Ethics assignment 3: Mutual Accountability

Being a part of a group for the WIki project has indeed intoroduced the notion of "mutual accountability". Joint accountability seems to affect different students differently. Is one assumes a bell-shaped grade distribution in a class, chances are that students from all over the curve will be grouped together. In such a configuration, the quality of work that will ultimately result will usually reflect that of the stronger students-- if for no reason other than the stronger students will pick up the slack left behind by the weaker students. This seems to create an unfair division of labor. In our case, i feel like the effect is indeed amplified, since the web-based nature of this dilutes the confrontation issues, allowing some to put in less effort without facing criticism or retribution in person.

I feel that in our particular Wiki, I am doing my fair share of the work by both puttin in infomational ideas and carrying out the plans agreed upon by the group. For a project such as this, the division of labor is very skewed. The project itself is simple enough that the division of labor actually hinders it. One person could finish the Wiki in a few hours. In contrast, having 7 people on 1 assignment causes confusion, while requiring that you ask permission to make changes. Also, not knowing your group members, and not being able to readly communicate with them makes it difficult to asses strengths and weaknesses, which are important for delegation of duties. This could be improved if the assignment had more facets to it. For instance, a project that required research, writing, creating figures, and interpretation. Such a project might stimulate more communication and improve workability of a larger problem by making it more straightforawrd to delegate duties.