This section of Advanced Business and Professional Writing is offered in an online format, which puts special demands on us all. To help us meet the demands of distance learning--so that, primarily, we meet the learning objectives of this course--here are some requirements and some suggestions for working in this environment.

Prerequisite Knowledge:
I assume that you have had sufficient writing courses and have done sufficient writing that you have a sense of how to write effectively in an academic environment. You know the writing process (even if you don't follow the prescription all the time) and you have strategies for producing clean prose.

You also need to be familiar, or become familiar very quickly, with the software necessary for professional writing and for this online course: Microsoft Office Suite and WebCT Vista. Word 2003 or 2007 PowerPoint are the essential tools in Office. You may use a free suite, such as OpenOffice, but we will be using particular features of Word for peer and instructor markup of texts.

Practices:
Be Professional. Be sure all your interactions, with the instructor and peers, are professional. In online discussions, in e-mail, and in peer review, treat the communication as a situated, workplace communication. Your e-mail, for example, should always be formal--complete sentences, properly formatted and punctuated, free of the acronyms and shorthand of digital discourse. (That has it's place, but not in formal correspondence.) Respect those around you in this writing community (not just the instructor but also your peers). And finally, commit to your learning.

Be On Time. All assignments have due dates and times, those due dates and times are also on the course calendar in Vista. Exceptions may be made; contact me with a memo that makes your request and provides a rationale. In a summer course of only 5 weeks, you can understand that missing deadlines will seriously impede your progress in the course. And, to the extent that some of our work will be collaborative (in developing critical judgment of workplace writing in particular), you will also impede the work of your peers by submitting work late. Appropriate reasons for missing deadlines: documented illness or other calamities. Be aware that your discussions must be completed on the date of the reading--being late here matters as well.

Do Your Own Work. "Plagiarize means to take and present as one's own a material portion of the ideas or words of another or to present as one's own an idea or work derived from an existing source without full and proper credit to the source of the ideas, words, or works." This definition includes using another person's work." See the full definition in the Statement on Academic Dishonesty, a copy of which is on the Vista home page. I have observed that students sometimes assume that pulling pieces and parts from various websites or other sources, weaving them together into a new passage, is an acceptable "research" practice. It may have been in high school, but it isn't in college, and it will not be in the workplace. Even paraphrasing an idea from another source must be documented.

Work Independently. The online venue requires that you work independently and with discipline. For a 3-credit course, you should allow 135 hours over the next 5 weeks to "pass" the course. How well and effectively you work will determine your grade; how efficiently you work will determine if you need more or less time to do the job. That works out to approximately 27 hours per week. This work time includes the time you spend reading instructions, participating in discussions and peer review, preparating (research, drafting, revising) your own work, corresponding with instructor and course-mates. The quality of your participation and the quality of your work will determine your grade, and responsible, independent learning are essential to your success here (and in life).