English 421Y: Technical Writing Online

This week was far more laid back than previous weeks, as things began to slow down with the end of the semester. We basically looked over our paper and made corrections to them as a group. I looked over the revision that Jack sent out to everyone. I paid close attention to see if the instructor’s feedback was attended to and looked over formatting and grammar. I also tried to pay close attention to the audience we were attempting to address and tried to make sure this was done so accordingly. The revised paper turned out to look better and heeded much of the instructor’s feedback.

This week was quite productive for me. Mainly I worked on organizing my research and producing my part of the white paper for the rough draft. I analyzed each of my sources and picked out the most credible ones. Then I went through and decided which would be best for the scope of what I would be discussing in the paper. After that I pretty much had all of my sources narrowed down and had decided what information I would be using from each.

This week has been quite busy for me! From researching to writing the group activity report, things have kept me moving. Moving in the right direction though! I began the week off by sitting down and thinking of the different functions of our cost analysis that would need to exist. Once I outlined several different areas that our cost analysis should include I began researching these and documenting what I found accordingly. I found many different publications online with loads of useful information.

This week our group began researching our topic of Open Source vs. Microsoft, and began formulating some of the whitepaper designs. The research proceeded once we had agreed upon a solid primary audience and the motive of the whitepaper. Once we were able to break down our audience into a more specific set of user we found it would be easier to research the subject.

The last piece of research I found seemed to gleam the most information for me. It had several sections outlining a list of open source software used cost savings versus capabilities gained, implicit savings in hardware, other implicit cost savings( such as security, lower virus vulnerability and upgrade costs) and finally the roadblock to using open source software.

The second piece of research I found covers a little different of an audience that we would still like to adhere to. Schools overseas are also concerned with this matter. While our audience is intended to adhere to smaller schools, this is just fine. There are plenty of small schools overseas. So, I found an article outlining this subject over in the United Kingdom. Turns out several schools over there are also following this economic plan.

For my first piece of research I have found an article outlining a case study of an actual school system in Portnland, OR that has implemented an Open Source solution over a Microsoft solution. The article goes into the cost analysis and how the managed some of the different costs and what the benefits and downfalls were of each implementation that they looked into

Ethics are a tough thing to define. The reading puts it in terms of “doing the right thing”. I would say ethics are simply embellishments to law in the governance of mankind. Rightfully so, we must take it upon ourselves to implement these supplemental laws throughout our everyday lives. It is imperative to understand the idea of ethics in the workplace in order to maintain an appropriate level of professionalism and integrity. The reading outlined ethics in three categories; these being personal, social and conversation.

During week 12 our group began preparing and planning for our project. We brainstormed ideas for our audience and created a chronological schedule to help us track the life cycle of the project. The group worked on delegating different functions of the project out to individuals and some as group functions. Following this we all reviewed our schedule of tasks, which was organized in a gantt chart.