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Dropbox Template Concept Paper: The Role of Incubators in Supporting Entrepreneurship Description This concept paper will explore the role of incubators in supporting entrepreneurship. The paper will be 6-8 pages, typed, double-spaced, with normal margins and 12-pt font. Tables, figures and references are in addition to the page count. The paper must include at least five (5) references, including at least three (3) academic references using the ‘APA style’ (American Psychological Association). Academic references include peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters from academic books. If in doubt as to whether or not your references are academic, please consult with the instructor, a TA, or a librarian. Other references might include government documents, incubator/accelerator websites, newspaper articles and business magazines. Your paper must include an introduction with a clear thesis statement, literature review, case study/example, and a conclusion (see sample outline). Your paper should: Explore the literature on incubators What is an incubator? What is the role of an incubator in supporting entrepreneurship? What programs or services do they offer? Where are they located Why they are important? Identify (if any) challenges, limitations, or debates in the literature Provide a case study of one example (e.g. GreenHouse, Velocity, Communitech …..) Where is it located? How does it operate? What services or programs does it offer? What sectors or types of entrepreneurs does it support? If there is a process for applying (please explain). Other information (e.g. number of companies created, perhaps describe one company that resonates with you, etc.) Why you selected this particular case study DUE DATE: Monday October 4th @ 11:00pm ET in Dropbox EXPECTATIONS Meet the stated requirements of the assignment including number of references and correct APA referencing Well-written, well-structured Well-researched with an appropriate discussion of the literature and case study. ASSESSMENT: This individual assignment is worth 25 percent of your course grade. TIP: Please refer to Week 3 Tutorial on Finding Resources, Fake News, and Using Resources Effectively for tips on how to find sources and reference. How To Submit Your Assignment Please note that the following instructions pertain to this specific assignment. Instructions for other assignments may differ. Your assignment must be submitted online to the Concept Paper Dropbox by the deadline specified in the schedule. The Dropbox can be accessed by clicking Submit and then Dropbox on the course navigation bar. Your assignment must be submitted in: Microsoft Word (DOC or DOCX) General Guidelines for Submitting to a LEARN Dropbox Ensure that the name of your file does not include special characters such as symbols or punctuation. Such characters may cause problems when uploading your file. Unless otherwise instructed, please submit only ONE file per assignment (i.e., combine all documents into one file). Do not zip your files. Keep a copy of your assignment. If your submission is successful, you will receive an Email Confirmation Receipt sent to your @uwaterloo.ca email address. If you do not receive an Email Confirmation Receipt, please double-check your submission and resubmit if necessary. Keep all Email Confirmation Receipts until the course is over as proof of submission. If you need support accessing, uploading and submitting to the Dropbox, see Dropboxes by LEARN Help. More Information on Turnitin What is Turnitin? Turnitin is a text-matching tool that works by comparing your written assignment with a database of millions of web pages, academic books and articles, as well as other students' papers. Instructors use Turnitin as a first step in detecting plagiarism. After comparing your assignment to the database, Turnitin generates a similarity index and a Similarity Report on your submission. How is Turnitin used in this course? In this course, you will have the opportunity to use Turnitin to submit a draft of your assignment and then correct any problems before you submit your final version for grading. Your instructor will grade your final version, not your draft. Checking your draft is not mandatory, but you are encouraged to use this opportunity to review your work before submitting it for grading. How will it work? Submit your draft to the dropbox for that assignment. In that dropbox you will be able to see the Turnitin originality check results for your draft. You can then make changes to your draft and re-submit the final version of your written assignment to that same dropbox by the due date. Your instructor will then grade the final version that you've submitted to the appropriate dropbox. When should I submit my draft? We recommend that you submit your draft to the dropbox two to three days before the assignment is due. Once you submit your draft to the dropbox, it might take some time (i.e., minutes, or in some cases even a day or more) to receive the Turnitin Similarity Report. You'll also need to give yourself time to