Objective: The purpose of this assignment is to get you to work with your colleagues in reflecting upon your experience with the Exit Poll Project and to take that knowledge to help prepare those who will follow in your footsteps two years from now.
Task: As a group, you will write what will amount to an instruction manual for those who will serve on your exit poll committee the next time the students of POLS 3180 will once again participate in the Exit Poll project. It is one paper per committee, rather than a series of individual papers by each of the committee members.
The paper should be at least 4 type-written pages in length. It will most likely end up longer than that.
What should be in the paper?
Essentially, you should approach this paper with the assumption that the person reading it has absolutely no idea what it is that your committee does, or did do. It should contain, at the minimum, the following three sections:
Committee Responsibilities: Generally speaking, what is it that your committee does? What tasks are the responsibility of your committee?
The 2008 Exit Poll Project: What, specifically, did your committee do to fulfill its responsibilities this year? What were some of the problems you encountered? Conversely, what went smoothly for the committee?
Recommendations: What recommendations would you give to those who will sit on your committee next time around? In terms of what worked and what didn't work for you (which you should have already discussed in the previous section), how might the committee make its job go more smoothly the next election. In other words, if you knew then what you know know, what might you have done differently?
Due Date: The paper is due the last day of classes: Thursday, December 11, 2008. You will need to submit a hard copy of the paper, plus you will also submit your paper electronically to me via an assignment link on Blackboard.
Remember: Your grade for the paper will be based on three things: 1) the quality of the paper, 2) your self-evaluation of your own contribution to the work of the committee, including your efforts in writing the paper as well as in performing the committee's specific tasks for the Exit Poll Project, and 3) an evaluation by your colleagues on the committee of your contributions to the committee's work.