Throughout your education, you have been asked to research topics and write papers, engage in thought-provoking discussions, consider diverse perspectives, and a host of other challenges that have required you to use both your discipline-specific skills as well as your soft skills to show proficiency of content-related topics. These are called transferable skills. Transferable skills are skills that you develop that can be transferred and applied within your chosen career. Transferable skills are highly valuable and essential for career success.

You will need to refer back to the projects that you’ve saved in your Transferable Skills Course Project Collection when you take your Capstone Course The Capstone course at the end of your program will require you to choose the assessment that best exhibits your knowledge and demonstration of the Transferable Skills, which will include an added reflection and be placed in a portfolio required for graduation.

It is now time to submit your “course project/transferable skills assignment” To complete this assignment, you will need to do the following:

• • Please review your student “Transferable Skills Project Portfolio” folder for important details regarding your Transferable Skills Course Project Collection E-Portfolio and a review of the six transferable skills.

• • Make sure to compile ALL components of your project/assignment(s) (if the project covers several assignments, compile them all in their proper order). Sometimes a project can span throughout several week of a course. For example, if you have 5 assignments as part of a project, you will need to compile ALL 5 assignments into one document/final project in proper order.

• Compile all of the rubrics that your Instructor used to grade each component of your project or transferable skills assignment. Copy and paste them in proper order to the end of your project. The rubrics should be the last few pages of your project assignment. If done correctly, everything will be one document! For more assistance, click here for video instructions.

Click here if you have trouble viewing the video.

Submitting your Assignments

1. Compile both your project/assignment(s), and grading rubrics as one document.
2. Submit the final assignment to the Optimal Resume Tool by clicking the link here or under the Resources tab.

   For Optimal Resume, you may use an existing account or create a new account. See directions on setting up your portfolio on the “Creating a New Optimal E-Portfolio Account” page. If you already have a Transferable Skills Course Project Collection set up and need further instructions on submitting your project/assignments to Optimal Resume, refer to instructions on the “E-Portfolio Submission Instructions” page.

3. Proceed to upload your assignment using the video/text instructions stated on the “E-Portfolio Submission Instructions” page.
4. The assignment grading rubrics provided by your instructor will show which transferable skills are present within the project.
5. Paste the URL for your portfolio into the message box.

Submit your completed assignment to the drop box below. Please check the Course Calendar for specific due dates.

Save your assignment as a Microsoft Word document. (Mac users, please remember to append the “.docx” extension to the filename.) The name of the file should be your first initial and last name, followed by an underscore and the name of the assignment, and an underscore and the date. An example is shown belo

The Final Research Project will present research relating the responsibilities of a critical thinker to contemporary society. In this assignment, you will do the following:

• Research one aspect of a contemporary social problem.
• Define the problem.
• Propose a possible solution for the problem.
• Create an argument that supports your thesis position. You should take on the perspective of a critically thinking researcher. The argument must present a thesis statement and evidence to support the thesis statement.
• Evaluate the ethical outcomes that result from the position you take on the issue and explain how those outcomes would influence society and culture.
• Interpret statistical data from at least two peer-reviewed scholarly sources.
• Evaluate evidence using the following standards: validity, reliability, and bias related to the chosen topic and accurately identify strengths and weaknesses.

Research and Define the Problem

You must take on the perspective of your major field of study and explain in your paper what that perspective is and how it informs your view of the topic. The topics listed above are far too broad to write about in 10–12 pages (3,300–3,900 words). Instead, you must choose a narrowly defined thesis and approach it from the perspective of your field.

Example: If you are an economics major, and you are interested in immigration reform, you should approach a very specific aspect of immigration reform through the lens of economic theory and practice. A specific thesis question would not be, “How does illegal immigration influence the U.S. economy?” One could write thousands of pages on such a topic. Instead, a better question would be, “How do illegal immigrant hotel workers in Chicago impact the economy of Northern Illinois?” You would then want to do the research and determine the positive and negative impacts they have, ultimately trying to conclude how illegal immigration in this area should be approached ethically.

How to Hone Your Thesis: It is important that you start your research early in this course. Try to find the most important contemporary questions and theories in your field of study and then align the most important questions with a very specific aspect of the general topics above. For example, if you are a psychology major, you might want to start thinking within the realm of healthcare reform or aspects of mental health and criminality in the prison system.

Your Argument

You must present a complete argument, including a major claim with at least five points of evidence, information, or data that will prove the claim.

• The thesis statement must be
  • A clear, simple declarative sentence as the first or last sentence in the opening paragraph of the essay.
  • Of such a nature that it can be substantiated, corroborated, verified, and proved through appeal to primary or secondary academic research source materials.
• The introductory paragraph must
  • Present the thesis statement, an explanation for the importance of the topic, and its relation to the student’s field of study.
• Beliefs, opinions, and personal opinions must not be introduced at any point in the essay.
• All beliefs and opinions should be supported with academic evidence. Sweeping generalizations with no supporting academic evidence do not reflect adequate critical thinking skills.
• Do not include rhetorical questions in your essays. All the questions that are pertinent to your project need to be answered in your essay and your answers again need to be supported with evidence from peer-reviewed journal articles and academically published books.

