Business 492 Senior Experience Regina Eisenbach, Ph.D. Jim Hamerly, Ph.D.

The numbers… This semester we expect to: engage ~220 students complete ~49 projects The program over 14 years: Over 1000 projects Over 4000 students

492 Grade Components Weekly quizzes (10% each)30% CSU Business Assessment Test 10% Team Contract 10% Web CT Discussion Board 10% Company & Industry Research Report 30% Final Letter of Engagement 10% (Up from 20%, dropped in class Project Plan)

Matching Companies, Faculty, and Teams

Matching Companies & Faculty Company A Company Candidates Company A Selected Companies Faculty Candidates Faculty expertise and preferences used to match companies Appropriate difficulty level and relevance used to select companies

Matching Individuals into Teams Students self-select into Teams

Matching Companies, Faculty, Teams Company A Selected Companies Matched Faculty Student Preferences & expertise used to match companies

Bus492 & 493 Timelines

BUS 492/493 Timeline Photos due Mon 1/14 Tues 1/22 Team Project Preferences due Thur 1/24 Team Contract due Fri 2/1 Company/Industry Report & Draft Letter of Engagement due Today Fri 1/25 Projects MATCHED one week to complete Company/Industry Report Fri 2/15 Final Letter of Engagement due Mon 2/4 First meeting with Company Teams formed Class 1Class 2Class 3

BUS 493 Suggested Timeline 9 weeks to define & complete research Mon 2/4 First meeting with Company 2/11 8 weeks left 2/18 7 weeks left 2/25 6 weeks left 3/3 5 weeks left 3/10 4 weeks left 3/17 3 weeks left 3/24 2 weeks left 3/31 1 week left 4/7 2 weeks until report due 4/14 1 week until report due 4/21 Draft report due 2 weeks to complete report 4/28 5/5 Final Report & presos Mon-Thurs 5/15 tradeshow 2 weeks For preso & report Final Letter of Engagement due

Key Dates Friday January 25th Student teams assigned, Student Team Contracts due Friday February 1 Company and Industry Report due Draft Letter of Engagement due Monday February 4 Students instructed to set up first company meeting during this week Friday February 15: Final Letter of Engagement due

493 Grade Components Draft Report 20% Final Report15% Team Presentation15% Web CT Discussion Board 10% Progress Reports10% Peer evaluation 40%

Faculty & Student Ratings Senior Experience Fall 2007 A series of questions was asked of faculty and students who had recently completing a Senior Experience Project. They were asked to rate their agreement or disagreement with a series of statements regarding preparation, abilities, project difficulty, communications, etc. Example: Students are able to plan effectively [rate from Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree] Limitations: Self-selection bias, non-uniform response, limited sample size [n f = 20, n s = 20] v0.65 The works included here are Copyleft by Jim Hamerly, free for use, and requiring that all modified versions of content to be free as well.CopyleftJim Hamerly

Faculty agreed less than students to statements in the red areas Students agreed less than faculty to statements in the blue areas

Student “Good Practices” At the start of the project: Ensure that your team, faculty adviser, and company contact all have the same understanding of the projects' definition and objectives. Decide upon a dominant communication mechanism with your team mates (face- to-face, WebCT, , blog, IM, phone, etc.). Recognize that the bulk of the project must be completed in ~8 wks, not 16. Throughout the project: Expect communication problems, misunderstandings, and missed commitments and deal with them immediately. A delayed response is the germination of problems to come. Meet weekly with your faculty adviser. Always prepare an agenda for every meeting, in advance of the meeting. Issue meeting minutes immediately afterwards. Communicate weekly with your company sponsor through your designated team contact.

Faculty “Good Practices” At the start of the project: Meet on-site with the sponsor contact before the start of BUS 492, to be clear on roles and expectations. Meet with the team in advance of the first meeting with the sponsor contact, also to be clear on roles and expectations. Go with the team to the company for the first meeting. This is largely to help the team leave that meeting with reasonable goals and objectives, so that the team does not over-promise. Immediately following the initial meeting with the sponsor contact, meet with the team for another half-hour to debrief and ensure that everyone shares a common understanding of what happened and what are next steps. Throughout the project: Meet weekly with the team members. Speak at least monthly with the company contact. Encourage student team to apply "Student Best Practices".

Project Categories