Basic Specifications

Audience:	Produce the video at a level understandable by an "average" student in this class.
Teamwork:	You can complete this assignment on your own or in cooperation with one other student in the class. If you do it as a team, you should also submit a statement, approved by both of you, explaining how the work was divided.
Style:	The video should open with a clear title, and should end with a list of credits, which will include your information sources and acknowledgement of any help that you received in research and production. You should also send me a written bibliography with full information about your sources. Otherwise, you will have a lot of freedom in the format, and the video can include many different kinds of material -- video clips that were shot by you and/or imported from other sources (with proper acknowledgement), still photos and graphics, background voice-overs and music, etc.
Length:	About 5-10 minutes.
Dates:	Turn in a topic statement (one-two paragraphs), a plan for the video, and a preliminary bibliography of information sources by February 14. Depending on the nature of your project, you may also find it helpful to include a storyboard in your initial plan. The finished video is due April 25, and should be uploaded to a service such as YouTube or Vimeo. Send me a link to the final product and any other supporting material submitted electronically as an email attachment to steve_gardner@baylor.edu.

Objectives

Driven by improvements in technology and changes in demand from the general public, video content is used more and more in marketing, education, entertainment, and other forms of communication. A well-executed video can be a valuable part of your portfolio when you are searching for employment and other opportunities. If your video is done well, it should serve several purposes:

• Application: You will have an opportunity to apply concepts and explore topics learned in this course.
• Focus:  You will gain in-depth knowledge of one subject. If you produce your video on, say, the the economics of Confucianism, you may become an authority on that particular subject.
• Research:  You will need to perform research for the video in roughly the same that you would for a term paper, so you will gain additional experience performing library and on-line research. To find the most current and complete information on your topic, you will need to consult a wide range of research sources.
• Video Production: Your grade will depend, in part, on the quality of the lighting, shooting, sound, titling, and editing of the video. If you were producing this video for an employer, it would be clear that you need to do it as professionally as possible. This will give you an opportunity to learn and develop those skills.

Topics

Several different kinds of topics are acceptable in this course for your video. They include the following:

1. One option is to produce a video about a national economic system.  This could begin with a brief discussion of the historical and cultural background of the country, its resource base, and perhaps its political system. Then you would provide a general description of the economic system, which may include information on industrial organization, banking, labor-management relations, the role of the government in the economy, and so on. Next, you will need to focus the video by emphasizing one aspect of the economic system. The video title may be, for example, "Britain After Brexit," or "Financial Institutions in Vietnam."  Finally, you may discuss the recent economic performance of the country--inflation, unemployment, etc.--and discuss the extent to which that performance can be "explained" by the structure of the economic system.  It should be clear that your video concerns the institutional structure of the economy.  It should not bear too close a resemblance to a video in, say, comparative politics or international marketing. 
2. Another option is to pick an economic phenomenon, and compare its operation, use, or significance in two or more economic systems.  You could, for example, discuss population growth policies in China and India. Other topics could involve prices, interest rates, investment, profits, public finance, labor unions, banking, and insurance.
3. You may perform a comparative study of two (or more, I suppose) countries that have similar historical and cultural backgrounds--i.e., North and South Korea--and try to determine whether differences in their economic performances can be explained by differences in their economic systems, or whether they are explained by other factors.
4. If you have an idea for some other kind of project that would apply the material covered in this course, come in during office hours and talk to me about it.
   
   

Production Methods and Style

Your video should address your topic as clearly, informatively, and professionally as possible, taking into account your current level of skill and access to video/audio equipment and technology:

1. As already mentioned, your video should open with a clear title, and should end with a list of credits, which will include your information sources and acknowledgement of any help that you received in research and production. The content should be based on a clear plan and organization, and any narrative sections should be based on edited scripts.
   
   
2. The video can be shot with your smart phone or pad if that's the best video camera available to you. You may want to include, for example, original interviews on the subject with Baylor faculty members or others who are knowledgeable of the ideas or events you are exploring. For good video quality, you will need to pay attention to lighting, backgrounds, and steadiness of the camera. For good audio quality, you should avoid background noise (loud air conditioners, fans, and other sounds unrelated to the video), and take test shots to be sure that interview subjects or other speakers are picked up well by the microphone.
   
