PrintOK, this is the part of the introduction where I have to be a bit firm. Hopefully, after saying these things once, I won't have to say them again, and if that's the case, we'll all be happier.
Your responsibilities
This course, as delivered through the Penn State World Campus, is a distance education course. I understand that many of you may be resident students at the University Park campus or one of the other Penn State campuses. However, as a distance education course, you cannot treat this course the same way you would treat a regular, in vivo course. This is more of an independent learning experience. This isn't strictly a correspondence course - I am here to answer any questions, address issues you may have, participate in the discussion forums, and so on.
But, I will reiterate, this is largely an independent learning experience. As such, there are certain responsibilities that fall upon you.
- You must make yourself familiar with the time-lines of the course and the timing of the assignments. Quizzes, exams and mid-terms are open only for a limited amount of time. If you do not take the assessments in the prescribed window of time, you will not be able to do so afterwards.
- By committing to take an online course, you are committing to having sufficient Internet access to be able to take this course without significant interruption. If you know that you are going to be spending a lot of weekends at your parents' cabin, where there is no Internet, then perhaps you should not be taking this course. Not having access to the Internet is not a valid excuse for missing assignments. So, please don't tell me that you couldn't take a quiz because you didn't have Internet access.
- If you have a valid reason for not taking a quiz, such as hospitalization or bereavement, please let me know as soon as possible. It is always easier for us to plan around such eventualities in advance.
- Pay attention to your in-box. We will be sending you e-mail messages frequently. I will be making announcements, reminding you of upcoming assignments, giving you exam results, and so on. All messages from course staff will begin with the prefix "EBF 200." I strongly suggest that you set up your PSU mail account to automatically forward to another account, such as Hotmail or Gmail, if you use such an account regularly. Once again, telling me you didn't get an e-mail is not an excuse for missing an assignment. If I send an e-mail, I assume that you received it. If you go for more than a week without getting an e-mail from me or another course administrator, please contact me and find out if something is wrong with your account.
- Extra credit: please do not e-mail me in the last week of the course (or any other time) and ask me if "there is anything I can do to improve my grade". We will have a small amount of extra credit available related to the short answer questions. There will be no other extra credit opportunities. Don't ask, because I will say no, and I don't like saying no, and you probably don't like being told no. So, everybody is better off if you don't ask. If you do, I'll probably send you a link to this page and ask you to re-read clause #5.
- Discussion forums. In Canvas you will find a discussion forum for asking questions about material covered in this course. I will try to address your questions in a timely manner, but I also expect each of you to assist your fellow students if you can, and to do so in a helpful and supportive manner. The discussion forum is not a place to complain about the course, or me, or the quizzes, or how ridiculous you find some of the content, or how some question wasn't fair.
- Tracking grades. Your marks from weekly quizzes and exams should show up in the Canvas gradebook a few days after assessment closes, as either I or the course teaching assistant have to read and manually grade them. If they do not show up, let me know as soon as possible.
My responsibilities
My primary responsibility throughout the duration of the course will be responding to questions you may have, either via the email interface in Canvas or via the discussion forums. As mentioned above, all course communications forward automatically to me, so I will see everything pretty much instantly. If something is urgent, I will strive to address it as soon as possible. If it is a request that is not urgent, but cogent and meaningful, I will strive to address it within a day or two. If I am going to be out of communication for a day or two, I'll let you know so that you can expect a bit of a delay. I don't expect this to happen too often, but if it does, I will get on it as soon as possible.
OK, I think that's all for now, although I will reserve the right to add to this page as other things arise.