Announcement posted May 21, 2012
This is an accelerated class and you will be starting to feel that a bit more now. Make sure to keep your eyes on assignment due dates. They will start to vary. Also be prepared for more than one assignment in a week. You have that situation this week. I recommend you don't procrastinate in making your major post that is due on Tuesday. Please read the instructions for a major post. You should treat that post almost like a "minature essay". However, also note that you have a full essay on the New Deal and Great Depression due on Thursday. Stay in contact if you are confused on due times and dates. We have Monday off for Memorial Day next week, so will have to have another compressed week next week.
Listed below is some old, but important, information
We had a few problems with students not using the text for their essays. As a reminder to what was covered in our Check In assignment, do not use any sources other than the sources I assign for your essays. I encourage you to include key quotes and direct references to our text in your essay. Don't fake those by creating false quotes or citations. Review our plagiarism policy that you covered in the check in. There will be reports sent to the Dean of Students for students who plagiarize. I don't like writing those reports and students usually don't like having them written, but some students still ignore these warnings.
The essay scores are based on 10 points and are roughly equal to the following grades:
10-9 = A, 8 = B, 7 = C, 6 = D
Keep track of your point totals and match them with the syllabus grade scale. I recommend having a class folder in your email client and keeping all the assessments and scores I send you there.
Discussion board postings are based on credit points. Note that "Major Postings" are worth double credit. I might be a bit off on this, but I believe we will have 20 possible credits for postings. The number of points you receive will be based on the percentage of credits earned. For example, if you earn 8 out of 10 credits (90%), you would then get 90% of participation points (27).
Course Policies and Information
Make sure to keep in contact. If you are struggling with the readings or writings, please take time to ask questions and give an update if you are not able to send in an assignment during the week.
If you don't receive a reply from me on an assignment or question within 48 hours, please send a follow-up message. If you don't receive a reply to your follow-up e-mail, then definitely use my voice mail. This can be found on our syllabus. If e-mail correspondence isn't working, definitely use the phone, however, use e-mail first, as voice mail is much less efficient in the online course.
Plagiarism is a common problem in academics and seems especially so in on-line classes. Some students copy directly from Internet sites, other texts or even other students' papers and fail to include quotation marks and citation. I run into numerous incidents of this each semester and am becoming increasingly less tolerant of this problem. I will approach incidents of plagiarism on a case by case basis. However, at the minimum, expect a failing grade in the paper if plagiarism is found. Also expect that I will file an incident report with Citrus College's Dean of Student Activities. At the maximum, you will also receive an F in the course. Any questions? If so, please send them via email so we can make sure this doesn't happen to you.