El Paso Community College Syllabus Course Requirements I. Course Number & Instructor Information Semester: Summer 2012, CRN 31495, 10 week Course Course: Government 2305 American Government and Politics Instructor: David L. Hohnholt Office: TBD Phone: TBA Online Hours: Mon-Fri, 4 6 pm. Help Desk: (800) 630-8849 II. Text and Material TITLE : Government in America : People, Politics and Policy - 11/e AUTHOR: Edwards, Wattenberg PUBLISHER: Pearson Longman ISBN#: 0-205-82695-4 III. Course Requirements You will be required to complete the Course Orientation and the Weekly Modules. Completion of these will be reflected in the final course grade. A. Course Orientation This can be found in the Week 1 Module. This will consist of Getting to Know System, Class Introduction, and Practice Exam. 1. Getting to Know System (GKS) Getting to Know System will be found in the Week 1 Module. It will require you to familiarize yourself with the course, including the syllabus, requirements, and policies. GKS quiz will account for 1.72% of your final grade. 1
GKS will be completed online in Blackboard. It will consist of multiple choice questions from the syllabus. Lockdown browser not required. You may complete GKS as needed to achieve 100%. Read through the syllabus material again and then complete again after 30 minutes. Click on View All Submissions to see all scores. All responses must be 100% correct by the 11:55 p.m. Week 1 module deadline. Failure to complete the GKS to 100% by the deadline will result in minus 5 points from Chapter 1 & 2 exam score. 2. Class Introduction (CI) This will be found in the Week 1 Module. This will consist of introducing yourself to the class. CI will account for 1.5% of your final grade. CI must be posted in the proper discussion forum by the by 11:55 p.m. of the respective deadline. Minimum requirement for each response is one complete paragraph of at least 6 sentences. All responses must be in the form of complete sentences and presented as paragraphs. Use proper punctuation, capitalization, etc. Many students have become accustomed to email/text messaging that doesn t follow the rules of grammar and syntax. This will not be acceptable. All responses must be complete. Make sure you answer all parts to all questions. Each part must be labeled accordingly. Please refrain from using all capital letters in your posts. You will need to complete a typology quiz before making your first post 3. Practice Exam The practice exam is intended to allow you to familiarize yourself with the Respondus Lockdown system. You will need to download and install Respondus to complete your quizzes and exams. I will include a course link on the tool bar. The practice exam must be complete by Sunday, June 11. 2
B. Weekly Modules For ease and simplicity, the required work for each week will be placed in module folders. This includes the instructions for the discussion posts, chapter quizzes, and weekly exams. The deadlines will be as follows: Discussion assignments must be posted by 11:55 p.m. Friday night. Chapter quizzes must be completed by 11:55 p.m. Friday night. Weekly exams will open Saturday morning and close at 11:55 Sunday night. C. Discussion Posts The purpose of the discussion posts is to demonstrate your understanding of the material covered in the textbook. There will be one post per chapter covered with each worth 25 points (individually accounting for 1.7% of your final grade). Each discussion post will contain its own instructions, but the general format will remain the same: Each post must contain at least 300 words (about one page of double-spaced text.) I recommend you type your posts in a word processing program and then copy and paste into the appropriate discussion forum. Correct grammar and punctuation is expected. Debate and disagreement is expected. Courtesy and respect is demanded when expressing a contrasting opinion. Personal attacks will not be tolerated. I will respond to certain discussions to play devil s advocate or to challenge your opinion. Please understand that I am doing this to encourage deeper thinking. When quoting an article or expert, please include a link for verification. D. Chapter Quizzes You will be expected to complete one quiz per chapter, which means you will usually complete two per week. Each quiz will contain 10 randomly generated questions from the chapter being covered, and will be worth 25 points (roughly 1.7% of your overall grade). The quizzes require Respondus Lockdown browser be installed, which will prevent you from using other windows to search for answers. 3
You will NOT have unlimited attempts to complete your quizzes. You will have two attempts with the highest score being recorded. Please study carefully before attempting the quizzes. The quizzes have a 30 minute time limit. Once you start, you must finish. E. Exams Exams will consist of multiple choice questions covering the material from the textbook. There will be 5 exams including the final. The final exam will NOT be comprehensive, but will cover the final chapters of the text. Your lowest exam score will be dropped. A missed exam will be recorded as a zero and considered the lowest grade. Absolutely no make-ups allowed! Each exam is 150 points (roughly 10% each, or 40% for all exams.) You will have two days to take your exams. Each exam will open on a Friday morning at 1:00 a.m. and close 11:55 p.m. Sunday night. Exams are timed. You will be given 65 minutes to complete each exam. It is a continuous 65 minutes. You cannot logon for ten minutes, read the exam, log off, find the answers, and log back on. Time is not allotted for you to search for answers. You must Save each individual answer. You will NOT be allowed to go back to a question once you answer it. I have structured the exams so that you see one question at a time. Each question is randomly selected from a question pool. F. Grading 1. Your grade is calculated using a total points scheme: A = 1305-1450 (90-100%) D = 870-1014 (60-69%) B = 1160-1304 (80-89%) F = below 870 (below 59%) C = 1015-1159 (70-79%) Tests: 150 points each Discussions: 25 points each Quizzes: 25 points each 2. Final Grade Distribution a. Discussions: 27.59% c. Course Intro Post: 1.72% b. Quizzes: 27.59 d. GKS quiz 1.72% c. Exams: 41.38% 4
