HCI 201 Multimedia and the World Wide Web

Syllabus

L. Edward Allemand, Ph.D.

Instructor: L. Edward Allemand, Ph.D.

Best, Fastest Way to Contact Me with Questions, Difficulties: The Discussions Section in the D2L Online Materials for the course. I will be frequently in the Discussions. I do email much less frequently and primarily for administrative college issues; I am not available by phone.

Email: If you must, use email generally use only for private matters. Please see the final section of this syllabus regarding private matters such a health and family issues. allemand@cdm.depaul.edu Use only this email, not a general De Paul email address or any other email return address given you by the system. If it is not allemand@cdm.depaul.edu I won’t get it.

Office Hours: For this course online Online in the Scribblar chatroom are available. Because it is an online course there are no in person office hours available. See the center column of the D2L Course Home Page marked online office hours. Hours posted there. Hours subject to change as we see what interest and demand there is in the class.

Course Description: This is a course for non-majors in general information on the World Wide Web and more specifically an introduction to building a web page. This course also meets the Liberal Studies requirements for Scientific Inquiry. Thus, learning objectives include those for an SI course. We will do practical exercises in inquiry and technological reporting of findings to meet this requirement. The web technology component will also be oriented to practical application for a student. It will emphasize introductory techniques for building a practical, personal web page(s), suitable for career placement. There are NO PREREQUISITES but it assumed you have fundamental computer skills with knowledge of files and folders, usual computer experience of email, chatrooms, social network software, word processing.

Computers and Operating Systems: The course is slanted to PC and Microsoft but Mac users are given alternatives. So Mac and Microsoft Users should both be able to use course materials. E.G. Slides are in Powerpoint and .pdf files. There is a special Discussions Forum in the D2L Discussions for the course for Mac users to trade information.

Course Objectives:

· To acquire basic knowledge for building a practical professional website using various development means including HTML

· To acquire basic knowledge of use of multimedia in such website

· To become familiar with the scientific enterprise including vaiours views of its metod, its difference in proceeding according to the type of science and the general process of scientific publication

· To do as a project an investigation of a scientific topic and to build a web page publication of the findings using web page development skills learned in the earlier objectives

Other Things You will Need:

· Each student will need a flash drive or some form of back up. This will certainly be necessary if you ever wish to work at any time on the university campuses. The machines on campus do not save your work so a flashdrive is necessary to port it to and from campus. If you use the labs in the CDM building in the loop you need to have a CDM activated account.

· Campus Connection access: userid and password

· Reliable email address. Make sure the email address you have submitted to the university as part of your student profile and which will be the one on my classlist is what will reach you for emailings in this class. I send email to the class from time to time.

· Generally fast internet access and video streaming software (standard issue on most computers). You need the internet with a fair degree of speed since you will be streaming videos of lessons.

· All of these are your responsibility. Tutoring or assistance with for instance video streaming does not come as part of the course.

A Greener Approach and Course Home Base: All materials for the course are online, of course. These are located in the course management system D2L: http://d2l.depaul.edu access with your Campus Connect login. This is your course Home Base

Changes to this Syllabus: No version of a course goes exactly like previous ones. Therefore, from time to time, changes may be necessary to this syllabus. This is frankly very rare and usually would be minor and more often than not just matters of scheduling. Major content material and certainly any changes in requirements or grading will not occur.

Keeping Up – Weekly (yes Weekly) Deadlines:

The course builds incrementally, adding skills as we go along. Keeping up is essential. It is my general experience that students who fall behind, even a little, tend to fail. Thus don’t be fooled because the course is all online.

The course is an online course. This frees you from attending a fixed class, from commuting and allows you to do the work at your pace but within limits. It does not mean you have total flexibility to do assignments and turn in work at any time. There are weekly assignments and deadlines with substantial penalties for not meeting them. (See below). The reason for this rigidity is precisely because the skills acquired are cumulative. You need to have mastered one set before moving on. The two major projects due approximately at the midpoint and at the end embody all the skills learned. It is impossible, no matter how talented a student is, in my experience, to “catch up” after a certain point. Thus, deadlines are enforced. You will do a first assignment on “Is this Course Suitable for me?” You will need to assess candidly whether you are willing to meet weekly deadlines.

