Seeing as this was a project for a Professional and Technical Writing class, we have some advice for future classes who might be required to take on a project such as this one. This section has been compiled by several members of the class from different groups in this project as well as different levels within these groups. Our instructor also contributed to this part adding some advice from her point of view. For more information on the how the assignment was set up and how we came about this topic see our Context Page which gives a detailed description of the behind the scenes events.

Things that went well:

• Before proceeding with the project we compiled a list of acceptableprotocols for behavior. This laid out the rules concerning due dates, assignments, individual contributions, and absences. This way everyone knew what was acceptable, and what the con sequences would be if they were "naughty".

• We also established a mailing list on e-mail so we could communicate with everyone, including our professor outside of class. If you have the resources to do so this is strongly advised because you can say what you want to the entire class at 2am, if y ou need to get things off your chest before you call it a night.

• One of our weekly assignments was to hand in individual and group progress reports in memorandum format. This not only gave us experience with the style and process of workplace writing, but also let us see on paper how we were coming along with our in dividual contributions.

• It is the law of group dynamics that a group will have too much fun together and forget about the purpose of the group. Not to say that we were anti-social, but remember to keep the meetings and class time professional. Of course a little fun is allow ed, but as college students we all need a little practice in getting serious.

• Hashing out the hierarchy of the project was fairly simple to us. A leader was elected by the entire class. This was the person who would keep track of everyone¹s progress, reminding us of policies and deadlines, and representing the class to our inst ructor, who served as the ³CEO² if this were an actual corporation.

Recommendations:

• The purpose of this was to be a student-run project. We decided to describe the role of our instructor as that of the CEO of a corporation. She didn¹t step in regarding the design of the project, giving a lot of freedom in how everything would run. B ut she did remind us if we were not up to par on the writing requirements of the project. She served as an editor for our writing, but any procedural questions were directed to our elected class leader. In the beginning, these roles were not clearly de fined and as a result many of us were confused as to whom we should direct certain questions or concerns. This served as a lesson in communication and a reminder to us to ask questions early if there is a discrepancy.

• We discovered, a little later than we might have liked to, that groups waste much time in the initial stages of the project gathering information before they delegate responsibilities. while three people are out looking for the same information, it cou ld have easily been divided among the members and each person done a particular part or at least found resources pertaining to a particular part.

• When splitting classmates into groups take into consideration that HTML is a very hard concept to grasp. Only a few students in you class might know how to do it. Consider making this a separate group so they are not doing all of the coding and layout on top of written work and research.

• When including groups such as Graphics or HTML keep in mind that this is a writing class and while their jobs may be more behind the scenes, they need to have enough individual writing to warrant a good grade.

• The next problem we encountered was that several classmates complained that the time limit was too short to execute this kind of project. We realized, however, that this is how things are done in the business world that we will all soon be entering. D eadlines are a fact of life. So, rather than complaining about the time you have, use it wisely. This will make for a much more productive project.

Overall, we view this as a very successful project. Although there were several obstacles to overcome, we feel that they can only make us smarter in the future. Best of luck to future classes who take on a project of this nature. Thanks to Jon Kurland , Dave Daly, Kioko Mwosa, Larry Jones, and Ed Chauhan for contributing to this section, and thank you to Mauri Casano, our instructor for providing us with the basis for an enlightening learning experience.