Protocols

Class and Online Expectations

The following ground rules will help your work in this course to go much more smoothly. Please carefully review these expectations and follow them.

Academic integrity will be appraised according to the student academic behavior standards outlined in The Golden Rule of the University of Central Florida's Student Handbook. See http://www.goldenrule.sdes.ucf.edu/ for further details.
Don't turn in late assignments. Late submissions will result in a lower grade (and some will not be accepted).
Keep up with the reading. You have quite a few chapters, modules, discussion postings, and e-mail messages to read for the class. Please keep up with the reading. Students who keep up with the reading tend to do much better in this kind of class than those who do not.
Don't miss a quiz. Missed quizzes may not be retaken.
Work with others. You are required to make every effort to work effectively and promptly with others in your groups. Fair criticism of your failure to work effectively with others will significantly affect your collaboration/participation grade.
Most importantly, make sure that you check all of your documents for viruses (both those that you send and those that you receive). If you send me a virus, you will fail the course or assignment. I scan everything, and so should you.
Back up your files. Not submitting an assignment because your hard drive crashed isn't a good excuse. Keep a copy of everything on some other kind of media.

E-mail

E-mail will be an integral part of this course. Make sure you:

Check your e-mail at least twice per week (more often is better).
Be patient. Don't expect an immediate response when you send a message. Generally, two days is considered reasonable amount of time to receive a reply.
Include "Subject" headings: use something that is descriptive and refer to a particular assignment or topic.
Be courteous and considerate. Being honest and expressing yourself freely is very important but being considerate of others online is just as important as in the class.
Make every effort to be clear. Online communication lacks the nonverbal cues that fill in much of the meaning in face-to-face communication.
Do not use all caps. This makes the message very hard to read and is considered "shouting." Check spelling, grammar, and punctuation (you may want to compose in a word processor, then cut and paste the message into the discussion or e-mail).
Break up large blocks of text into paragraphs and use a space between paragraphs.
Organize what you write. This is part of writing carefully, but the idea here is to get to the point, don't pontificate (pun intended), and use a subject-line that indicates the topic of your post or e-mail.
Sign your e-mail messages.
Never assume that your e-mail can be read by no one except yourself; others may be able to read or access your mail. Never send or keep anything that you would not mind seeing on the evening news.
E-mail for this course will be accepted ONLY in WebCT. Do not use my address at pegasus, at GroupWise, or at America Online for anything related to this course. It will be list in a sea of e-mails that appear in those accounts. Make sure that your subject line makes it clear what your message is about. You can use IM during my online office hour if you'd like to do that, or you can use the chat area in WebCT. "General Chat for All Courses" is where online office hours are held.

Note: Review the Netiquette and Viruses section below

Discussion Topics

Many of the "rules of the road" or protocols that apply to e-mail also apply to the use of discussions. Use the following conventions when composing a discussion posting:

During a Discussion assignment, deadlines for posting to and replying will be specified with each assignment. It is a good practice always to check the Discussions multiple times during the week.
If you want to send a personal message to the instructor or to another student, use e-mail rather than the discussions (see above E-mail Protocols).
Use the appropriate Discussion Topic; don't post everything on the "Main" Discussion Topic. Post documents correctly in the appropriate area of WebCT. If you post something in the wrong place, copy and paste it in the right place. Discussions are broken down into categories or topics.
Be patient. Don't expect an immediate response when you send a message.
A helpful hint for use with both discussions and email --- Compose your message in your word-processing application in order to check spelling, punctuation, and grammar --- then copy and paste your composition into email or the discussion. This also saves online time.
Everyone should feel free to participate in class and online discussions. Regular and meaningful discussion postings will constitute a substantial portion of your grade. Failure to participate in discussions, especially the collaborative research paper discussions, will affect your group/collaboration grade.
Respect each other's ideas, feelings and experience.
Be courteous and considerate. It is important to be honest and to express yourself freely, but being considerate of others is just as important and expected online, as it is in the classroom.
Explore disagreements and support assertions with data and evidence.
"Subject" headings: use something that is descriptive and refer to a particular assignment or discussion topic when applicable. Some assignments will specify the subject heading.
Use the "reply" button rather than the "compose" button if you are replying to someone else's posting.
Do not use postings such as "I agree," "I don't know either," "Who cares," or "ditto." They do not add to the discussion, take up space on the Discussions, and will not be counted for assignment credit.
Avoid posting large blocks of text. If you must, break them into paragraphs and use a space between paragraphs.
Use the Technical Discussion topic for assistance with technical issues. Use the Help Discussion topic for questions about course material or assignments. There will be specific discussion topics for particular discussions - pay close attention to the assignment, and post appropriately. Send/post correctly titled files/attachments. Only correctly titled files will be accepted. Files must be named according to your last name and the name of the assignment. For example, your file for an assignment called "Hobbes Summary" must be entitled "yournamehobbes". So if John Smith is putting the "Hobbes Summary" assignment in the assignment area of WebCT, or in the discussion area, or on WebCT's e-mail, it must be called "smithhobbes". Use only .doc, .rtf., .html, .htm. or .txt format. It is not difficult to name your files correctly or to save them in one of these formats. Even the simplest word processing software saves as .rtf or .txt, and almost everything saves as .htm or .html. Remember, too, that .htm and .html will open for anybody anywhere on any computer. This makes it faster, and that means, generally, that I can grade things faster. So think about saving files as .htm or .html unless otherwise noted in an assignment. Incorrectly named or saved files will not be accepted.