Additionally, it is impossible administratively for me to manage the course efficiently and more important for you with perfect accuracy of grading without such scheduling

Assignments:

· Must be submitted electronically as in the instructions provided. This is done through the DropBox facility in D2L.

· NB: Late assignments loose 2 pts per day. After 72 hours past the deadline, the assignment or quiz becomes a permanent zero. VIP: If you are ill or have some other legitimate interruption in your course work, you can contact me but I do not make the final judgements on these matters. Special permissions for late withdrawal or other concerns must be vetted by the proper office, e.g., Dean of Students or CDM administration. Pay attention to withdrawal dates set by the university and be realistic in your ability to do the course in a timely fashion. Work related travel or absence should be treated in the same way.

· You can discuss and help one another understand the assignments BUT you do another student (and yourself) a great disservice by sharing your hard work with them. The next section contains extracts and some interpretation of university policies on plagerism. In fact the Course Management System has built in safeguards against plagerism.

University Policies on Academic Integrity and Plagiarism:

University guidelines on academic integrity and plagiarism can be found on the Web and in the Student Handbook and are hereby incorporated in this document. The following items are not intended to contradict the university guidelines, but to emphasize or explain areas of particular note for this course.

· Plagiarism applies to any sort of material used on the Web, including for example sound, graphics or images, as well as text.

· Students are responsible for insuring that they use material only with permission and that, when such permission is subject to giving credit, they credit sources appropriately.

· Students who use images, text, sound, trademarks, or other materials developed or owned by others without their permission can be held legally liable. "Academic use" is not a legal defense.

· DePaul University and the professor take no responsibility for any student's use of materials developed or owned by others without their permission.

· Please also see the section on Academic Integrity on the Blackboard Class site

A Word about Content and Computer Usage Policies:

· Students are responsible for following University and the College rules for computer usage. These include rules about commercial usage and kinds of content.

· In general pages created for the course should have a professional tone and be suitable to your job-seeking portfolio. Use as your standard: Would I show this to a prospective employer?

· You are expected to write your own code (html). Systems which use templates and do all the code development for you are easily detected. You will receive very little if any credit for using such a system.

· Lastly, I know what I teach in this course and what I do not teach obviously. Web pages with very advanced work such as external css files and javascript are obviously probably not developed by you. Be careful of using others to do your work for you. It is usually immediately detectable. Again no credit will be given for such work.

Reuse of materials:

Anything developed or submitted for an employer or another course cannot be submitted for an assignment in this course without PRIOR permission of the instructor.

Grading Components

The following components determine the grade:

Component	Total Point Allotment*
Website Programming Assignments	45
Quizzes	40
Participation	15

*actual per item point allotment cf. Dropbox or Grades in D2L

Grade-Point Standards

A 92.0% C+ 78.0%

A- 90.0% C 72.0%

B+ 88.0% C- 70.0%

B 82.0% D+ 68.0%

B- 80.0% D 60.0%

F Below 60%

Incompletes and Other Exceptions to these Grades and Grading : Please do not ask me for a grade of incomplete or for special consideration or changes in deadlines due to illness or other matters. I cannot give an Incomplete by College rules. You must apply to the College of Computing and Digital Media for a grade of Incomplete. It is seldom granted simply “because you fell behind” but usually only for serious and unforeseeable reasons of health and other like serious reasons.

If you have special health or other concerns, you should consult with the Dean of Students office. Professors are not competent to make judgments in these matters. Either the Dean of Students office or the Administrative office of the CDM (College of Computing and Digital Media) will communicate with me after you have discussed the matter with them. This applies as well to excessive absence (even unforeseen) for business related travel.