Principles

The pandemic and social upheavals of 2020 and beyond have had an impact on many aspects of our lives and have challenged us to be more compassionate and understanding people. This semester my objective as a faculty member is to provide a high quality course for you to transition back to in person teaching and learning. The course has been redesigned with flexible modules and channels of communication in mind, not only because I suspect they will be easier to manage, nor because they remind us of the past few years, but rather because they represent some of the ways that education, information and media are transforming in the world.

Openness: One of the characteristics of the digital humanities is its open, public quality. Most of the work in this course you will be doing in a website you design yourself. It is an excellent opportunity to work on skills in web publishing. In past semesters, I have had students create a WordPress using NYU Hosting. In the remote F22 semester we will be using Google Sites as a replacement. If you have taken a course with me in the past and would like to continue with your NYU Hosting account, this will be possible. If you have another preferred method of web publishing (GitHub pages, or other blogs), let me know and we will see if it matches the coursework.

It is a new and interesting experience for students to work in the open, since it asks us to think about audience more than if we were only writing a paper for a single person to read. We will begin with a Site that is open to NYU and then later open it up to the world. At the end of the semester once all is graded, you can keep or delete your work.

Attendance and participation: Attendance and participation are a part an essential part of the final grade in any college course, and yet in a in person semester it is important to be clear about how those attendance and participation grades will be calculated. See the Assessment section on this site.

Keeping up with work: If you are falling behind or are encountering any personal issues that impede your course performance, please inform me in writing. Staying in communication is the key. Please note that sensitive personal issues or discussions of grades should be addressed in email, on Zoom or in person.

Integrity: Academic integrity and honesty are central components of a student’s education and they do not change in a remote semester. Ethical conduct maintained in an academic context will be taken eventually into a student’s professional career. Academic honesty is essential to a community of teachers and learners. Anything less than total commitment to honesty undermines the efforts of the entire academic community.

Since we will be making adequate use of the web, we will be learning new ways to cite the work of others that are appropriate for web-based writing. I encourage you to make full use of those forms of citation to make your writing richer.

NYU Abu Dhabi expects its students to adhere to the highest possible standards of scholarship and academic conduct. Students should be aware that engaging in behaviors that violate the standards of academic integrity will be subject to review and may face the imposition of penalties in accordance with the procedures set out in the NYUAD policy.