A. Attendance 1. It is the student s responsibility to attend class on a regular basis. This is an online course, if you go a couple of days without checking in, you risk missing an important announcement/email. It is the student s responsibility to check email on a regular/daily basis. It is the student s responsibility to check for need to resubmit/re-post assignments if necessary. 2. If you experience a personal emergency and will be able to check email for a couple of days, then call immediately and leave a phone message. B. Deadlines 1. It is the student s responsibility to be aware of all deadlines. 2. All deadlines are at 11:55 p.m. The Blackboard program automatically states the date and time at which discussions are posted and email sent. The blackboard date stamp will be the official time. 3. Do not submit work after final due date deadlines. 4. All deadlines are final. No exceptions. C. E-Mail 1. Allow 24-48 hours for instructor to reply to email. 2. Absolutely no attachments! Attachments will not be opened. 3. Type an appropriate subject heading for every email. For example, state whether the email relates to a discussion, an exam, a quiz etc. 4. Please refrain from sending thank you email for my replies to your questions or concerns. D. Academic Dishonesty 1. The course, assignments, discussions, and exams are on an honor basis. All work is to be completed independently and submitted independently. If you have any questions concerning any of the course work, you are to contact the instructor. You are not to work with your spouse, siblings, extended family members, boss, co-workers, neighbors, or classmates, unless specified in the assignment. academic dishonesty shall constitute a violation of rules and regulations as prescribed by Board policies. Academic dishonesty shall include, but not ne limited to, cheating on a test, plagiarism, and collusion. Any student found in 5
violation of the Student Responsibilities section shall be subject to disciplinary action to include suspension. 2. Academic dishonesty will not be tolerated. Any students work (GKS, quizzes, exams, discussion posts) found to be in violation of the honor system and the Student Code of Conduct will receive a grade of zero. E. Contacting the Instructor This is a summer course and I won t be on campus. All email communication will be through the Blackboard email only. In case of an emergency, please call the 24 hour voice mail system. I will check this nightly. F. Online Orientation 1. Students are expected to meet the recommended minimum skills for online classes. See the Distance education link in the Resources Page 2. Students are expected to have an internet-connected computer, or access to one. EPCC offers web access at all campuses. G. Technical Problems If you experience any technical problems during the course (your computer crashes, your service provider goes out of business, a computer does not accept Lockdown Browser, hotel does not have WiFi, etc) you are still expected to keep current with the course and meet all deadlines. EPCC offers web access at all campuses and can be used in an emergency. Arrange for a backup plan in nany case. Technical assistance can be found at: H. Course Withdrawal EPCC Help Desk: 1-800-630-8849 https://hdo.collegis.com/it The help desk is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Students that do not submit an email to the instructor by the Census Date will be dropped for non-course pursuit. After the Census date, students will NOT be dropped for non-attendance, for performing poorly, or for any other reason. It is the 6
students responsibility to determine and complete the necessary paperwork prior to official deadlines to withdraw from the course. Last day to withdraw is July 13. I. Syllabus Disclaimer The instructor reserves the right to make changes to the syllabus to meet the needs of the course. Students will be notified via Blackboard of any changes. V. Calendar Key Dates: The course calendar can be found in the Course Menu. Weekly Modules will be available as indicated on the calendar. See next page. Last day to drop: July 13 Finals: August 9-10 Final Grade Available: Grade August 16 Bonuses: check-in daily to the course. I may add bonus assignments that you may choose to do if you need the additional points. Final Thoughts Please do not feel overwhelmed. The class is really straightforward. You will essentially be reading the material, responding to each chapter s content in a discussion post, and taking a quiz on the chapters before Friday at 11:55. Quizzes are designed to prepare you for the exams which cover 4 chapters and occur every two weeks. As far as the blackboard site, I try to keep most of the graded content in the weekly modules and discussion boards. If you have any questions or concerns, please email me before you fall behind. I personally enjoy this topic, and I hope you enjoy the course. 7
Weekly Module Chapters 1 Course Orientation and chapter 1 Available Discussion Posts June 4 Class Intro and Ch 1 Posts: June 9 2 2 June 11 Ch 2 Post: June 15 3 3, 4 June 18 Ch 2 Post & Ch 3 Post by June 22 4 5, 6 June 25 Ch 5 Post & Ch 6 Post due by June 29 5 7, 8 July 2 Ch 7 Post & Ch 8 Post due by July 6 6 9, 10 July 9 Ch 9 Post & Ch 10 Post due by July 13 7 11, 12 July 16 Ch 11 Post & Ch 12 Post due by July 20 8 13, 14 July 23 Ch 13 Post & Ch 14 Post due by July 27 9 15, 16 July 30 Ch 15 Post & Ch 16 Post due by Aug 3 Chapter Quizzes Ch 1 Quiz Due by June 9 11:55 pm Ch 2 Quiz due by June 15 Ch 3 quiz & Ch 4 Quiz by June 22 Ch 5 quiz &Ch 6 quiz due June 29 Ch 7 quiz & Ch 8 quiz due July 6 Ch 9 quiz & Ch 10 quiz due July 13 Ch 11 quiz & Ch 12 quiz due July 20 Ch 13 quiz & Ch 14 quiz due July 27 Ch 15 quiz & Ch 16 quiz due Aug 3 Exams 11:55 pm Practice Exam: June 10 Exam 1: Ch 1, 2, 3, 4 Opens June 23 closes June 24 Exam 2: Ch 5, 6, 7,8 Opens July 7 closes July 8 Exam 3: Ch 10, 11, 12, 13 Opens July 21. Closes July 22 Exam 4: Ch 13, 14, 15, 16 Opens Aug 4 closes Aug 5 10 Finals Final Aug 9 or 10 8