PL406 SYLLABUS - Fall 2004

PL 406 / PL 506: Planning Analysis and Presentations
SYLLABUS - FALL 2004
Developed by: Alan Lew and Ruihong Huang

Credit Hours: 3

Instructor:       Ruihong (Ray) Huang, Ph.D.
Email:              Ruihong Huang on WebCT
Office:             SWFSC Room 201
Office Hours: Tue 9:35 a.m. - 12:25 p.m., Thursday 9:35 a.m. - 12:25 p.m. / appointment / stop by

TA:                  Christerpher Donnermeyer (cd74)
Email:              Christerpher Donnermeyer (cd74) on WebCT
Office:
Office Hours:

FORMAT: WebCT - The Class Homepage is http://webct.nau.edu/
You must log in using your NAU Dana or Jan account. The class will not appear until you have registered for it AND the Instructor has manually added you to the WebCT class roster. You may need to bookmark the webct website on your computers.

IMPORTANT NOTE/DISCLAIMER: Registered students will not be able to access the WebCT version of this class until August 30th, 2004. The Syllabus & Schedule on this non-WebCT site is for general background information only and is NOT the official/final version of the class syllabus & schedule -- which will be found only on the WebCT site.

Off-campus students: if you want to talk by phone, send an e-mail and Ray will call you from Flagstaff.
Ray can also meet you in the WebCT CHAT ROOM to address your questions.

EMAIL POLICY: All Correspondence starting August 30, 2004 must take place through the WebCT website (http://webct.nau.edu/). Correspondence prior to that date may be sent to Ruihong.Huang@nau.edu

To Send an Email from WebCT: Click On MAIL on the left sidebar menu; Click on COMPOSE MAIL MESSAGE; Click on BROWSE and click on Ruihong Huang; click on DONE; Compose your message and SEND

Technical Questions about WebCT - DO NOT EMAIL RAY, instead:

Contact the NAU Dana Help Desk at:
Flagstaff: 523-9294
Toll free: 1-888-520-7215
On the web: http://www.nau.edu/its/achd
Via e-mail: help@dana.ucc.nau.edu

This syllabus is subject to revision as necessary at any time during the semester.

COURSE OBJECTIVES

Students will:

Be able to find demographic and economic data for a community
Be able to use a spreadsheet to analyze data on a community
Be able to use presentation software to present information in a logical and clear manner

ASSUMPTIONS/PREREQUISITES

Students are expected to have:

Good familiarity with personal computers, the Internet and World Wide Web, and some prior exposure to Spreadsheets and Word Processing software.
Access to a recent version of Microsoft Excel, Powerpoint and Word (i.e., Microsoft Office -- the 2000 or XP versions are preferred). All of the NAU computer labs have these programs on them. You might be able to get a good discount on your own student version, as well. Older versions are cheaper than the latest version -- check with the NAU bookstore on this.
An E-Mail address that you know how to use. If you do not have one, you are required to obtain an address and start using it by the end of the first week of class (go to the NAU Learning Resources Center to get started with this).
Access to the WWW --- for obvious reasons, I hope...

You can use any of the computer labs on campus, including those in the School of Forestry. To use the computer labs in the Forestry building (82), you will need to sign up for an account with Samuel Larson (Samuel.Larson@nau.edu). Note that Lab 034 will NOT be available when a Class is in session.

CLASS FORMAT:

This is a 100% web-based class. All of the material and assignments will be on the WWW.

You will mostly be working on your own in the class and you will be entirely responsible for your own work. This class requires an enormous amount of SELF DISCIPLINE.

If you drop this class, you need to let Ray know since the system will not remove you from WebCT automatically (even if you have dropped the class through the registrar). The instructor needs to do that manually.

PL 506 Students will take the same class as PL406, but will have an additional major assignment. PL 506 Students must CLICK HERE for additional information.

TEXTBOOK and RELATED MATERIALS:

All material will be available on the WWW. You may wish to purchase an Intro to MS Office book for the version of MS Office you are using for reference purposes, but this is optional. We will also be making considerable use of publicly available resources on the Internet including the EDA's EconData.Net website (http://www.econdata.net/new/), census data (http://www.census.gov), and etc.

ASSIGNMENTS & POINT SYSTEM

ALL WRITTEN ASSIGNMENT WILL BE CONSIDERED LATE IF RECEIVED AFTER 11:59 pm (BEFORE MIDNIGHT) ON THE DATE DUE.

LATE ASSIGNMENT POLICY: 5 points will be will be deducted for each day that an assignment is late. Late assignments will not be accepted after 7 days. You are also more likely to receive a delayed response to your assignment if it is late, since we need to move on with the class and cannot devote as much time to late assignments.

EARLY SUBMISSIONS OF ASSIGNMENTS ARE ENCOURAGED AND ALWAYS ACCEPTED.

All Assignments will be submitted through WebCT.

COMMON ASSIGNMENT TYPES:

REGULAR WEEKLY ASSIGNMENTS (50 points each): You will work your way through these assignments on a weekly basis. These are due every Wednesday by 11:55pm (before midnight). The first assignment is due the second week of class to give you time to get familiar with the webpage. The last assignment is due Finals week.

