Judgment about the progress of your work is based on the quality and depth of critical and constructive thinking exhibited on tests and posts on readings. Your writing and comments should not consist merely of a statement of your religious beliefs or how you feel about the issues. Instead, your comments should express reasons, grounds, or evidence for your agreement or disagreement with the philosophers your read about.
Please keep in mind the following points:
You can define additional grammar rules to check for with this program, but it is nowhere near as useful at Microsoft's
grammar checker in MS Word TM.
Your course grade is determined by averaging the points you achieve from the following scores:
Your final course grade is assigned according to your final average.
Your semester average is determined by adding the take-home tests and the weekly posts and dividing by four. Your grade for the course is based upon this average in accordance with the corresponding letter grade in the table given above under the heading of ``Grades'' in ``Class Policies'' in this Syllabus.
Judgment about the progress of your work is based on the above four scores. The course is essentially performance based and consists of a progressive series of concepts to be learned and mastered. For this reason, few students can do well in this course by ``cramming'' before exams. Normally, the course is not difficult if you study regularly, keep up with the reading and homework daily, and do not attempt to learn a large amount of information at one time. Understanding philosophy cannot be hurried; only by spending some time and patience does philosophy finally prove accessible.
Description of Tests: Tests in this course are ``take-home,'' ``open book,'' and ``open notes'' papers and are handed in by submitting doc, rtf, or txt attachments by email to your instructor. The tests are usually true-false, paragraph-answer, and essay-answer in form. The subject-matter is primarily based on the reading and homework assignments, especially the questions at the beginning of the readings. If you understand the questions at the beginning of the readings, you will do well on tests. If you have difficulty with these questions, then post your queries and your best analysis to the mwforum Message Board as your ``weekly reading post'' in order to obtain other insights from the rest of the class.
All grades during the semester will be posted on the philosophy server. Mid-term grades will be posted on WebCT. Students should realize that the mid-term grade is only used to indicate their approximate progress at the point in time that the grade is issued and the mid-term grade is not a factor in computation of the student's final grade.
Independent Work on Tests: Important! It is imperative that tests or parts of tests are not copies or paraphrases of notes or tutorials taken from the Web. All writing is to be the student's own work.
Many persons believe that it is sufficient to briefly paraphrase the online notes and related Internet sources immediately prior to the due date of the tests. Surprisingly, the lack of understanding of what is read and written in such cases is evident from inadvertent inconsistencies, vague language, a rush to meet a deadline, and poor or inappropriate examples thought up ``on the fly.'' The reason the tests are given ``open-book'' is so that the student has time to reflect and think about the questions asked. Thus, answering questions should be similar to writing a paper where you reconstruct the philosophies in terms of your own thought and words.
The tests are neither based on memorized facts nor based on objective information derived from memorized arguments. Instead, the emphasis given in tests is on the operation and active transformation or manipulation of the concepts learned. ``Operation and active transformation or manipulation of the concepts learned'' implies writing in your own words. Occasionally, some particularly difficult optional questions are included for extra credit.
On paragraph and essay questions, be sure to answer with complete sentences; answers provided as lists of phrases or the names of concepts, alone, do not reflect an understanding of the subject and will be given little, if any, credit. Example tests and lecture notes for previous non-WebCT classes are online at http://philosophy.lander.edu/intro/. Test Review Worksheets are provided in the Appendix to this syllabus and form a good basis for studying for tests as you study for the weekly readings.
Even though tests are written with open books and open notes, because of the nature of philosophical inquiry, consistent study and understanding is essential to write with insight and understanding.
Point Deductions on Tests: Five points are deducted from tests for each of the following:
Other than some occasionally offered intriguing problems on tests, no other opportunities for extra credit are offered in this class. Subjects and problems for this course have been chosen on the basis that they are the best and most important introduction to beginning study of philosophy. ``Extra Credit'' problems are in addition to class requirements--not a substitute for, or a make-up of, missed class assignments.
If you word process with StarOffice
, OpenOffice (Sun Microsystems, LGPL), WordPerfect©, or a word processing program other than Microsoft
WordTM 2003, save your document with a doc (or rtf or txt) file extension. With Microsoft
WordTM 2007 the docx extension also must be changed to a doc format.
