The “Class Participation” requirement for this course is to be satisfied as follows:
1) Each week* participants will be required to answer two questions that will be found in each week’s discussion board, and they will also be required to submit a response posting to at least one other student.
2) Answers to each of the weekly discussion board questions are to be “no less than” 200 words in length (this is a mandatory minimum length requirement). Any answer that falls below this length requirement will receive fewer marks.
Please note that there is a requirement that participants “post their answers first” before they are permitted to have access to (or view) anyone else’s postings. This requirement is in place in order to avoid any awkward issues with respect to “academic integrity” (looking at someone else’s answers before posting “your own answer”). As a result, please do not answer the weekly discussion board questions until you are ready to “complete” this requirement in one sitting (supplying complete answers to both questions).
3) Response posting(s) are to be no less than 150 words in length (this is also a mandatory minimum length requirement and it is to be satisfied within “one posting”). In other words, three “50 word” responses to three other students will not necessarily “fully satisfy” this particular requirement (fewer marks will be assigned to postings that are “excessively brief” regardless of their number).
The exception to this will be that if you post “a 150 word” response posting to another participant, then (because you have fully satisfied this requirement), you are free to “respond to” any other posting(s) as you wish (your subsequent responses can be as long or as short as you please).
3) Before answering the discussion board questions of the week, participants will be expected to have reviewed the weekly readings for that particular week. Likewise, the answers to the weekly discussion board questions should clearly indicate that you have carefully reviewed the assigned readings for that week.
4) Please be advised that, as stated in the course outline, each weekly discussion board will only be available (capable of being seen and open for participation) for exactly “one week” beginning at 12 AM on Sunday and ending at 12 AM the following Sunday (except for reading week and the final week of the course). After this particular “window of availability”, so to speak, the discussion board will be effectively “closed” (no longer open for participation).
Please Note: For the purposes of this course and deadline scheduling, please bear in mind that 12 AM Sunday is equivalent to Saturday before midnight.
After this weekly deadline, and after I have had an opportunity to review everyone’s answers, the discussion board will once again be open to review (capable of being seen), but it will no longer be open to any further postings.
Please note: under no circumstances will any answers or postings that are “cross-posted” (presenting material intended for one particular discussion board in another discussion board) be eligible for a class participation mark. In other words, failing to present your weekly postings (answering the discussion board questions and responding to another student’s posting) before the weekly deadline, will result in forfeiting your class participation mark (in whole or in part) for that particular week. Likewise, please do not “email” your postings to me after the weekly deadline has passed since these will also be considered ineligible to be assigned a class participation mark (and please do not ask to be made “an exception” to this particular requirement since this ends up being unfair to your fellow participants, as a matter of principle).
5) Please be sure to keep your main postings (your answers to the weekly discussion board questions and your main response posting to another participant – see above) “focused and relevant” with respect to the course material. Participants who wish to engage in any kind of casual discussion that goes beyond the sort of discussion that one might conduct in a classroom environment, are strongly encouraged to enter into this kind of discussion in the discussion board titled “The Lounge” which was created specifically for this purpose.
6) This assignment is to be seen as “an individual assignment”. Participants are strongly encouraged not to collaborate with other participants regarding their postings either within their given section, or with participants in another section in order to avoid any unpleasant (and essentially unnecessary) complications with respect to “academic integrity issues”. Participants whose answers “closely resemble” those presented by any other participant (past or present) will be automatically referred to the Office of Academic Integrity.
7) In order to keep things simple, your class participation mark in D2L will be assigned and calculated as follows:
a) Each of your answers to the weekly discussion board questions will be assigned a mark out of 7 possible points (based on quantity, satisfying the minimal word length, and quality in terms of providing” relevant discussion”)
b) Your main response posting to another participant will be assigned a mark out of 6 possible points (based on the same criterion mentioned above).
The maximum score for each week will be 20 possible points (x 12 weeks) for a maximum possible point score of 240 (which will result in a score of 24% for your class participation mark).
The remaining 1% of your class participation mark will be awarded by me (the additional 10 points to be scored), at my discretion, based on the overall quality of your class participation performance (in terms of consistently and conscientiously satisfying this particular requirement).
In other words, your entire class participation assignment will be “scored”, so to speak, out of 250 possible points (see above) which, divided by 10, will result in your class participation mark (out of 25).
Class Participation (In the Discussion Boards)
Please be advised of the following when it comes to the evaluation of your class postings and your class participation mark:
1. The weekly discussion boards are on “a specific schedule” in terms of availability (they will not be open for participation indefinitely). All postings are due before midnight every Saturday.
2. There is a minimal word length requirement for posting to the discussion boards.
Answers to the weekly questions: 200 words minimum (for each answer).
3 There is an interactive requirement that students also post a response posting to a posting made by another student in order to completely satisfy the requirements for this assignment.
Response Posting to Another Student: 150 words minimum.
4. This is an assignment, not merely an informal discussion forum, where your submitted answers will be evaluated (among other things) based on the correctness of your answer (i.e., full marks will not be given merely for “saying something”). In other words, your answers will be evaluated in terms of their quality as well as in terms of the quantity of work that has been submitted.
CMTKnowledge, Truth and Belief