MIDTERM and FINAL REVIEW ASSIGNMENTS (50 points each): There are no tests in this class - just a midterm and final review assignment. These are more reflective in nature, though could also include an applied assignment similar to the the Regular Weekly Assignments. The purpose to to review material presented previously in the class. There will be one in the middle of the semester and one at the end (which is comprehensive). The assignments will not be released until a week before they are due, and will only be released to students who have completed all of the assignments up the the exam time.

ONLINE DISCUSSION (80 points total) Students are expected to participate online discussions in WebCT (how?). During the semester each student should post at least two questions and reply to no fewer than two questions posted by others. There is no time constraints in posting or replying questions. You can post any course-related questions or ideas in the discussion area on WebCT. If you have posted a question, you should check the discussion area frequently to see if it is answered. By the end of the semester, I will check if you have met the minimal requirements and how actively you participated in discussions.
WEEKLY CHECK-IN (5 points each): You are required to Check-In with Ray every week by sending him an e-mail message in which you indicate:
(1) What is working especially well for you in the class.
(2) What is NOT working for you in this class; and
(3) Any initial suggestions for how we (you and I together) can begin to improve what is not working.
The word "Check-in" MUST appear in the Subject Line

The purpose of these weekly Check-Ins is to prevent small problems from becoming major problems. It is perfectly acceptable to simply tell me in your e-mail that "everything is OK" and leave it at that -- just so long as you are sending me the e-mail. Silence from you is an indicator that something is wrong and you may be headed for trouble in this class.

Weekly check-ins are DUE every Friday (No later than 11:55pm) starting the first week of classes. You can also email this at anytime during the week prior to the due date (Mon to Fri; but NOT Sat or Sun) - you do not need to wait until Friday. You can send one Check-in on Friday and then the next one on Monday for the following week. Check-ins sent on Saturday or Sunday will not receive credit. No Check-in will be required for Thanksgiving [Fall] or Spring Break [Spring] week and Finals week. Late Check-ins will not be accepted and will be ignored; and, again, the same goes for Check-ins that are sent on Saturday or Sunday.

GRADING for PL406 - [PL506 Students CLICK HERE]

There are 13 regular weekly assignments (including 2 review assignments) that are worth 50 points each and a two-week final project that is worth 100 points. Students are encouraged to participated to

Total possible points = 900 points:

650 points - weekly assignments & review assignments (13 x 50 points)
100 points - final project
80 points - discussions
70 points - weekly check-ins (14 x 5 points)

Grading breakdown on the 900 points:

To Receive an 'A' = Minimum 810 points (90%)
To Receive a 'B' = Minimum 720 points (80%)
To Receive a 'C' = Minimum 585 points (65%)
To Receive a 'D' = Minimum 450 points (50%)
Below 450 points (<50%) = ‘F’

The 'A' grade is intended for students who consistently submit work that is both on time and superior to the majority of the rest of the class. You need to demonstrate mastery of the subject matter through the quality and thoughtfulness of your answers. Between 10% and 20% of the class will likely receive and 'A'. (It could be more or less than this, depending on the makeup of the class.)

WARNING: Keep a copy of all of the work that you receive points for in this (and all of your classes)! Keep a copy of all emails that you received in this class -- whether they are general announcements or individual emails. .

Grade points will be posted in WebCT.

OTHER POLICIES

ACCESS TO CLASS: Students who fall behind by more than 2 weeks without explanation will be locked out of the class -- i.e., you will not be able to log into class through WebCT. To get back into the class, you need to send an email to the course Instructor and explain why you have not been doing your work and how you are going to catch up.

INCOMPLETES: will not be given without written recommendation by the Dean of Students. Low grades can be overwritten in GPA evaluations by retaking this course at a later date. (If you get a low grade in any class at NAU, you can retake that class and if you get a higher grade then the higher grade will be used to calculate your GPA. The lower grade will be ignored. See the NAU Undergraduate Catalog for details on this policy.)

PLAGIARISM and CHEATING: You are expected to do all of the work yourself, and to properly reference any material that you use from other sources. DO NOT COPY ANOTHER STUDENT’S WORK. DO NOT COPY SOMETHING FROM ANY OTHER SOURCE WITHOUT A COMPLETE REFERENCE TO ITS ORIGINAL AUTHOR (Author, Title, Year, Publisher, Page numbers, and Access date and URL for Web material). If you do either of these, you and the student you copied from will both receive zero (0) points for the assignment, and you may be dismissed entirely from this course.

The following WWW site on doing research and avoiding electronic plagiarism is recommended reading for anyone doing research on the WWW: http://www.sofweb.vic.edu.au/internet/research.htm

AUDIT Students: NAU policy requires that students taking a course for Audit must attend the class on a regular basis or they will receive a grade of F. In addition, I expect Audit students to do all of the Checkins and to at least 50% of the assignments, including BOTH Review assignments. All of these materials must be turned in and overall, of the work turned in must receive an average grade of D or better. Failure to do these requirements will result in a grade of F.

NOTE: We Will NOT be covering the MS Outlook and MS Access portions of MS Office; MS Word will be used, but will not be taught.

Northern Arizona University Policy Statements

safe environment policy
students with disabilities
institutional review board
academic integrity

http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/academicadmin/plcystmt.html

COURSE SCHEDULE

Click Here to go to the COURSE SCHEDULE

The Course Schedule is also kept in the CALENDAR within WebCT. You can add your own, private entries into the WebCT Calendar, as well.