To do so, when the document is finished and ready to save, on the menu bar near the top of the page in your work processing program, click on ``File.'' When the drop-down menu appears, click on ``Save As.'' Next click on the down-triangle next to ``File Type,'' and click on any one of the following:
The doc file extension is preferred. The screenshot in Figure 1 illustrates the process in OpenOffice.
Online quizzes are provided as study aids only and may be used for self-testing. They are entirely optional and form no part of your grade in this course. Practicing with the online quizzes is especially important to test your understanding of the important concepts before you take a test.
Posting twice a week is not a guarantee that you will receive full credit for posting. Note that you post must have critical content of some kind-even if your post is to ask for help in understanding.
As a Lander student, you will need an email account, and you are encouraged to use your Lander email account which was assigned to you at registration. Information on your Lander email account is available at
http://www.lander.edu/its/students/student_email.html .
Your email account information is listed under the ``My Profile'' section in Bearcat Web. Your default password should be your birth date in as yyyymmdd, (i.e., June 10, 1987 = 19870610).
The Office of Computing Services has set up a server whereby you can check your email on the following Web page:
Instructions for configuring your mail client such as Microsoft
Outlook
or Outlook Express
are described at
http://www.lander.edu/its/students/student_email.html
If you are on campus and you need further help with Lander email, you may obtain help from Lander's ITS (Lander's Information Technology Services) or from the Computer Labs in Jackson Library or Laura Lander Hall.
When you use email, please observe the following guidelines:
The WebCT Discussion Board is not used in this class. Instead, we will be using the mwforum Discussion Board on the Philosophy Server at
http://philosophy.lander.edu/cgi-bin/forum.pl
for which you will need to register as described below.
The mwforum Message Board is used in our WebCT class for the posting of questions of any kind, reading comments, and replies to comments. The minimum number of comments posted is two comments per week, although more comments are evidence of student involvement in the course. Only comments analyzing some part of the reading selections count toward your ``Reading Posts'' grade as discussed above in sections
Evaluation and section 3.7 Reading Posts and Comments above.
The mwforum Message Boards are an important part of obtaining help in real time from your classmates and from your instructor. You are encouraged to post questions, problems, or answers on any topic relating to the course policies, procedures, or homework of our philosophy class. Your post is placed directly on the Philosophy Web and can be immediately accessed by anyone in the world. The Philosophy Message Board is a good place to obtain a pre-evaluation of your philosophy reading questions or to seek answers to questions at the beginnings of the readings.
The purpose of the mwforum Message Board is to discuss the daily class activities of our philosophy course: reading posts, comments, homework questions, homework answers, housekeeping matters, class procedures, assignments, test dates, and class policies.
Signing up for the mwforum Message Board is a completely separate procedure from WebCT and is explained here.
Lost Password: If you lose or forget your password to the mwforum Message Board, click on the Login link on the upper-right of the mwforum Homepage. At the bottom of the Login page in a box labeled ``Request Password.'' Fill in your username in the username bar, and click the ``Request'' button. Your password will be sent to you via email.
Forgotten Username: If you have forgotten your username to the mwforum Message Board, click on the Login link on the upper-right of the mwforum Homepage. At the bottom of the Login page in a box labeled ``Request Password,'' fill in your account's email address in the username bar, and click the ``Request'' button. Your username will be sent to you via your account's email.
Forgotten Email Address: If you have forgotten your email address and you have posted to the Message Board at least once in the past, then find your message on the Message Board and click on your username. Your ``Profile Page' will load, and your email address will be displayed, if you chose not to hide it when you first registered for the Message Board.
When you login to the mwforum Philosophy Message Board for the first time, you must enter personal information on your Profile page. To accomplish this, log in to the mwforum Message Board and click on the ``Option'' link at the top of the page.
When the Profile page loads, you can change your password to a more easily remembered password if you wish to do so. Choose a simple easily remembered password, and record the password in your philosophy notebook or in the space provided below:
Username:
Password:
Also, on this Profile page, be sure to enter your real name so that your posts can be credited. Unless your real name is recorded here on the Profile Page, credit cannot be assigned to your posts since the recording program does not have your name to collate with your posts. If you wish to hide your email address when you post, check the appropriate box on this page. I recommend but do not require that you do not hide your email address so that your instructor and other students can email you privately. If you do hide your email address, be sure to check your official Lander email account for class-related communications daily even if you do not normally use that email account. When finished entering the information you want, scroll way down to the bottom of the page and click on the ``Change'' button so your information will be saved.