interpret the report and then make any necessary adjustments to your paper before submitting the final version. How do I view the similarity report? You can view the Similarity Report from the Folder Submissions page. Click the coloured section beside the percentage rating to view the associated Similarity Report. What will I receive from Turnitin? Turnitin highlights and colour-codes unoriginal content and produces a Similarity Report that includes a similarity index (a percentage) indicating how much of the submission was not original. The Similarity Report can help you identify where you might have unintentionally used poor paraphrasing when summarizing information from another source. When the Similarity Report is ready, you will see a percentage of the amount of matched (i.e., unoriginal) content. The percentage ranges are associated with colours, as follows: Blue: No matching text Green: One word to 24% matching text Yellow: 25-49% matching text Orange: 50-74% matching text Red: 75-100% matching text How do I interpret the similarity report? The percentage itself only tells you how much of the paper is the same as other sources (i.e., how much of your content is not original): the higher the percentage, the more the assignment will require revisions. Note that there is no “safe” colour or percentage. Therefore, no percentage or colour in the Similarity Report can fully evaluate whether text has been plagiarized. Rather than focusing solely on the percentage, go through your paper and look at the highlighted sections. Those are where some re-writing needs to be done. If you need help interpreting the Similarity Report you can refer to the Interpreting the Similarity Report from the Turnitin website. Cumbria University also has a good video on how to interpret your Similarity Report (note that the Similarity Report used to be called the Originality Report) – see Turnitin – Your originality report. Also see LSE Learning Technology and Innovation’s video How to interpret the Turnitin originality report – Guidance for students. If you need help with paraphrasing or summarizing, you can seek help from the Writing and Communication Centre. Sample Outline TIP: This is a sample; you can use other headings and subheadings. Please DO NOT treat this assignment as a Q&A – do not have a heading with one of the questions and then answer it. Introduction (~0.5-1 page) Outline the topic, the structure of your concept paper, and your thesis statement. A thesis statement is usually one or two sentences that explains the main argument or direction of paper. It can be descriptive (e.g. simply describing a subject) or persuasive (e.g. trying to convince the reader of a particular argument). The Role of Incubators in Supporting Entrepreneurship (~2-3 pages) In this section, you are providing an overview of the literature on incubators. You should have a paragraph or a few paragraphs on each of the following - What is an incubator? What is the role of an incubator in supporting entrepreneurship? What programs or services do they offer? Where are they located Why they are important? Identify (if any) challenges, limitations, or debates in the literature); you could also use subheadings to organize your thoughts). Case Study: [Insert incubator name and location] (~2-3 pages) In this section, you should have a few sentences, a paragraph, or a few paragraphs on each of the following - Where is it located? How does it operate? What services or programs does it offer? What sectors or types of entrepreneurs does it support? If there is a process for applying (please explain), Other information (e.g. number of companies created, perhaps describe one company that resonates with you, etc.), Why you selected this particular case study; you could also use subheadings to organize your thoughts). Conclusions (~0.5-1 page) Provide a summary of your paper and connect it back to your thesis statement. How Your Assignment Will Be Graded ObjectiveBelow Expectations (i.e. below 70%)Meets Expectations (i.e. 70-79%)Exceeds Expectations (i.e. 80-100%) Content Little-to-no information provided on incubators Little-to-no information provided on the case study Little originality or depth of understanding Good interaction with information on incubators Good selection and discussion of case study Good understanding of the concept Great interaction with information on incubators Great selection and discussion of case study Strong understanding of the concept Structure & Style Hard to follow No clear introduction, literature review, case study and/or conclusions Grammar and/or spelling mistakes Generally well-organized but some parts are hard to follow Generally well-structured Few grammar and/or spelling mistakes Clearly articulated, organized and structured with an introduction, literature review, case study and/or conclusions Very few grammar and/or spelling mistakes References Little-to-no references Irrelevant references Weak interaction with references in-text Good interaction with references in-text Good references used Great interaction with references in-text Great selection of references