You have two choices for electronic communication: email, or newsgroup. Which should you use? It depends on the nature of what you have to say. If it is a general astronomy question or comment that various people might respond to, it probably should be posted to the newsgroup. If it is something directly concerning you but probably not others in the class, email to the instructor or your teaching assistant or another student is probably more appropriate. If it is a private matter (for example, a complaint about someone, or a question about grades) email is clearly more appropriate.

HOWEVER, be fully aware that you should never view email as truly private communication. Unless it is encrypted, it is not hard for your email to be intercepted and read by someone wishing to do so, and the University views emails sent through the University email system as matters of public record, should legal issues arise concerning an employee or student. My advice: view email to trusted persons as reasonably secure, but assume that with every email message there is an outside chance that it could be read by others.

Read the FAQs

The class newsgroup has a link to a file of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs). It is highly inefficient to ask questions in a newsgroup that have already been asked and answered frequently. It is your responsibility in posting questions to the newsgroup to be sure that the question is not already answered in the FAQs. Check the FAQs before posting, both to avoid wasting the time of participants in the class, and because the FAQs are very useful to you as an astronomy student precisely because they address the most common questions. Repeated posting of questions already answered in the newsgroup indicates that you are not paying attention and may adversely influence your laboratory participation grade.

At various times during the semester, the instructor or teaching assistants will conduct optional help sessions for those students who wish to attend. Help sessions will be announced through the class newsgroup, but we will only schedule such sessions if a significant number of students participates.

You may choose when and where to take each online quiz. Since you have an entire week in which to take each quiz, only in exceptional circumstances (for example, documented abduction by aliens for a period exceeding a week) will a makeup be considered for any online quiz. Although you may choose when to take the quiz during the assigned week, if you wait until the last minute you may be unable to obtain a seat in the computer lab to take the quiz during the allocated period. If so, you must take the quiz at a later period. If there is no later proctored period allocated for the week, you will receive a zero for that quiz. Generally, if you have not taken a required biweekly online quiz by the end of the time periods allocated for it, you will receive a zero for that quiz. You are university students. It is your responsibility to schedule your time accordingly. Your score on the biweekly quizzes will comprise 35% of your grade.

A preliminary schedule for proctored labs where biweekly online quizzes may be taken is given below. This schedule is subject to modification through notices in the newsgroup. It is the responsibility of each student to monitor the newsgroup for such notices. Generally, you must present your ID to the proctor, sign a sign-in sheet, and take the exam using an available computer in the lab. You may use no books, notes, or other written or verbal help in the exam. Do not expect the proctor to answer any questions about astronomy. You should print the final screen summarizing your score and have the proctor initial it before leaving. This will serve as your record should any question arise later concerning the electronically recorded score. If a proctor is not present at an assigned time in a lab, you should contact the OnlineAstronomy help desk.

There will be two examinations given during the semester that will not be online, a midterm exam and a final exam. They will be pen and paper exams given in the classroom. These two exams, and the initial class period, are the only times that you are required to come to the lecture portion of the course during the semester. Unlike the online quizzes, which will cover only material from the previous two weeks and will be multiple-choice exams, the midterm and final exams will have a variety of question types, including possible multiple-choice, fill-in, and essay questions. As for the online quizzes, you must have a valid student ID in your possession to take these examinations. The midterm exam will cover Chapters 1-8. The final exam will cover Chapters 9-16. Each of these exams contributes 20% to your final average. Makeups for midterm and final exams will be given only for documented valid excuses. You don’t want to take a makeup if you can help it. They will be essay exams, and probably harder than the original exams.

Your grade in lab will be determined by your performance in the real and virtual experiments, by the quizzes for the virtual labs, by a final comprehensive lab test that covers both the real and virtual exercises, and by a grade assigned by your lab instructor for level and quality of participation in the lab and newsgroup. The breakdown of the lab grade is as follows:

Your final grade for the course will be computed from the following contributions:

Students also have the option of obtaining extra credit by participating in extra credit observing sessions run by Paul Lewis. Schedules will be posted during the semester. Students may participate in more than one session. Observation reports should be handed in to your lab instructors. The maximum number of extra-credit points that can be earned for observing is 5 for the semester (added to the final average). You may do both project I and project II, if you choose.