After you post to the Message Board, if you click on your blue hyperlinked username or you click on ``Options'' at the top of the page in the mwforum Message Board program, you can find out how many times you have posted as well as find out about your other personal data. To do so, click ``Info'' on the same line as your username on the Profile page. Next, click on the ``Posts'' link for a list of all your messages.
(again, note there is no "www in this URL,) click on the ``mwforum Message Board'' link toward the middle of the left-hand column.
.
The Chat Program on the Philosophy Server is easier to access than that on WebCT, and for that reason, we will use the Philosophy Server for our online chat sessions.
One of the services provided by the Philosophy Website is an pretenseless Chat program written by Tommi Leino with a CGI Web page written by John Archie. Jicra is a very simple IRC client Java applet--a one channel Chat room without IRC commands or other features. No special knowledge or skill is necessary to use this applet.
The Philosophy Chat is available for student use at any time for any purpose (e.g., you are welcome to use the Chat for any group-project discussion in any class at Lander for the convenience of students both on and off campus). You can reserve your privacy for chat by devising your own channel for Chat simply by having your group type in whatever specific name you choose for your group.
We will use Chat in the default channel called ``philosophy'' for online office hours for special purposes to be announced. The Jirca Chat program operates like this:
Your final course grade is assigned according to your final average as described above in section
The number of hours advised to study given below is usually an accurate guide to how well you will do in this class. If you study only before tests or try to complete tests without prior reading and, your doing well in the course is unlikely. Many students assume they can do well in philosophy without careful reading because they have been able to do so in other high school or college classes. Since these students have become habituated to passing courses without much study, they are often alarmed to discover our philosophy course is substantially different from what they have expected. Your Web course puts a substantial burden on you to take charge of your own learning.
You may access your grades online at any time on the philosophy server (not Lander WebCT) with a username and password from this course as described below (not your WebCT username and password).
Username: Your username for the course is the first letter of your first name followed by your complete last name in lowercase letters and without spaces. For example ``Lauren Bouchett Satterfield'' would have the login username of ``lsatterfield'' with no limitation of number of letters as with some email programs.
Password: Your password is your Lander L-number (without hyphen). Type a capital L followed by eight digits: e.g., Lxxxxxxxx.
Where to Log In: From the Philosophy Homepage click on the yellow ``Introduction to Philosophy" link under the gray heading entitled ``Class Grades" as in Figure 10. When the Grades Login page loads do the following:
A good place to see how to study in our course is the ``Notes on How to Study'' on the Web at
http://philosophy.lander.edu/study-topics.html.
If I do my job correctly, our philosophy course will be one of the most valuable in your university career.
The following policies are explicitly stated here because these policies help protect fairness of the course evaluation for the class as a whole. Some of these policies are generally assumed in most classes at Lander University.
Important This class policy includes the instructor's notes and tutorials on the Web. If you plagiarize from any work including the online notes, you will receive a ``0'' for your answer. Almost every semester since this online course has been taught, some students do not pass this course because they copy work from the online notes or from the Internet without proper citation. Also, please do not attempt to submit tests completed after the due date and claim the email and test attachment was delayed and did not go through in time. Computer and server logs clearly show dates documents are processed, saved and email sent. Any such academic dishonesty will result in a ``0'' assigned to the work and possible failure in the course.
Phone: +1 864 388 8885
E-mail: studentwellness@lander.edu
The Academic Success Center offers testing accommodations for students with disability who need extra time as well as a quiet room for testing during the year. Please notify Gay Coleman, Learning Center 340, telephone +1 864 388 8317 and your instructor prior to the test date.
Also, these Websites will provide information in case of cancellations, delay of classes, or the closing of the university:
Lander University:
http://www.lander.edu
State Office of Human Resources:
http://ohr.sc.gov/OHR/OHR-index.phtm
Appendices