Supplementary Reading

Study a full version of the pre-project training module: http://x-culture.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/X-Culture_Training_2017-1a.pdf, get ready to pass the project’s readiness test.

Readiness Test Sample Questions

Choose the best answer to complete the test.

What is the main task that your team will have to accomplish?

a) The team members will have to write a paper about the world economic crisis of the past several years

b) The team members will have to write papers about cultures and traditions of their countries

c) As a team, we will have to write a new market entry plan for an international company of our team’s choice

d) The team members will have to find out as much as possible about each other’s hobbies

X-Culture project is part of a course for most students and their performance on the project will affect their course grade. What performance indicators will the instructors use to assess performance of their students?

a) The quality of the team business proposal

b) Peer evaluations

c) Ability to meet deadlines with respect to the surveys and team report submissions

d) All of the above

Each team proposal will be evaluated along several dimensions. Which of the following will NOT be among those assessment dimensions?

a) Novelty of the idea

b) Number of colorful diagrams in the team report

c) Economic feasibility of the proposal

d) Clarity of presentation and attention to detail

e) Formatting quality, grammar and writing style

At the end of the project, team members will be evaluating each other. Which of the following dimensions will be included in the peer evaluations?

a) Effort and commitment

b) Intellectual contribution

c) Help with writing the report

d) Help with coordinating team efforts

e) All of the above

When you receive the names of your teammates, how do you know who is the leader of the team?

a) The Project Coordinator will appoint a team leader

b) There will be no formally assigned team leader. An informal leader (or several) may emerge as the team members work together, or the team may formally elect a team leader (or several), or the team may choose to work without a leader all together

c) When the students receive names of their teammates it will say who the team leader is

d) Each student on the team must be a team leader for one week

e) The team leader will be the one who is most fluent in English

What are the ways the team members are allowed to communicate with each other?

a) Email

b) Skype

c) Google+

d) Facebook

e) The teams members are allowed to use any communication tools they want, including all of the above and any other tools not listed here

There will be several surveys that the project participants are supposed to complete. Which of the following is NOT true about the surveys?

a) The Student Instructions file contains links to all surveys

b) The instructors will give their students the links to all surveys at the beginning of the project

c) For all surveys, students will receive emails with links to each survey approximately 3 days before each survey due date

d) All surveys will be completed using paper-and-pencil format and the students will receive the booklets with questions from their instructors

What is the company for which your team is supposed to write the new market entry proposal?

a) Each team will receive an email with the name of the company for which the team must write the report

b) There is a list of 10 companies in the Student Instructions file and the team are free to choose any of the 10 companies

c) The teams can choose any company - it can be a large multinational company like Microsoft or Toyota or a small company with limited international operations. The only condition is that all members of the team must have enough information about the company needed to write the team business proposal

d) This semester, all teams write reports for McDonnald's. No other companies are allowed

How will the instructors know if the project contains plagiarized work?

a) The instructors will not know even if the students copy their entire report off the Internet

b) The instructors are very smart and know plagiarism once they see it

c) The team reports will be submitted to Turnitin which is a sophisticated program that detects plagiarism

What should you do when the email address of one of your team members doesn’t work?

a) Ignore it. There is no need to inform anyone or to do anything else about it.

b) Inform your instructor right away and your instructor will try to obtain an updated email for the student. Meanwhile, continue working on the project with the rest of your team.

c) Send an email to the Project Coordinator right away. Why bother your instructor when the Project Coordinator truly enjoys receiving emails from the 2,000+ students and has nothing better to do than to reply to all those emails.

d) Stop working as a team. If you cannot reach one of the students due to the faulty email, your team has failed and there is no point in continuing working together.

What should you do when one of your teammates never responds to your emails?

a) Mention the problem in one of several short team participation surveys – the instructors will do their best to find the missing student and help get him or her up to speed

b) Even if one or several students don’t participate, continue working with the rest of the team

c) As you continue working with the rest of the team, send messages every few days to the missing student to remind him or her that you are waiting for his or her involvement in the project

d) If the student never fully participates in the project, give him low peer evaluations in the post-project survey

e) Do all of the above