   
3. In addition to video that is shot for the project, you can also incorporate still photos and graphics and video and, within limits and with proper acknowledgements, video imported from other sources (such as YouTube). Since your video may, in some sense, be a historical documentary, you may want to looks at the techniques used by people such as Ken Burns in their work. In the end, however, this should be your ORIGINAL creation, so material imported from other sources should be used sparingly and incorporated into a final product that is essentially new.
   
   
4. When it's done professionally and in good taste, the video can include humor, music, and other elements to make the final product more engaging and effective.
   
   
5. I STRONGLY recommend for you to explore the services, hardware, and software that are available to you at the Moody Media Lab in Moody Library. You can reserve the use of their video/audio booths and equipment online at this site.
   

Grading

Your grade on the video will depend on its satisfaction of the purposes listed above. In particular:

33.3%	Relevance of topic and application of course concepts.
33.3%	Documentation: Your information in your video should be drawn from a large number and broad variety of sources.
33.3%	Presentation: I understand that this is not a video production class, but your project will still be examined for the quality of its videography, sound, editing, and clarity of its content.

Plagiarism and Other Dishonorable Conduct

According to the Baylor Student Conduct Code, students found guilty of misconduct are subject to a range of sanctions, including expulsion from the university.  According to the University Honor Code , dishonorable conduct includes (among other items) the following:

1. Offering for course credit as one's own work, in whole or in part, the work of another.
2. Incorporating into one's work offered for course credit passages taken either word for word or in substance from a work of another, unless the student credits the original author and identifies the original author's work with quotation marks, footnotes, or another appropriate written explanation.
3. Offering for course credit one's own work, but work that one has previously offered for course credit in another course, unless one secures permission to do so prior to submission from the instructor in whose course the work is being offered.
4. Offering for course credit work prepared in collaboration with another, unless the student secures the instructor's permission in advance of submission. A student does not prepare work in collaboration with another if he or she merely discusses with another a matter relevant to the work in question.

As mentioned above, you can incorporate material from many other sources, but they must be carefully acknowleged, copyrights must be respected, and the final product should be new and original.

Information Sources 

The research that you should perform for production of this video is very similar to the research that you would perform for a term paper, except for the fact that you probably will make fuller use of other video and photography, and you may need to learn the basics of video production.

Video Production
For a general introduction to student video production, look here, and for a short and free course, look here.

For video editing software, Adobe Premiere is the industry standard used by many video producers. It works on both PCs and Macs, and is available for your use on some Baylor campus computers, including those in the Moody Media Lab. If you keep it really simple, you may be able to shoot and edit your video with apps in your phone. However, you will have much stronger editing capabilities with FREE, open-source editors such as Another good FREE alternative is OpenShot and Shotcut that work across platforms on Macs, Windows, and Linux.

To upload your video to YouTube, you will need to create a free account, and then follow the instructions that you can find here.

Books
Books usually are your best source for "the big picture" and detailed background information.  However, some of that information is usually out of date soon after the book is published.  That's why you need to supplement books with the other current sources that are given below. Your main bibliographic source for books in the Baylor Library is OneSearch. Ebook Central is a great source and search engine for online books in the Baylor collection

Periodicals
EconLit is the best bibliographic search engine for articles in advanced economics journals. A good general-purpose search engine for economic and business publications is Business Source Complete. You can look at this list to find out whether we have electronic full-text access to the journals that you identify. Otherwise, you can obtain journal articles, delivered electronically as pdf files, by sending a request to Interlibrary Services.
 
Online Resources
Google is great, but don't stop there. For general web searches, try using this specialized Economics Search Engine. On the Baylor Libraries Databases web page, look through the Subject listings for Economics and International Studies. You should try to find web sites for government offices (Ministry of Finance, Prime Minister's Office, Statistical Office, etc.) and research institutes in the country you are studying; these may provide current reports and economic statistics.

Statistics
PLEASE do not include outdated statistics in your paper. World Development Indicators is a particularly good source of  international economic statistics, and others may be found in OECD, UNdata, and the UNDP Human Development database.

home résumé courses resources
hankamer school of business 
baylor university  baylor economics