Course Organization

The course is divided into fifteen weekly instructional units - the weeks run from early Monday morning until the following Monday noon.   No assignments will be due during the week of Spring Break (March 10-14).

Each week, there will be an assignment that will require interaction in the discussion forums section of Blackboard.  Two papers will be required in this course - Paper One is due during the ninth week of the semester, and Paper Two is due during the fifteenth week of the semester.  Specific details are on the course syllabus.

There is no textbook for this course.  The readings for the weekly assignments have been published by the Pew Internet and American Life project.  These papers may be downloaded for free.  The papers are in Adobe PDF format, and require the free Adobe Acrobat Reader software.  If you do not have this software installed on your computer, you can download it from the Adobe website.

Students are encouraged to use Internet search engines, such as Google or Yahoo, to find supplementary reading material on the web.

Note that all of the class interactions are done in the Blackboard course management system.  Once you access the PAC442B course in Blackboard, the navigation bar at the left of the Blackboard window has the following menu items:

• Announcements [at least one new announcement will be posted each week]
• Syllabus [go here to find details of all the assignments, as well as other information]
• Staff Information [information about the course instructor, including e-mail and phone]
• Discussion Board [the heart of the course, where all the interactions take place]
• Handouts [a link to a page with all the course handouts]
• WP Tech Policy [a link to the Washington Post Tech Policy section - useful reference]
• Communication [an alternative menu to access the discussion board]
• Tools [the only tool used here is the online gradebook]
• PAC442B Podcasts [a direct link to the podcasts for the class]

You must follow general rules of  netiquette  (a portmanteau that combines the words Internet and etiquette) in your postings to the discussion forums in Blackboard.  No trolling, spamming, or flaming will be tolerated.

Please do not use Internet abbreviations in your postings to the discussion forums in Blackboard.  Terms like BTW (by the way), TTFN (ta ta for now) and IMHO (in my humble opinion) are not acceptable in academic discourse.

The UIS Office of Technology-Enhanced Learning (OTEL) maintains a website with minimum technology requirements for taking online courses at UIS.  The course instructor maintains a website listing helpful software that you may want to install on your computer.  Since the course instructor will be podcasting in this course, you will need to have a computer that can play sound files.  Check out the PAC442 Section D blog to access the podcasts from the Fall 2007 semester.

You need to be familiar with browsing the web, using Internet search engines, accessing the online resources at Brookens Library, and using e-mail.

The UIS Technology Support Center (TSC) is the primary point of contact for technology questions, problems, and issues. This service is available to all enrolled students.

Phone:  217-206-7357 or toll-free in Illinois at 877-847-0443
Email:  TechSupport@uis.edu

"We ask that you call the Technology Support Center directly with all of your technology questions. If your question is outside TSC's area of responsibility or expertise, TSC will forward the call to the appropriate service provider (Educational Technology, OTEL, Media Services, AITS, CTL, etc)."

General academic support information is available from the MyUIS website at:

http://www.uis.edu/myuis.html

Specific academic assistance is available through the Center for Teaching and Learning at:

http://www.uis.edu/ctl/

A part of the School of Liberal Arts and Sciences, the Center for Teaching and Learning offers help to students in improving skills in writing, grammar and usage, math and statistics, software applications and computer programming, reading, studying, test taking, and, through a peer tutoring program, virtually any subject taught on the campus.

The Center for Teaching and Learning provides Online Tutoring at:

http://www.uis.edu/ctl/about/OnlineTutoring.html

Any student who needs help with writing, math, and/or science is able to receive this assistance in an online format.

The main login page to the UIS Blackboard server has links to a number of "Online Learner Resources" and "Blackboard Tutorials and Technical Support"; please refer to that site for additional student support.