Class participation (10%)
I expect active participation from all students enrolled in the course. This means participating in the attending class (whatever hybrid form it takes) and participating in discussions. This course will require experimentation with new digital environments and a willingness to try, and perhaps sometimes struggle, with new modes of working and studying. If you do not attend the course it will not be possible to complete coursework and receive higher than a C.
Responses 30%
There will be 4 written responses in the research blog (they are graded on a 10 point scale, but make up 30% of your total grade). Unless noted, a typical response will be about 750 words plus several well chosen visuals. They will be either reflective pieces on a conceptual issue that has arisen in class or a lab report-style write-up and critique about a project or experiment carried out. The main point here is to learn to communicate ideas in an open forum and to develop a voice for public, web-based, media-rich writing. Students who are proficient in other blogging platforms or sustainable web development may opt for those.
Three assignments 60% (20% each)
These three assignments are spaced out through the semester. They are open ended, web-based applications of the work that we have done in the rest of the course, using three different kinds of spatial data. These are typically about 1500 words of writing each. They can be done individually or in pairs. Detailed instructions and a rubric for each assignment will be provided on the course site.