Section | Days | Time (P.M.) | Classroom |
---|---|---|---|
0101 | Thursdays | 6:00-8:45 | HBK 2119 |
CLIS faculty and post-candidacy doctoral students are welcome at any time without prior arrangement, but only if they have completed that week's assigned reading!
Instructor | |
---|---|
Name | Doug Oard |
oard (at) umd.edu | |
Office | HBK 4121G |
Office Phone | (301)405-7590 |
Students wishing to discuss accommodations for unusual circumstances should also come see me, and should do so at the earliest possible time.
Component | Percentage | Factors |
---|---|---|
Contributions to your team | 40% | Leadership, presentation, research |
Term paper | 40% | Quality of analysis |
Other contributions | 20% | Framework, discussion, blogging |
Each student is required to write one term paper that applies the ideas developed during the course to analyze the past development or possible future development (or both!) of some technology that is of personal interest to the student. The subject matter may not exactly match that of any class session, but selection of some subtopic that is touched on during a class session would be entirely appropriate. For example, if you pick online communities for your team's final session, you might choose to write a term paper on online medical communities that serve as support groups for patients with medical conditions. Term papers must be written individually, but the ideas that they contain may be (and should be!) discussed with anyone who can comment knowledgably on them. Review and comment on early drafts of the paper is allowed and indeed strongly encouraged, but no other person may write or edit any portion of a student's term paper. The term paper is due on Friday May 10 (the last day of class). It is expected to be about 4,000 words (which you can interpret as between 3,500 and 4,500 words), and it should written in a form and style that is suitable for publication. Indeed, you should write with a specific publication venue in mind (and you should tell me what that venue is), and you should submit your paper for publication after receiving my comments on your final draft that you submit to me on May 10 (which you can expect to receive back by May 21).
Students are expected to make substantive contributions to each week's class. This will normally be done through active discussion. Student who will unavoidably miss a class session are required to submit a (roughly) 1,000-word paper summarizing their reaction to that week's readings and suggesting discussion topics. This paper must be received by the instructor and by the team leading the discussion at least 1 hour before the scheduled class to receive credit (since papers received after that can not practically be discussed in class). Students are encouraged to record their reactions to class discussions on a blog, either during or after class. The Web address of the blog should be submitted to the instructor so that it can be linked form the course Web site. Statements made by members of the class should not be attributed by name on public Web sites without the express agreement of the person making the statement. The development of an analysis framework is an important component of the course, and students will receive credit for substantiative contributions to the development of that framework. This can be done through discussion in class, by contributions sent to the class mailing list between class sessions, or by preparing text and/or graphical summaries of the evolving framework for use by members of the course.
There will be no exams.