Discussion Forum Participation

Grading:

• Have you submitted all your work to the D2L dropbox before the deadline? If not, your work will not be graded. No remedy.

• Is your work in Microsoft Word, or plain ascii HTML format, or plain text format? If not, it will not be graded. No exceptions. No remedy.

• At the top of your submission file have you written your Name, the Number of Submissions and Word count for your total corpus of postings? If not, point deduction.

• Keep all of your postings in a running, local, copy. At the end of the quarter, collect the text of all your submissions into a single file. Although I will likely have read all your postings at the forums, I will now review the complete body of your work.

• Credit is given for wide coverage of ideas, timely participation in discussions, number of postings, quality of postings. Your work will be compared to that of your peers, and of others in other similar classes.

• Save your work locally! You will need to keep a composite file of all your postings anyway for later submission to the D2L dropbox.

Discussion Forum Expectations

• Expectations are (the equivalent of) 5 "healthy" postings a week as part of a discussion for most courses. For strictly lecture/discussion, or seminar classes this may be 5-10 postings.

• When you have questions, post at the forums first, and send mail to the professor only as a last resort. You will get faster turnaround on many problems, and have access to a much wider base of expertise. In addition, your documented questions and answers will likely help others. Plus -- I read the forums!

• You paid for this class, you should take advantage of your community of scholars to get your full money's worth.

• When someone answers a question, even a simple question, they will ususally go through many of the following stages: (a) I know that (b) Begin to answer (c) Is that right? I thought I knew that (d) I'll just look up that one part to be sure (e) Am I current after all? did this change? (f) How can I say this clearly? (g) I didn't realize until I wrote this out how it relates to [fill in the blank] (h) Hey, when I answer this, there may be someone else that knows more than I do so I would like to get this right (i) Hey, someone else commented on MY posting - I see they are right about that part I did not know. (j) Etc.. So, answering questions to help others turns brittle knowledge into solid, flexible, integrated knowledge. If you want to fully learn the material in this course, explain it to others.

• Good ideas merit sharing with others, and discussion of your ideas through threaded discussions can be fun.

• When you participate in forum discussions you will learn more, learn more about how to learn, gain new perspectives, form different beliefs about your own capabilities through interaction with others, and remember the material longer. Humans are social creatures. We always have been.

• You will have to read, and work on the assignments to have the discussions. If you keep to a discussion schedule, this will also prompt you to keep to a study schedule.

• Timely postings count much more than dumping text to discussion threads right before assignments are due.

• It is a very effective learning tool for you to attempt to answer questions of others, even if you are not sure. You will learn a great deal. Be brave!

• Discussions are for the joy of participating in the community of scholars, and ease of learning the material; do not feel that you are competing with others to "look" good.

Style

• In general, forum postings are informal, however...
• Because we are scientists, focus on being accurate, and if you are not sure, just say so.
• Cite sources as well as possible whenever possible, but do not let this keep you from posting.
• Including URLs in the text is always appreciated
• We will use this convention: (p32 r6) means "page 32 paragraph 6" where incomplete paragraphs that started on the previous page are counted as r1.

Suggested Postings

• Anything relevant to the topic thread. This is your class, and your forum.
• Challenging questions for your peers ALWAYS appreciated!
• Ideas of your own that the readings or lectures have inspired.
• Summary of the structure of the readings, or architecture of the programs, as you see them.
• High-levcel summary of the content of the material.
• Clear description of something you do not understand, also stating what you think the author(s) might be saying, or how the program shoudl work, and what it is that is confusing to you.
• Feel free to answer questions posted in your own words, for practice, even if someone else has already done so.