Jan 20 2011

WELCOME TO THE ONLINE PHYS 6060 How Things Work II Course.

Read this carefully.

 

The class begins Jan 24. It is important that you thoroughly familiarize yourself with Collab and the course home page website and the information available to you by clicking on the radio buttons on Collab and course home page. You may work at your own pace as long as you meet the deadlines on the syllabus. The chat room is a help session that meets Wednesday at 7:00 PM. It is important that you pursue the material aggressively. All correspondence between you and me will be through your UVa email address – not your personal email address. I will use your personal email to send you this welcome letter. After this letter I will use your UVa email to correspond with you. In previous years we used Blackboard but now we have replaced it with UVa Collab. It is still in the transition process so you may see a reference to Blackboard somewhere. If you do, just ignore it.

 

Follow these instructions.

 

Collab: After you get your user name and password log on to Collab and click on all the radio buttons. Collab is only available to you after you register.

á          Home Page

This is the home page that is available to anyone and contains information about the course.

á          Syllabus

á          This is your main document for following the course schedule. Please follow it and keep track of the deadlines. The synchronization between chapter headings/section heads with the lectures and homework are only approximate.

á          Lecture Videos and Chat Room Slides

Download lecture videos and chat room slides

á          WebAssign

Homework and exams are obtained here and submitted here

á          Discussion Board

I will post a list of forums for discussion including the homework questions

Check it out.

á          Create Exam

A special exam that you will create and submit on Collab

á          Email Archive

List of all emails

á          Roster

á          Site Info

á          Polls

Please answer the poll question.

á          Help

 

 

Home Page: The home page is available to anyone. The URL is http://people.virginia.edu/~ral5q/classes/phys606/spring11/ .The first thing to do is click on all the buttons on the left side and read the information. A list of buttons is given below. These buttons are extremely important and, in particular, Introduction, Overview, Login Instructions, and Syllabus. The Homework and Exam DEADLINES are on the syllabus and also on Webassign. Here is a list of the radio buttons on the home page that you should click on and read over carefully. The exam dates on the syllabus may change. Some of the information on the Collab and the home page is the same.

 

Home Page

á          Computer Requirements

Make sure you have adequate access to the internet before getting started

á          Introduction

Read this over to get a feel for the philosophy behind the course and the general direction of the course

á          Welcome Letter

á          Sample Lecture Videos

                       Lectures 1 and 9

á          Sample Essay Question/Answers

                       Typical homework essay questions and answers

á          Registration/Tuition

á          Login Instructions

     Collab

     UVa Email

     Webassign

á          Syllabus

á          Create Exam Guidelines and Samples

á          Lecture Slides

The actual list of Power point slides and a list of all demos and where they appear in the lecture in terms of minutes from the start of the lecture.

á          Demonstration Index

                       To help you locate the demos in the lectures.

á          Grading / Honor Policy / Proctors

Please read this carefully and learn about the UVA honor code which you are obligated to follow.

á          Resources

                        Additional material to help you with course

 

 

Activate UVa email

 

To activate your UVa email if you have not done it already, go to the course home page http://people.virginia.edu/~ral5q/classes/phys606/spring11

and click on Log-in-Instructions and follow the directions to activate your email.

 

 Follow the instructions. If that does not work, call the telephone number on the website for assistance. You must obtain an UVa email because your UVa email allows us to use features such as Blackboard that we cannot use if you use your personal email. All correspondence will be through your UVa email address. Your

UVa email will be your initials followed by a numbers and letters @virginia.edu. Mine is ral5q@virginia.edu

 

Logging on to WebAssign (WebAssign is available if you registered)

 

Go to the course home page. http://www.people.virginia.edu/~ral5q/classes/phys606/spring11/

 

And click on Log-in-Instructions and follow the directions.

 

After logging on, try the "Intro to WebAssign for physics students" assignment. Submit it so I know you can do it. It will not be graded. It will teach you a few things about WebAssign. home works on webassign so you can work ahead. However, I will only answer questions on the current assignment.

 

 

If that doesn't work, call the number on the student help site. If you still have problems, email me (ral5q@virginia.edu).

 

 

 

Homework Instructions (Types of questions, grading, extensions)

 

 The homework questions are 70% conceptual and about 30% numerical. All homework assignments are accessed through WebAssign. After you log in to WebAssign, you will have access to the practice assignment and Assignment 1.  There are 3 types of questions and they require you to respond in different ways. The types are numerical, multiple choice, and essay.

 

Numerical Questions.

The numerical questions require you to type in the answer and you will get immediate feedback on whether your answer is right or wrong. The numbers in the questions are randomized so no two of you are likely to have the same problem. You have 20 submissions to get the correct answer. You have to be within 2% of the answer to get a green check mark for correct otherwise you get a red x for incorrrect.

 

Multiple Choice.

The multiple-choice questions also give you immediate feedback and allow for multiple submissions. The purpose of these questions is to give you some practice with multiple choice since the exams questions mostl multiple choice.

 

Essay Questions.

 The essay questions will be graded by hand after the due date and there is no immediate feedback. Please carefully read the instructions just before the actual questions in WebAssign. Use a word processor to write up your answers and then cut and paste them into WebAssign. Notice that WebAssign gives you full credit for each essay question. As it is graded your points will decrease if your answer is incorrect. The most important thing to note is: NEVER ANSWER AN ESSAY QUESTION WITHOUT JUSTIFYING OR EXPLAINING YOUR ANSWER. Never answer just yes or no or up or down or you may not get full credit.  More details on answering essay questions is given in the instructions in WebAssign.

 

Help with the Homework

You may discuss the homework with anyone in the class by posting questions on the Discussion Board in Collab.  Do not email me personally about the homework. All questions should be on Collab so everyone can get the benefit of the response. I will answer questions on Collab. Sometimes I will wait to see if some member of the class answers the question before.  Then I will check your response. The questions in the homework require knowledge in the designated chapters and lectures before the due date of the problem set. Some times you may have to search a little to find information to help you. You may use any textbook, or the internet to help you answer the questions.

 

Homework Extensions

If you are going to be late due to personal illness, family illness, death, or religious holidays, you must request the extension before the deadline and no penalty will be incurred. You must provide written evidence of the above and the extension must be requested in advance by email to me. Otherwise late homework is not accepted. There is no excuse for not getting homework submitted on time. You can always submit homework  one question at a time and at least get part of it graded.

 

Homework is worth 25% of your final grade.

 

Exams

There will be two closed book exams. They are the midterm and final exam, which will be a multiple-choice format.

I EMPHASIZE THAT YOU READ  COLLAB AND THE CLASS HOMEPAGE WEBSITE COMPLETELY.

 

Good Luck,

Professor Lindgren

 

Dr. Richard A. Lindgren

Research Professor of Physics

Department of Physics

University of Virginia

P.O. Box 400714 McCormick Rd.

Charlottesville, VA 22904-4714

Office 434-982-2691

Fax    434-924-4576

Email  ral5q@virginia.edu