It was interesting to compared the 2 sites listed. If I was actually doing a project, I think that the University of Minnesota's tool would be more helpful. It seemed to have everything ... even a link to information on formatting notes, etc. If you are actually a student at the University, all of the on-campus resources available to students are listed along the way at the appropriate point in the project (with special attention to the aids specific to your topic). However, Research Project Calculator did have one huge plus ... in all of the scenarios I inputted, it had the "finished" date for the project before it was actually due. The UMN tool spread things out right up until the due date. The other minor point in RPC's favor was that it covered different formats of projects rather than just papers.
I'm not sure how I would use this in a public library. Many of the students who come here looking for information are either already down to the wire or have the project fairly well under control. I will recommend it to some of the homeschooling families in the area as a resource. I know that I wouldn't use it personally ... although I do many large projects both in my work life and privately, research is usually a small part of the project and both of these tools assume that research will take the bulk of the time.
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