Attributes of Good Critical Thinking in Papers

• Your paper should include academic sources that explain multiple sides of the issue.
• The evidence that you use should come from high-level researchers engaged in your field of study.
• Your interpretations of the evidence should be objective and state the conclusions and theses presented in the evidence clearly and fairly.
• Your paper should place the various forms of evidence in relation to one another and demonstrate why one form or perspective is stronger than the other positions that one could take on the issue.
• Your paper should point out the limitations of current evidence and attempt to indicate areas for future research.

Ethical Outcomes of the Position You Take

After you have defined the problem and created an argument about how one ought to respond to the issue, you need to explain the ethical outcomes of the position you have taken. This should again be in relation to the field of study in which you are working. There might be different ethical outcomes that result from your analysis. For example, going back to the example issue above, from an economic standpoint, illegal immigrants might contribute positively to the economy of Northern Illinois in a specific number of ways. Thus, an economist who believes that positive impact to the economy is the greatest good would say that one should promote the use of illegal immigrants. However, because these workers are often paid less than others and eliminate jobs that could be done by residents of Chicago, there could be other negative ethical outcomes that would outweigh the positive impacts to the economy. It is your goal to draw out the ethical implications of your thesis and explain the underlying rationale that is the foundation for your claim that one action is better than another.

• Critical thinkers are those who can outline the positive and negative ethical impacts of their positions. In addition, they are able to provide a rationale for why they believe a specific position is the right position, even when it leads to negative outcomes.
• Critical thinkers are also able to be honest and objective about the limitations and gray areas that pertain to their theses.

Final Research Project Requirements

The Final Research Project may be presented as a formal research paper (essay format), a PowerPoint presentation, a video, or a podcast equivalent to a minimum of 10 – 12 pages in APA format (approximately 3,300 – 3,900 typewritten words, excluding title page and reference pages). Written essays must adhere to all APA formatting standards and requirements, as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center.

PowerPoint presentations must include the full text (at least 3,300 words) in the speaker notes portion of the slides, with appropriate citations, and full reference pages. PowerPoint presentations must adhere to the basic principles of PowerPoint presentation design and must include citations and references according to APA standards and requirements.

Videos and podcasts must include a full transcript, in APA format, including appropriate in-text citations and a references page.

Quotations:

There must be no more than 15% quoted content in the body of your essay. All quoted material must bear quotation marks and a full quotation citation.

Source Documents:

• There must be 10 or more source documents used, cited, and referenced.
• Multimedia sources (such as videos) may be used, but no more than two such sources may be used. If multimedia sources are used, then they must be authored and distributed by credible sources, such as universities, law schools, medical schools, or professors, or found in the Ashford University Library.
• Where print documents are used for source materials, those must be peer-reviewed, scholarly journal articles, and academically published books. Popular media sources (e.g., newspapers, magazines, television and radio shows, etc.) may not be used. Materials from advocacy groups (e.g., Greenpeace, Human Rights Campaign, National Organization for Women, etc.) may not be used.
• Two of the peer-reviewed scholarly sources used must include statistical evidence, which must be accurately interpreted.
• Sites such as ProCon.org and Wikipedia should not be used.
• Religious texts are neither peer-reviewed nor scholarly and so may not be used in any way.

Summary Conclusion:

You must have a summary conclusion as the last paragraph(s) of the project, presenting the

Due Week 10 and worth 200 points

Use the Internet or the Strayer Library to research one (1) concept in information systems that you have studied in this course. You may select a topic of your choice or you may use one (1) of the following:

• Computer literacy and information literacy
• Using information systems and information technologies / management information systems
• Data warehouses
• Personal, legal, ethical, and organizational issues of information systems
• Protecting information resources
  • risks associated with information technologies
  • computer and network security
  • security threats / measures & enforcement / comprehensive security guidelines
• Mobile and wireless networks / security
• Convergence of voice, video, and data
• New trends: the Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 eras
• e-Commerce / B2B e-Commerce / mobile and voice-based e-Commerce
• Global information systems
• Building successful information systems
• Enterprise systems
• Management support systems
• Intelligent information systems
• Emerging trends, technologies, and applications

Write a four to five (4-5) page paper in which you:

1. Present an overview of the origin and history of the concept that you have chosen.
2. Describe one (1) current use of the concept that you have chosen. Include at least two (2) examples of such use in individuals, organizations, and / or governments to support your response.
3. Discuss common attitudes toward the concept. Next, discuss your own attitudes toward the concept in question. Justify your response.
4. Explain the fundamental strengths and weaknesses–or the advantages and disadvantages–of the concept that you have chosen. Justify your response.
5. Describe the prevailing view that experts hold about the likely future of the concept in question. Include the views of at least three (3) experts to support your response.
6. Use at least six (6) quality references. Note: Wikipedia and other Websites do not qualify as academic resources.

Your assignment must follow these formatting requirements:

• Be typed, double spaced, using Times New Roman font (size 12), with one-inch margins on all sides; citations and references must follow APA or school-specific format. Check with your professor for any additional instructions.
• Include a cover page containing the title of the assignment, the student’s name, the professor’s name, the course title, and the date. The cover page and the reference page are not included in the required assignment page length.

The specific course learning outcomes associated with this assignment are:

• Explain the major components of an information systems infrastructure.
• Identify emerging technologies that enable new forms of communication, collaboration, and partnering.
• Explain how information systems are enabling new forms of commerce between individuals, organizations, and governments.
• Use technology and information resources to research issues in information systems.
• Write clearly and concisely about management information systems using proper writing mechanics.