Guide for refereeing final SoReMo project reports
About
This document, originally created in Spring 2021, serves as a rough guide for students and faculty who are invited to review final project reports written by SoReMo Fellows.
The Fellows are supported for the semester to carry out an applied research project of their choice. An admissions panel, consisting usually of faculty affiliated with the initiative, reviews the project proposals at the beginning of the semester. Projects most likely to have an impact on society (defined appropriately) transcending the student’s narrow discipline focus are selected for support. Throughout the semester, Fellows spend time exploring the problem, gathering data as necessary, connecting with faculty and advisors, presenting, and discussing issues. The final project deliverables include both a final presentation for a broad general audience and a final project report, which will be published in the SoReMo journal.
The goal of the report is two-fold:
- Offer a high-level executive summary of the project, and
- Offer a detailed view into the technical aspects of the project.
The first part is expected to be understandable by anyone - a high school senior, a faculty member within and outside the main project discipline, and a family member not affiliated with a university. The second part is expected to be understandable by an informed reader from an academic field related to that of the project, so that another student or faculty member in the future could gain enough information in order to build on this project in the future.
Guidelines for referees
The following list of questions will guide you in evaluating the final report.
Topic and context
What is this report about, in the first place? The report is a final summary of one SoReMo project, defined as an applied student project focusing on social responsibility. The report should include key issues that have been and remain to be addressed; this means not ‘unfinished work’ as such, but rather from the point of view of project extension or other future work that builds on the current project.
What to evaluate
1. Clarity of key points in the executive summary
The following are questions the report is expected to address. Please comment on whether the author answered all of the following questions clearly in their writing:
- What is the project about?
- Who are the stakeholders? Participants?
- What is the project topic, area, major, methods?
- What are the key findings?
- What issue related to social justice or equity was solved or addressed? How?
- What issue related to social justice or equity was not solved or addressed? Why?
2. Challenges and extensions
Did the author identify the following items: * What additional interdisciplinary approaches would the project have benefited from; utilizing feedback from subject matter experts and SoReMo advisors, when appropriate * Identify future developments, community benefits, etc. that can be obtained by taking this project one step further, or extending its scope, etc.
3. Clarity of exposition
- Is the text written clearly?
- Does the text follow general professional style guidelines (and avoids the use of slang, peer-to-peer conversational style, etc.)?
- Are there any confusing point or missing clarifications?
- Is there a bibliography and does it appear that all of the relevant work is properly cited?
4. Data
Was there any data collected for the project? Did the author make it clear how this was done and identify whether the data is being shared as a result? If yes, then is the data being shared online though the Galvin Library or some other way?
5. Further comments
Please feel free to further comment on the project report, its value to the community (as you see it), or any other aspect of the write-up and the project.
What not to evaluate
Socially responsible modeling, computation, and design has many facets - at least as many as there are disciplines involved. It is not always easy to discern the complexities of each problem in other disciplines. As such, and also because this is a final report and not a project proposal, you are asked not to evaluate the following:
- Validity of proposed project within your discipline;
- Choice of projects within the discipline of the Fellow;
- Perceived competitiveness compared against another project with which you may be familiar;0
- Whether the project should have really been done differently from the get go.
The last point does not restrain you from offering suggestions in section 5. above. To the contrary, you are welcome to offer suggestions for linking to other areas and/or approaches. But such suggestions are to be considered as potential collaborative or extended activities, and not a value judgement on the current approach.
Impact statement
The project are from a variety of disciplines by design. In addition, they may not fit within one particular discipline alone. Communicating across disciplines is a key part of the SoReMo initiative. Your time spent on this review is highly valuable to the Fellows!
On behalf of everyone at SoReMo, thank you for your time in reviewing the final reports and in helping us improve and strengthen the initiative!
License
This document was first created for SoReMo Fellows in Spring 2021. The materials listed here are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
