More project group related queries

Hi all,

Got a few queries in class today that I should discuss.

1. Some groups have foreign students in them who wouldn't have access to India based networks for data collection. Let me assure you that will be taken into consideration when grading for phase II.

2. One good idea I was given today was to randomly allocate all students in each section into groups. That way gaming using past section associations would not happen. I can see why this is a good idea and indeed I would have gone this route perhaps. However, at this stage, I will not seek to further rock the boat. I will randomly assign folks into groups who are left out at the end of the process today.

3. I will collect information about the core sections for the membership of each group. It is no secret that groups where no more than 2 people are from one section contain in them diversity and a prior lack of familiarity with each other. Groups with 3-4 or more people from the same core section, conversely, will have high familiarity with one another and a better team rapport to start off with. Concomitantly, expectations and benchmarks for such groups will be higher.

3. People, the project is more about a learning experience than anything else. A good group helps but what makes a good group is its members. I believe, a sincere set of intelligent folk, which you all are, will be able to make a good group provided you want to. Once you've had a few project meetings, you are a team playing towards a well-defined goal and not just a group randomly thrown together.

Sudhir