12/06/07
"A final exam study guide is posted under handouts"
12/04/07
There will be no class on Thursday, Dec. 6. The last lecture will be given on Tuesday, Dec. 4. The discussion session on Dec. 5 will go over topics that will appear on the final. The final will consist of 100 MC/TF questions. Please bring a blue scantron and a No. 2 pencil with you. The last day to hand in workbooks for credit will be before the final exam, 8am Thursday, Dec. 13
11/13/07
10/04/07
I have placed my personal copy of the textbook and two copies of the workbook on the reserve shelf in the Marlar Library, located on the 3rd floor of the SERF Bldg (#930 on campus map, just east of the Price Ctr.) The reserve shelf is against the back right wall of the library, underneath the portrait of Nicholas Copernicus. There is a free copy machine near the door (please don't abuse!). NOTE: The Marlar library is only open 8am-5pm during weekdays. MNorman
10/03/07
I have received a number of emails from students who are still having difficulty getting credit for their online tutorial work. Others have asked about the grade they received. Please note the following:
1) In order for the gradebook to know that you did the tutorials or quizzes, you must access them through the "Assignment List" tab. If you access them through the "Tutorials" and "Quizzes" tabs at lower left, you are in the "Study Area", which does not report your activities to the grading system. A message to this effect appears at the top of each screen.
2) When inside the tutorial, you save your work by pressing the little round button at lower right marked "S". When you do this, you pop out to the assignment page. You submit the item you just completed for grading by clicking on the little blue "submit" tab. When you have finished the tutorial and you want to submit it for final grading, click on the "submit item" tab.
3) You will be graded on the percentage of the tutorial you complete, as stated in the syllabus, despite the fact that the software tells you 50% of your grade will be based on completing the tutorial, and 50% on answering questions. I have not yet figured out how to adjust the automatic grading policy. What this means is that as far as your actual grade is concerned, a 50% reported in the online gradebook is equivalent to 100% in my gradebook. Turning in the associated workbook pages assures you of a 100% score if you complete all the questions.
3) To accommodate these difficulties, I have adjusted the due dates for Homework 1, Quizzes 1 and 2 to 10/11/07.
4) Hang in there. Let's see if we can make this system work for us. MNorman
10/01/07
Joining the class and online assignments.
Due to a change in the user interface at the publisher's website www.masteringastronomy.com, the procedure for joining the class is different from what I described in the course syllabus and on the welcome page. I apologize for the confusion. There is no "Join the class tab". Rather, you join the class when you register at the publisher's website by filling in the CourseID: MLNORMAN0001. By doing so you automatically join the class. If you see the welcome message from our class, then you have done it correctly.
Another change from the first day of class is where to find your homework and quiz assignments. They will no longer be posted on this website. They are to be found under the "Assignment List" and "Current Assignment" tabs on the left side of the class page on the publisher's website. Unfortunately, this is the only way the online gradebook can know what homeworks you have completed (the third edition website was more flexible).
To those who did an assignment only to find no record of it in the online gradebook, I apologize for the inconvenience. You will have to redo your work to get credit. Incidentally, this is why I made the first assignments due 10/9--to shake the bugs out of the system. I hope I got it right this time. Let me know if you still have problems. Thanks. MNorman