Management Plan

· STEP 1. The Team – Groups of 4-5 members is ideal. Please no more than 5.

STEP 2. The Topic – Discuss as a team what wildlife or environmental issue you would like to work on. 

STEP 3. MOU – Discuss your needs, skills, interests, and any area of potential tension. Define your roles in the group and decide how each of you will contribute to this project. Complete an MOU that identifies what role each team member will play. Print it, sign it, date it, and submit it.

STEP 4. Proposal Content – Your inquiry proposal must have the components below.

Title - Must be clear, specific and informative enough that the title alone gives a fair idea of the issue and objectives you chose to pursue. To be specific, your title will likely contain the issue, the goal, and the place.

1. Example: “Non-native cats in New Zealand” is not a title as specific and informative as “Understanding cat-owner behavior to limit domestic-cat impacts on native wildlife in New Zealand”

1. Background

2. It must give the context of the issue. Develop this context enough so any reader can understand the problem and how you came up with your objectives. It should convince the reader of the worth of your proposal. Use primary sources (i.e., peer-reviewed scientific articles) from the literature to support context statements.

1. Objectives

3. Clearly state 2-5 objectives, using numbers or bullet.

3. They must be realistic (i.e., feasible).

3. These objectives represent questions you would like to answer about this issue and the human dimensions around this issue.

3. Provide an information-by-objective matrix (here or in the Methods section).

1. Methods - This may be the longest section of your proposal and should address the following:

4. Explain which quantitative, qualitative, or mixed approach you would use to collect the desired information necessary to address your objectives. Justify.

4. Identify the stakeholders on whom to conduct the inquiry.

4. Define the roles each of you would play if you were to conduct this inquiry for real. Therefore, roles should be realistic and represent an equal share of the team effort.

4. Sample information to collect. If you choose interview-based inquiries (oral or on paper), provide a sample of the questions you would ask and organize them by objective. If you choose observation-based inquiries, list the type of behavior you would be recording during your observations and the type of information you would be looking for.

1. Literature Cited

5. Use at least 3 primary sources

5. The full reference of your sources should be listed here. Make sure all sources in text are listed here and vice versa, make sure all references listed in this section appear somewhere in the background and/or methods.

5. Use the same format as on the example (see attached): Authors. Year. Title. Journal Vol:page-page.

5. No quotations for scientific-related information should be used in text. Use your own words and cite the authors. Two ways to cite, at the beginning or at the end of the sentence as in the following example: "Loomis et al. (2000) found that interviewed Colorado residents would be willing to pay an average extra $21 on their monthly water bill to restore 5 ecosystem services” or “Colorado residents would be willing to pay an average extra $21 on their monthly water bill to restore 5 ecosystem services (Loomis et al. 2000)". Plagiarism will result in a failing grade for this assignment. If in doubt, please feel free to ask us.

1. Extras

6. You are welcome to use figures or tables. If you use a figure that is not yours, cite your source. The source must be cited in the caption, which should appear below the figure. On the contrary, the caption of a table (like the information-by-objective matrix) should be provided above the table. Do not forget to refer to your figure/table in the text where appropriate.

6. If you use more than 5 citations, you will get 2 bonus points.

STEP 5. Evaluation – Evaluate your team partners using the questions below. An example of this portion is provided on Blackboard.

1. How did your team organize the job? What were your respective roles?

1. Did everyone contribute? To what extent? Why?

1. How would you rate everyone’s influence in the project? Use an approximate percentage to indicate each member’s effort/contribution

1. Did you feel free to express your own values/opinions? Were they accounted for?

1. Did you feel committed to decisions?

1. Would you work with the same partners again or would you rather change?

 

STEP 6. Submission – Everyone has to submit their evaluation. However, only one person in your group needs to submit the inquiry proposal. Evaluations and proposals must all be submitted via Blackboard.

Total length limit: No limit.

Grading. 

This work is worth 50 points. The proposal itself will be graded out of 30 points, mostly based on completion (see Rubric). Another 5 points correspond to the submission of the MOU. Because effective team work results from contribution of all parties, the remaining 15 points will be for your individual contribution. To compensate for any handicap that may happen from a team member not contributing according to what was agreed on in the MOU, there will be a penalty for the faulting member and a compensatory bonus for the other members.

 

What will happen next? 

We will provide feedback with specific points to address, in agreement with expectations for each section. All comments and corrections will be expected to be addressed in the final inquiry proposal and the grade will be proportional to the number of comments addressed. If we have no feedback comment, you will automatically get full points on the revised proposal.

 

		POINTS
Proposal - General points	/19
Presence of sections (10)	/10
	Title and Authors (1pt each)
	Background, Objectives, Methods, and Literature Cited (2pts each)
Grammar and Spelling (5)	/5
	< 1 mistake per page (5)
	~ 1 mistake per page (4)
	~ 2 mistakes per page (3)
	~ 3 mistakes per page (2)
	~ 4 mistakes per page (1)
	> 5 mistakes per page (0)
Style (clarity, conciseness) (4)	/4
	Clear, concise, flows well (4)
	Clear, lack of flow (3)
	Somewhat unclear but flows (2)
	Somewhat unclear , no flow (1)
	Unclear, no flow (0)
Proposal - Specific points	/11
Background (2)	/2
	Issue clearly identifiable (1)
	Context to support issue and objectives (1)
Objectives (2)	/2
	Clearly stated (bullets or numbers) (1)
	Info-by-objective matrix present (1)
Methods (4)	/4
	Approach is present (1)
	Stakeholders are identified (1)
	Roles are described (1)
	Sample information is provided (1)
Literature Cited (3)	/3
	At least 3 primary sources (1)
	Proper format (1)
	All sources in text are in Literature Cited and vice versa (1)
Individual grade	/15
Evaluation (5)*	/5
	Evaluation of group members completed (5)
	Evaluation incomplete (2)
	No evaluation submitted (0)
Contribution (10)	/10
	As expected (10)
	Not as expected (%)*
	Unknown (10)
	No MOU sumitted prior to inquiry (0)**
*If one of your team members did not contribute as much as expected, the points lost by that person will become bonus points for the rest of the group. For example, team of individuals A, B, and C. Each individual should contribute at 33% to the project. But B decides to rely on A and C and only contributes at 10%. Everyone turns in a complete evaluation. B gets 5 + (10*0.1/0.33) = 5 +  3 = 8 out 15, whereas A and C both get 5 + 10 + 3/2 = 16.5 to compensate for the extra effort
MOU		/5
	Turned-in complete (5)
	Turned-in incomplete (2)
	No submission (0)**
**If no MOU is submitted, the contribution cannot be graded, therefore it would be 0 for contribution as well.
Grand Total	/50