We have graded your final essays. It was hard work, but enjoyable at the same time. Many of you really put a lot of effort and creativity in the essay. This led to many nice and well deserved grades.
The grades can be found at Blackboard from 20:45h on.
To structure the upcoming discussion a little, here is the FAQ:
1. One of the grades in columns L or M is colored red. Why?
This means that you are not finished with this course. You need at least 30 points for your final essay and 55 points in total. If you fail on one of these criteria, your final grade will (at most) be a 5. You will receive an e-mail tonight with further instructions on how - and when - to improve your final essay.
2. Why is my grade so low?
Most likely it is because the person who graded your paper did not like your paper as much as you did. When you want to discuss your final grade with this person, you are recommended to send an e-mail to me, with clear, well argumented reasons why you think you deserve a higher grade. Note that we subtracted points for, among other things:
- failing to build a convincing argument
- failing to write understandably for a layperson
- failing to prove that you really ‘understand’ what you are writing
- failing to discuss the fundamentals of your Quest-ion
- failing to integrate your empirical research with other (theoretical) arguments
- lack of decent academic sources
- failing to ‘connect the dots’: combining all evidence into a sound, fluid story
- bad English, sloppy layout
Please include all relevant details (Quest-ion, VU-net ID etc) in your mail!
3. I just got unlucky rounding off a 7,4 to a 7. Can’t you do something about that?
No. See question 2 for further details.
4. I worked so hard on my paper, still I only got this low grade. Why?
This course is not about working hard, it is about working good. See question 2 for further details.
5. I think you made a mistake in the file. I believe I earned more points.
Could be. Administration of this course proved to be quite complex, a small error might have slipped in. Just send an e-mail with your details and arguments and we’ll check it out.
6. I really (dis)liked your course, how do I let you know?
You may place a comment below this post or send me a mail, but soon you will also receive an evaluation form by mail. Please fill it out. I am looking forward to your suggestions on how to improve this course for next year(s).
Blackboard is ready to receive all of your final essays. Deadline is set at Monday October 22nd at 15:00h. Don’t be late!
It is not possible to resubmit your paper, so be absolutely sure you hand in the right version.
We will try to grade your papers in one week. Watch this blog around Monday October 29th for updates.
In case you fail to cross the 55 points score line or fail to score 30 points (out of a possible 60) for your final essay you will not pass this course. At that moment you get one opportunity to improve your final essay. Deadline for this second attempt is set at Monday November 5th.
However, you will only get a second chance when your first effort is considered a serious one. Handing in sloppy, incomplete, inconsistently formatted or badly spelled essays is not a good idea. We will not grade them and you will not pass this course, meaning that you have to do it all over again next year.
Good luck in finding the right balance between inspiration and transpiration!
P.S. In the course manual two different deadlines for the final essay are mentioned. We use the latest one: 15:00h i.s.o. 14:00h. Also, do not use Word 2007; Blackboard Safe Assignment cannot handle this format.
With only your final essay left, it’s time to publish your intermediate scores. They can be found at Blackboard.
Please note that the points of CL3 from Mr Rietdijk are missing. They will come later today. When you think we made a mistake, send me an e-mail, with precise details (name, VU-net ID, Quest-ion etc).
Tonight at 1:00 lines are open for Challenge 4. Deadline on Wednesday October 10th 17:00h.
Your Challenge will be graded with a 0-4-8-12-16 system, so ample opportunity to compensate for any lost points along the way.
P.S. Challenge 3 will be graded ‘as usual’: 0-3-6-10.
At the end of next week your final Confrontation Lectures will take place. You will all be invited by e-mail for either Wednesday the 10th, Thursday the 11th or Monday the 15th of October. Invitations will be sent tonight.
Sessions will consist of people with the same Quest-ion, together with the teacher who will grade your final essay. This means that you can discuss what is expected from your paper, what steps you still need to undertake or how to interpret your empirical findings.
To streamline the discussions we expect the following from you. As a Quest-ion group, i.e. all people on the same blog, make a list of four questions you would like to discuss with the teacher. I will make a posting on all your blogs in which you can discuss what types of questions are most suitable and relevant for all of you (comments on this post will not ‘count’ as comments). Try to work out a ‘top 4′ no later than Tuesday October 9th 17:00h, so we can prepare the meetings. Probably, there is time to discuss more of your questions but in this way we are able to discuss at least the most important issues.
Attending the final CL is not compulsory; you will not lose 5 points by not showing up. Instead, you can earn points. Teachers may reward the best ‘Quest-ion teams’ with a number of points (depending on the number & size of teams they grade), based on the quality of the discussion. Good discussions, i.e. good, relevant questions, equal participation by all participants, mutual helping and cooperation (you’re all in ‘the same boat’) and intelligent academic debate, will earn all group members extra points.
In less than 12 hours Challenge 3 will start. Deadline is on Friday October 5th, 17:00h.
At 9:00 am tomorrow morning all details can be found on Blackboard. Handing in of your assignment is also done there.
Good luck!
As it is a layperson who asked the Quest-ion, it is wise to write down the answer in such a way that this layperson will understand. So the paper needs at least be clearly written with a clear structure. In Dutch we would say ‘klare taal‘. This means that you need to ‘translate’ academic language into ordinary language. You cannot ‘hide’ behind academic ‘jargon’.
