Syllabus

Use the following conventions when composing a discussion post:

1. During a Discussion assignment, deadlines for posting to and replying will be specified with each assignment. It is a good practice to always check the Discussions multiple times during the week.
2. If you want to send a personal message to the instructor or to another student, use native message service rather than the discussions.
3. Use the appropriate Discussion Topic.
4. Be patient. Don’t expect an immediate response when you send a message.
5. A helpful hint for use with both discussions and message service --- Compose your message in your word-processing application in order to check spelling, punctuation, and grammar --- then copy and paste your composition into a message or the discussion. This also saves online time.
6. Everyone should feel free to participate in class and online discussions. Regular and meaningful discussion posts constitute a substantial portion of your grade.
7. Respect each other’s ideas, feelings and experience.
8. Be courteous and considerate. It is important to be honest and to express yourself freely, but being considerate of others is just as important and expected online, as it is in the classroom.
9. Explore disagreements and support assertions with data and evidence.
10. "Subject" headings: use something that is descriptive and refer to a particular assignment or discussion topic when applicable. Some assignments will specify the subject heading.
11. Use the "reply" button rather than the "compose" button if you are replying to someone else’s posting.
12. Do not use postings such as "I agree," "I don’t know either," "Who cares," or "ditto." They do not add to the discussion, take up space on the Discussions, and will not be counted for assignment credit.
13. Avoid posting large blocks of text. If you must, break them into paragraphs and use a space between paragraphs.