The intent of this assignment is for the student, in a group, to create an expense/income spreadsheet containing expenses of various kinds and income for 2003.

 In the group assignment you will need to have 30 items/expenses (subcategories), per student,  so, you can expect a large spreadsheet. It will be a good challenge printing it in a presentable manner!

A nice looking product will be expected since this is a group assignment. Please, remember to use the proper formatting, remember to put $ signs by the numbers, and the most important  “ask questions about this assignment constantly”, via e-mail, phone or in class if you find yourself “stuck.” There may be various questions that will arise during the planning stages. We will work on this assignment in phases and you will have the opportunity to meet with your group in class, if time permits, but there will be some meetings that you will have to plan outside of the classroom.

Since this is a group work the participation of ALL the members will be very important. The group leaders that are assigned will report to the instructor with the progress of the project and if any problems arise. Also, it is their responsibility to distribute the work among the group members and keep a schedule to make sure the work is finished on time.

 NOTE: Those members indicated by the group that are not actively and responsibly taking part of the project will be asked to create the assignment separate from the group. Remember that all members will have to participate equally!

Turn in:

1.    Cover sheet with a logo for the group, and your names. This should be created using MS Word that you learned in class. It should include a picture or you can also use the Word Art as demonstrated in class.

2.   A table of contents with numbers (make sure to put numbers in your pages). You do not need a page number on the cover page or the table of contents.

3.   One or two paragraph statement, per student, with their names and what was their responsibility in this project.

4.   A hard copy of the full spreadsheet in a presentable manner. Do not print it too small or too big. Using laser printers you may fit one and half or two people per page.

5.   A print out of the formulas used in your spreadsheet (only the bottom part where you have the calculations, not the whole spreadsheet) NOTE: DO NOT put totals for each individual student. You should have a summary at the end with all the categories totals, a grand total for all the expenses for the group. An average of all the expenses for the group, a MIN formula which will indicate who spent the least and a MAX formula indicating who was the biggest spender.

6.   Create 5 graphs containing different types of statistical information, and they should also be of different types. i.e. pie, bar, line, etc. The graphs need to be complete with proper labeling. Each person in the group is supposed to create 2-3 graphs and the group will decide which ones will be included in the final project. This will give a chance for all the members to work on the graphs. Show your work to the instructor before handing in the project, this will guarantee your group a good grade!

 There are four criteria in which the group will be graded:

Organization, Presentation, graphs, spreadsheet.

Look at the sample pages from a previous assignment, this was worth 150 points. Very complete with all the requirements.

Turn in:

Click on the images to enlarge them

A print out of the formulas used in your spreadsheet (only the bottom part where you have the calculations, not the whole spreadsheet)

 

Create 5 graphs containing different types of statistical information, and they should also be of different types. i.e. pie, bar, line, etc. The graphs need to be complete with proper labeling. Each person in the group is supposed to create 3 graphs and the group will decide which ones will be included in the final project. This will give a chance to all the members to work on the graphs. Show your work to the instructor before handing in the project, this will guarantee you a good grade!

Some great samples:

 

MAKE SURE TO CHECK EACH ITEM TO RECEIVE FULL POINTS!!!

Grading Criteria for group assignment

Assignment number seven is worth 150 points. The scoring of this assignment is divided as follows. Make sure that you fulfill each requirement to earn full points. So, use this form as a check list. The best way to guarantee a good grade is to show the final project to your instructor prior to hand it in. Your instructor will suggest changes and improvements.

Presentation (37.5 points)

1. ________ Is cover page well centered, space well used, clean ?

2. ________ Was the whole project printed with the same printer so that all pages have the same appearance ? (sometimes when you print using different dot matrix printers some pages are lighter than others.

3. ________ Spelling correct on spreadsheet and the rest of the project?
4. ________ Do the spreadsheet take too many pages? (make sure to condense the print of the whole spreadsheet so that it does not take too many pages)
5. ________ Is the printed size of the spreadsheet legible?
6. ________ Are the fonts used in the whole project consistent?
7. ________ Are all the pages on the graphs or spreadsheets printed in the same direction? (all portrait or landscape).
8. ________ Do the graphs use the space on the paper well. (graph too small for the page size, small fonts used)

Organization (37.5 points)

Are all parts of the assignment enclosed?

1.  
2. ________cover with name of the members and a graph
3. ________table of contents
4. ________1 or 2 paragraph statement per group member on what were their responsibilities.
5. ________the spreadsheet
6. ________the spreadsheet formulas
7. ________graphs
8. ________Does the table of contents match page numbers?
9. ________Are all pages somehow binded ? (Please do not use the plastic cover with the plastic sliding lock)

Spreadsheet (37.5 points)

1. ________Does it have all the 30 sub-categories per student?
2. ________Do you have a lot of 0's in your expenses? (this will affect your graphs, make sure that you do not have too many of them, better yet none. Just make up some numbers)
3. ________Did you avoid repeating the values in the expenses more than 7 sub-categories? (each extra sub-category where the values are repeated will count -2 points each!)
4. ________Does the spreadsheet meet the requirements of the assignment? (all individual spreadsheets combined into 1 and the calculations at the end?)
5. ________Are the calculations correct?
6. ________Do you have dollar signs?
7. ________Did you include the printed formulas sheet at the end?
8. ________Did you put page numbers?

Graphs (37.5 points)

1. ________Is the data represented on the graph appropriate? (i.e. when comparing data, DO NOT use January X February as a comparison, instead, use quarters. Do not compare data such as Phone X Gas, but you may want to compare all sub-categories under home, or you may want to compare all the categories)
2. ________Do the graphs represent comparisons between all the members of the group? (not individual graphs. i.e. John Doe 1994 electric expenses, instead use Marie, John, Bob, Marcia (Group X)
3. ________Is the proper graph type used for the type of information portrayed? such as line graphs for trends, bar for comparisons, etc.
4. ________Are the labels used correctly? Graph title, x-axis, y-axis, legends?
5. ________Does the graph name represent the graph properly? (i.e. if you labeled a graph "Income vs. Expenses" and you have the graph displaying income, expenses and balance)
6. ________Did you put the year on the graph title?
7. ________Group name on the graph? (i.e. 1994 Group Z Expenses vs. Income.)
8. ________Is the graph displayed hindering information. (such as 3-D bar graphs tend to hide information, make sure to avoid that type of graph. Line graphs tend to overlap each other if the values are close to each other. Using a black and white dot matrix printer if the values are too close one line will cover each other. It will be better to use a color or laser printer.
9. ________Dollar signs on values in the graphs?
10. ________If you use pie graphs make sure that you don't single out a piece of the pie unless that is the intent of the graph and it is properly labeled.
11. ________Did you make sure that you did not repeat the graph? For instance. You have a bar chart comparing income and expense and the other graph compares the same information but it is a pie chart.
    
12. ________Page numbers on all pages.

Check some of those links for Excel basics:

• Excel Basics
• Other Cool Excel Sites on the Web

If you have any questions about this assignment be sure to let the instructor know before it is due, if you can not meet me during regular lab hours be sure to call me 503-6147604 or leave me an e-mail message wmorales@pcc.edu

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This page was last modified October 08, 2002
wmorales@pccl.edu