercial messages or
spammed messages are not allowed on the list. The use of auto-responder
"out-of-office" messages may also lead to your removal from the list.
You can manage your subscription options, including joining or leaving
the list here:
http://aomlists.pace.edu/scripts/wa.exe?SUBED1=entrep&A=1
If you have questions or need help, please contact Dr. John Bunch
jbunch@benedictine.edu.
Ventures HO!
**************************************
This message is from ENTREP which is sponsored by the Entrepreneurship Division of the Academy of Management.
Please do not post messages with attached files. Commercial messages or spammed messages are not allowed on the list. The use of auto-responder "out-of-office" messages may also lead to your removal from the list.
You can manage your subscription options, including joining or leaving the list here:
http://aomlists.pace.edu/scripts/wa.exe?SUBED1=entrep&A=1
If you have questions or need help, please contact Dr. John Bunch
jbunch@benedictine.edu.
Ventures HO!