# Proposal Presentation Rubric

Because this is an online course, we put extra emphasis on getting to know each other and learning from one another's work. A central part of the final project this term is the **proposal presentation**: each group presents the plan for their final project to the class, advertises the "product" they intend to build, and gets live feedback from their classmates.

This page explains the full procedure and how the proposal presentation is graded. See the [Final Project Instructions and Rubric](./final_project_rubric.md) for the project itself.

## The Three Separate Events

Your final project involves three distinct events. **They are separate**—do not confuse them.

### 1. Instructor Consultation

A 1-on-1 meeting between your group and the instructor.

- **When:** You must schedule it to occur **at least one week before** your group's proposal presentation.
- **How to schedule:** Use the booking link—[https://finm-32900.youcanbook.me/](https://finm-32900.youcanbook.me/) (also posted on Canvas). You are responsible for scheduling this yourself.
- **Purpose:** This is where you get *individual* feedback from me on your plan before you present it to the class. Come prepared with your project idea, your data sources, a rough plan for the product you want to build, and the division of responsibilities between the two team members.

### 2. Proposal Presentation

An in-class presentation to the whole class over Zoom.

- **When:** In an assigned week, roughly **weeks 5–8** (extending into week 9 if needed). With about 12 groups, roughly three groups present each week.
- **What you present:** Tell the audience
  - what your paper/project is about,
  - what **data sources** it uses, and
  - the **product** you plan to build and why it is interesting and useful. This is an *advertisement*: convince your classmates why they would want to clone your repository and run your code. Describe your own new table and figure and what they reveal, and explain what you are contributing (e.g., a cleaned, shareable dataset and the code to produce it).
- **Live feedback:** Classmates ask questions during your presentation, and **every student fills out a peer-feedback survey** about your proposal (Is it interesting? Why? Is it ambitious? How useful does the proposed product seem?). I use the aggregated survey feedback to help grade your proposal.

### 3. Final Project Presentation

In **week 10**, your group presents the *completed* project, and each member is individually quizzed in an oral defense. See the oral-defense item in the [Final Project Rubric](./final_project_rubric.md).

## How Presentation Weeks Are Assigned

You will indicate your project preferences and your availability to present in one of the proposal-presentation weeks using a Google Form (link **TBD**, posted on Canvas). I will use your responses to assign each group both a project and a presentation week. Once you know your assigned week, it is up to you to schedule your instructor consultation for the week or two before it.

## Grading

### Proposal Presentation — 20% of the course grade

The proposal presentation is graded primarily on:

- **Ambition (8 points)** — Is the project and proposed product appropriately ambitious? Are you going beyond a mechanical replication to build something genuinely useful?
- **Usefulness and interest of the product (8 points)** — How useful and interesting do your classmates judge your proposed product to be? This is informed by the aggregated peer-feedback surveys. Have you made a convincing case for why someone would want to use your data and code?
- **Clarity of the data sources and analysis (4 points)** — Did you clearly explain what data you are using and what your additional table and figure will show?

Points are prorated by discretion based on the difficulty of the underlying project.

### Proposal Attendance & Feedback — 10% of the course grade

Networking with and learning from your classmates is an expected part of this course, so attending the proposal presentations and giving thoughtful feedback is required.

- For **every** proposal presentation, you must **both** (a) **attend** (Zoom attendance is taken) **and** (b) **submit the peer-feedback survey** for each presenting group.
- Both are required to earn the points. There are **no allowed misses**—you are expected to attend all of the proposal presentations and give feedback on every group.
- Your feedback is not only a grading input for the presenters; it is how the class learns from each other's projects, so please make your comments substantive.