However, the paper cannot be non-academic, that is, you should be able to ‘prove’ and justify everything you are saying/claiming in the paper. This means, mentioning all your sources, use the right way of citing and ‘connect all the dots’ in a valid manner. Your empirical findings need to be connected and compared with findings from literature. It also concerns being transparent about conflicting findings and discussing the implications.
The best example of such an effort I have ever read is ‘A short history of nearly everything‘, by Bill Bryson. Great book, perfect example of informing laypersons about science in general. Look at the cover text below and note the similarities between your own Quest and his.
Cover text: “One of the world’s most beloved and bestselling writers takes his ultimate journey — into the most intriguing and intractable questions that science seeks to answer. Now, in his biggest book, he confronts his greatest challenge: to understand — and, if possible, answer — the oldest, biggest questions we have posed about the universe and ourselves. Taking as territory everything from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization, Bryson seeks to understand how we got from there being nothing at all to there being us. To that end, he has attached himself to a host of the world’s most advanced (and often obsessed) archaeologists, anthropologists, and mathematicians, travelling to their offices, laboratories, and field camps. He has read (or tried to read) their books, pestered them with questions, apprenticed himself to their powerful minds. A Short History of Nearly Everything is the record of this quest, and it is a sometimes profound, sometimes funny, and always supremely clear and entertaining adventure in the realms of human knowledge, as only Bill Bryson can render it. Science has never been more involving or entertaining.” Read the entire introduction.
Surely, I don’t expect you to read the book, but from the cover text you may already learn that your essay should be clear, profound and involving. Also entertaining and funny will not hurt. To convince your reader you should also be able to show that your Quest-ion is intriguing and perhaps, intractable.
Don’t worry, if your essay is only half as good as the book, the 60 points are yours.
Two Challenges to go. First one starts Tuesday October 2nd with a deadline on Friday October 5th. When the other Challenge will start, is only known to an elite group of people. Rumour has it that it will not be a ‘Quick Response’ Challenge though.
The Final Confrontation Lecture will take place (around) Thursday October 11th. You will be invited, by e-mail, for a chat with the teacher who will also grade your final essay. In this way you can talk about what is expected from your paper, what standards you should meet, what work still needs to be done et cetera. All people with the same Quest-ion will meet at the same time. Because of agenda restrictions for the teachers, your meeting may also be held at the 10th, 12th or 15th of October. We will avoid conflict with possible SCD meetings. E-mails with further details will be sent next week.
September 27th, 2007 by mwolters in News · 3 Comments
Here we are, page 5 in today’s Ad Valvas. It’s in Dutch only, so if necessary try to find someone to translate it for you.
All quotes are of course taken out of their context ;)
Read the full article: Management Studies in Ad Valvas
Surfgroepen.nl also spends a (small) blog-posting on the Ad Valvas article.
In this post I’d like to share some general feedback and impressions coming from your ‘knowledgeable foes’ with regard to your Challenges.
First thing is that we graded by means of a 0-3-6-10 system. This meant that scoring a 10 was never so easy. Just a ‘regular’ 8+ or higher did the trick. On the other hand, failing to do so meant that you fell back to 6. Insufficient entries were ‘punished’ with a 3. Zeros were reserved for not handing in or wrong submissions (e.g. in Dutch).
The first Challenge scored 6,3 on average, the second 5,8 (with zero scores left out). These are quite normal averages, compared to other courses. Averages varied among the tracks, just as among the Challenges. Some of these differences may be corrected in the remaining two Challenges; some of them may not. Not all Tracks are created equal.
Then some more specific feedback for each track.
For Consultancy the following criteria were used:
Challenge 1
- Did you apply Minto’s ideas: storyline with situation, complication question answer and support to the answer visible in the outline of chapters
- Did you write an introduction to Kubr pp. 3-150 that could be added to the book
- Is the introduction well written
Challenge 2
- Did you describe the differences between consultant and academic rhetoric based on Berglund and Werr
- Could you explain why these differences make consultant rhetoric more convincing for clients
- Is your essay persuasive
For Human Resource Management:
Challenge 1: “My impression is that the students in general have picked up the challenge. The two articles were a good starting point for arguing the relevance of HRM. The first reflection on the individual question was more difficult, but it”s only the beginning.”
Challenge 2: This Challenge was executed quite well (average > 7), according to the ‘knowledgeable foe’, especially when considering the limited amount of time.
For Strategy:
Challenge 1: We looked at the variety in your definitions, but especially at the way you divided them in four categories and how you justified this categorization.
Challenge 2: Only a few 10’s, basically because most of your summaries were not written in such a way that any layperson would understand what the article is about and what its (practical) value is. This is something most of you will need to work on, as it is the same requirement for your final essay. Writing ‘difficult things’ in ‘layman’s language’ is probably harder than you think.
Knowledge Management:
Challenge 1: We primarily wanted to see that you understood the core message of both perspectives, and the most important differences between that. Some people missed that, for instance not noticing the ‘hard’ difference between explicit and tacit knowledge in the objectivist perspective or the importance of communities of practice in the practice based perspective. Another issue is the extent to which you managed to translate those messages and differences into different advices for the organization. Some people were very creative and concrete, some limited their work to a summary. And sloppy writing is also seriously frowned upon….
Challenge 2: The most important issue here is the extent to which you were complete in your summary of both Nonaka and Gourlay. Also, your understanding of Gourlay’s critique was essential – some of you missed some of his core points (such as lack of evidence, management bias, etc.). Some of you were very creative in criticizing Gourlay’s critique as well!
Unfortunately, it is impossible for us to discuss all your individual questions regarding the grades.
