Logistics

🗓️ Course Schedule

Class meets Tuesdays. Assignments and responsibilities are due Friday of the week listed, with one exception: the Final Presentation is submitted by Monday night of Week 14 and presented in class the next day.

Week	Main Topic	Due
1	Course Intro	Project Application
2	Working With Clients	Client Email
3	Client Meeting (No Class)	First Client Meeting
4	Individual Meetings	Finalized Contract/Timeline, Second Client Meeting
5	Data & Surveys	Organizational Assessment, Weekly Task Plan
6	Excel & Coding	Draft Executive Summary, Excel Coding Workshop
7	Graphing & Methods	Excel Graphing Workshop
8	Fall Break	Practice Report
9	Individual Meetings	Formatted Report Shell ¹
10	Professional Materials
11	Work Time	Rough Draft
12	Individual Meetings
13	Presenting Your Work	Final Report
14	Student Presentations	Final Presentation
15	Wrap-Up	Professional Materials, Final Reflection

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Class sessions appear on Tuesdays during class time; assignment deadlines appear as all-day events on the day they are due.

📝 Assignments

Instructions for each individual assignment are posted on the assignments page.

Major Assignment Overview

Organizational Assessment: An assignment to help each student learn about their agency and project.

Practice Report: This assignment gives students the opportunity to practice and receive performance feedback on the skills necessary for the final Client Report, including calculations, scaling numbers, qualitative coding, making graphs, and more.

Final Report and Presentation: A report created for each student’s client that has a breakdown of the data collected (through a survey or data files) by the student or organization. The report includes an introduction, methods section, findings, and appendices; the presentation is a distilled slide deck and presentation from the report itself.

Professional Materials: A Cover Letter, Resume, LinkedIn Profile, and draft Reference Letter, intended to prepare students to apply for jobs. Students are required to meet with an A&S advisor for review of professional materials.

Final Reflection: A reflection that ties together the various components of the course and experiential learning experience. You will take findings from your Final Report and consider how they could potentially inform policy-making and organizational change for your client.

Group Projects

The substantial majority of projects in PST 315 are individual projects. However, occasionally a client may request a group project that two or more students will complete together.²

Group projects have a single deliverable and final project, but group projects are broader, deeper, and more complex, requiring more hours than an individual project. Those hours get spread across numerous individuals, who must coordinate to shape the final deliverable together.

Individuals in a group must complete their own individual work for the course (workshops and individual assignments), while groups are collectively responsible for production of the final project and deliverable. The table below describes this on a per-assignment basis.

Important

All students in a group must submit all assignments to Blackboard, even when those assignments are identical.

Assignment	Submission
Project Application	By Individual
Finalized Contract/Timeline	By Project³
Organizational Assessment	By Project
Weekly Task Plan	By Project⁴
Draft Executive Summary	By Project
Excel Coding Workshop	By Individual
Excel Graphing Workshop	By Individual
Practice Report	By Individual
Formatted Report Shell	By Project
Rough Draft	By Project
Final Report	By Project
Final Presentation	By Project
Professional Materials	By Individual
Final Reflection	By Individual⁵
Professionalism	By Project and/or By Individual

📊 Evaluation

Points	Evaluation	Submit to
2	Project Application	Qualtrics link
3	Finalized Contract/Timeline	Blackboard and Client
10	Organizational Assessment	Blackboard
2	Weekly Task Plan	Blackboard
3	Draft Executive Summary	Blackboard
2	Excel Coding Workshop	Blackboard
2	Excel Graphing Workshop	Blackboard
10	Practice Report	Blackboard
3	Formatted Report Shell	Blackboard
3	Rough Draft	Blackboard
45	Final Report	Blackboard and Client
5	Final Presentation	Blackboard and UCA
5	Professional Materials	Blackboard
5	Final Reflection	Blackboard
+/- 0	Professionalism	Ongoing

Professionalism

Professionalism points can be earned throughout the semester for demonstrating exceptional professionalism to your client, UCA, or Professor Reilly. Taking initiative to go above and beyond basic course requirements is strongly encouraged and will be rewarded. Professionalism points may also be subtracted for actions that are unprofessional (failure to send client emails on time, absence from class, etc.).

Caps

There is a cap of +5 points and -10 points toward your final grade.

How to Gain and Lose Professionalism Points

Attendance: To be considered excused, you must email your UCA before class. Upon approval, your absence may be excused. Students may have one unexcused absence without penalty. Additional unexcused absences will result in the loss of a professionalism point per absence. Repeated lateness will incur point loss.
Class Work Time: Class is primarily a period for work time on your projects. You may not leave class early unless you have completed work on all assignments for the week and there is no more work you could feasibly do on your project. If you have done so, you may ask your UCA for an early exit.
Emails to Client: CC your UCA on all emails with your client, or you will lose one professionalism point per email. Only CC Professor Reilly if your UCA has instructed you to do so. UCAs reserve the right to deduct points for slapdash language or intent in emails to clients.
Emails to UCAs and Professor: Exercise professionalism when emailing UCAs and Professor Reilly. UCAs reserve the right to deduct points for slapdash language or intent in emails to Professor Reilly and/or UCAs.
Deadlines and Meetings: Failure to attend any scheduled meeting — including meetings with your client, your UCA, Professor Reilly, or an A&S advisor — will result in a loss of 3 points per meeting.
Client Presentation: Some clients ask for a presentation of their own. Students who give a presentation to their client earn an extra professionalism point. See the Final Presentation assignment.
Client Evaluation: If a client reaches out with a valid and reasonable complaint about your performance or professionalism, this will result in a loss of up to 10 points, at the discretion of your UCA and Professor Reilly.
Other: Other exceptional or unprofessional conduct not listed here can result in a gain or loss of professionalism points accordingly, at Professor Reilly’s and the UCAs’ discretion.

Late Assignment Policy

All assignments must be turned in on time unless otherwise noted or approved. Each day late will be subject to a per-day penalty unless a prior arrangement for an extension is given. Assignments more than 7 days late will not be accepted unless an exception is granted by the Professor.

Blackboard’s assignment portal indicates whether an assignment is late; UCAs will notify you of points lost when an assignment is submitted late. Late penalties only accrue on business days (Monday through Friday). The late penalty for all assignments is one point per late day, with a maximum of half of the assignment’s points off.

Note

Extensions may only be granted by Professor Reilly.

Grading Scale

Grade	Grade Point/Credit	Class Points
A	4.000	94 – 100
A-	3.667	90 – 93.99
B+	3.333	87 – 89.99
B	3.000	83 – 86.99
B-	2.667	80 – 82.99
C+	2.333	77 – 79.99
C	2.000	73 – 76.99
C-	1.667	70 – 72.99
D	1.000	60 – 69.99
F	0	59.99 or less

Footnotes

The Formatted Report Shell includes a revised Executive Summary, your spreadsheet, and your codebook.↩︎
A “group project” in this context is a project with a single deliverable authored by multiple students. A group project does not include a client who offers several related projects that have separate deliverables.↩︎
Groups must use this opportunity to clearly delineate roles and responsibilities for the project. Unless otherwise requested by the client, one individual should have primary responsibility for contacting the client after the first meeting. Your UCA and/or Professor will assist you in structuring your group roles.↩︎
Groups must create task timelines for each individual in the group.↩︎
Individuals in groups must indicate what elements of the final deliverable were completed by each group member.↩︎