Assignments

Course Participation

You may participate EITHER VIRTUALLY OR IN PERSON, regardless of which course section you have signed up for. If you have any symptoms of illness or believe you have been exposed to a contagious disease (COVID, flu, etc.), please participate virtually that week. Per current GMU policy and CDC recommendations, all students must wear a mask that fully covers their mouth and nose (and does not contain an exhalation valve).

Course participation will occur primarily through class discussions, the course instance of Slack, and commenting on each others’ blog posts (see below).

B-level course participation will consist of attending classes/videoconferencing sessions; actively discussing readings and technical assignments in each module’s Slack channel; seeking technical support in the #tech-support Slack channel; and commenting on at least 18 blog posts during the semester.

A-level course participation will consist of all of the above, along with actively participating in classes/videoconferencing sessions; bringing outside readings and knowledge into Slack; working with classmates to problem-solve in the #tech-support Slack channel; and commenting on at least 30 blog posts during the semester.

Blog Posts

Students will write weekly blog posts (ca. 500-1000 words) reflecting on the previous week’s readings, discussion, and technical assignments. These will be due every Sunday night.

Students will then have until Tuesday night to comment on other students’ blog posts.

Course Modules

Modules are listed in the course schedule and marked as required or optional. A module corresponds to ~1 week of work.

Course Projects

Course projects will be done in small teams. You will have access to the course Basecamp instance to help with your project management (scheduling meetings, tracking to-dos, document sharing, check-ins, etc.) and I may be able to supply Basecamp integrations with other software (e.g. GitHub) on request.

Course projects have 5 elements that are due throughout the semester; the first 4 are group work, the project reflection paper will be your individual thoughts on your experiences during the project.

1. Project Environmental Survey – due 9/29

2. Project Work Plan – due 10/13

3. Project Presentation – due 11/17

4. Final Project – due 12/1

5. Project Reflection Paper – due 12/8

Your final projects will be assessed on a combination of effort, process, and self-reflective writing. In other words: don’t be afraid of breaking things and failing to accomplish a specific technical task as long as you work hard, can explain what you’ve done, and learn something new along the way. See, for example, Quinn Dombrowski, “Whatever Happened to Project Bamboo?” or Shawn Graham, Failing Gloriously and Other Essays.