Note: Review the Netiquette, Viruses and Technical Resources sections below.

General Course Policies/Protocols

Following the policies below will help everything go much more smoothly for everyone.

Participate. Your active participation is essential to your success in this course. Even if you believe that you work best alone, it won't hurt anything (and should only be helpful) to answer your e-mails, participate in discussions, and help yourself and others with review questions. Remember that some discussion postings may or will count as short papers, so make sure that you pay close attention to what is required.
Don't turn in late assignments (in fact, WebCT won't let you do that). Remember that assignments have a 3-day extension/late submission period built in (except for the final exam, midterm exam, or anything due on or near the last day of class), but using the extension time costs you points. In fact, it costs you 10% per day. Remember that quizzes don't "officially" have a late extension period, but they are always set to shut down 3 days later than the date on which they are officially due. So make sure that you take them by the cut-off (last due) date.
Keep up with the reading. You have chapters, modules, postings, quizzes, and assignments, not to mention exams and papers, for this course. Please keep up with the reading.
Work with others. You are required to make every effort to work effectively and promptly with others in your group for the final collaborative paper. But there are also other opportunities in this course for collaborative learning. You should keep me informed of any problems that arise in your group (if any). Fair criticism of your failure to work effectively with others will significantly affect your collaboration grade. Fair praise of your work affects it, too - positively.
DON'T PLAGIARIZE OR CHEAT. Posting quiz or exam questions, or sending them, receiving them, or giving them in any form to any other person is cheating. Don't do it. Buying, stealing, copying, or otherwise obtaining papers from others, from online sources, from some file cabinet somewhere, or from your roommate, and even using for a second time a paper you submitted for another course at this or any other school or university constitutes plagiarism. Don't do that, either.

Netiquette

"Netiquette" has evolved to aid us in infusing our electronic communications with some of these missing behavioral pieces. "Emoticons" and other tools have become popular and I encourage their use when it will add to the clarity of your communication.

:-) = happy, pleased
:-( = sad, displeased
:-O = surprised
>:-| = angry

Abbreviate when possible. Examples:

LOL = laugh out loud, "I find this funny"
ROFL = rolling on floor laughing, really funny
BTW = by the way
*grin* = smiling
IMHO = in my humble opinion
FYI: for your info
Flame = antagonistic criticism

Netiquette continues to evolve and I am sure that we will have constant additions to this growing language. The important thing to remember is that all of the "cute" symbols in the world cannot replace your careful choice of words and "tone" in your communication.

You can learn more about Netiquette and electronic communication by visiting Learning Online.

Viruses

A virus can spell disaster. Your use of a reputable anti-virus program is a requirement for participation in this course (good ones include McAfee or Norton).

Also, back up your files: "My hard drive crashed." "My modem doesn't work." "My printer is out of ink." These are today's equivalents of "My dog ate my homework." And these events really do occur and they are really inconvenient when they do. However, these are not valid excuses for failing to get your work in on time.

Technical Resources

For specific problems in any of the areas below or for further information go to the corresponding link for assistance. In this course, I use the 3B4ME (three other sources before me) rule. If you have a technical problem, go to one or more of the resources below, ask for help in an appropriate discussion area in WebCT, or for content-related problems, re-read the instructions on an assignment, quiz, or other element of the course. My area is the subject-matter of this course. I'd like to say that I know everything about technical issues, but that wouldn't be true. If you still can't find the answer to a content-related problem, then ask me. Here are some useful resources for assistance.

UCF Home Page will help find UCF resources - http://www.ucf.edu
Pegasus - http://helpdesk.ucf.edu/ - You can also call the helpdesk at 407-823-5117.
Learning Online - http://learn.ucf.edu This URL also includes access to information on study skills for distance learners, the library and the writing center.
Buying a new computer or upgrading your current equipment - http://www.cstore.ucf.edu/
Hardware/Software Requirements - http://learn.ucf.edu/1courses/1technical.html
Virus information - http://learn.ucf.edu/1courses/1virus.html
Technical Discussion Topic: If you have technical questions and/or problems, please post a message to the Technical Discussion Topic. I encourage members of the class who are technically proficient to also monitor the forum and assist your classmates.
If your equipment problems prevent you from using e-mail from home, there are many computer labs on campus and virtually every public library offers Internet access.

Here are some other helpful pieces of information:

Printing: If you want to print a page in WebCT, click inside the page with the right mouse button and choose "print." If you go to the top of the page in your browser, you will print frames, and not all the content. So use right-click for printing. It's easier and more efficient.
Modules: To move quickly to contiguous pages in modules, click the backward or forward (previous page or next page) buttons near the top of the page.
Using AOL: I sometimes use AOL and have noticed that it is often necessary to refresh/reload pages. This is especially important when you are using WebCT for a course since, if you don't do it regularly, you might miss updates to pages or assignment listings. If you want to avoid this problem, but AOL is your way to get on the Internet, it's easy. Just start AOL, then minimize it and use IE or Netscape or some other browser instead. Even if you do this, however, it's a good idea from time to time to hit "reload" or "refresh" so that you are sure that you are looking at the most recent and reliable information.