The reading and assignment schedule is available separately.
Attendance and Participation: 0%
I will hold Zoom sessions 3-5PM EST every Wednesday, but these are not required. As graduate students and upper level undergraduates, I trust you to make the best decisions regarding the use of your own time. You can complete this course completely asynchronously if you need to, but I will be available on Zoom if you want to chat or use the time to work with classmates.
Discussion Starter: 10%
In the first week of the semester, you will be assigned a small group of 3-5 students with whom you will have a small group discussion about one set of assigned readings. (I will select and assign the week each group will cover). Your small group will need to coordinate a time to meet via Zoom or other conferencing tool to record a brief (17-20 min) discussion starter video/podcast to frame your assigned week for the rest of the class. See here for details.
Weekly discussion: 30%
For the discussion weeks where you are not in the discussion starter group, you will need to respond individually on Slack with a text response to the discussion starter and assigned readings.
For responses, you should use the 3CQ method: compliment, comment, connection, question.
Compliments should emphasize something you liked about what a discussion starter said or what the group discussed. Comment should reinforce, but deepen an idea they shared. Connections should connect what the discussion starters talked about to your own unique thought or reaction, extending the discussion to new ideas, examples, or concepts. Finally, questions should open up space for class discussion. They may question something the discussion starters discussed, raise a question based on the readings, complicate an existing example or idea, or direct us to think about something in the reading the discussion starters overlooked.
Homework: 40%
Nearly every week we will have one or more short assignments due online. Details for each are linked on the course schedule. Please ask in our course Slack group if you have questions.
I strongly encourage you to work together with classmates on assignments or seek help from me. Assignments will be graded on work attempted; as long as you show your work and put the effort in, even if nothing works you will receive as good a grade as if everything worked flawlessly.
Final Project: 20%
All students will produce a data-driven final project; this may take the form of an argumentative essay, a standalone dashboard-type project, or a portfolio of smaller projects in consultation with Dr. Kane.
Undergraduate and MA students must use a dataset provided in class. In my experience with students in past semesters, there is not enough time in the semester to acquire data, assess it for feasibility, clean it, and create a project.
Doctoral students may optionally design a research project related to the dissertation area in consultation with Dr. Kane if you have a dataset starting the semester. I will not approve any projects using Covid19, Parler, or other January 6 2021 data; there are too many ethical and legal issues with this data that I do not feel comfortable supervising this semester.
Course Policies:
Assignments
All assignments are due online at 11:59PM on the Friday night ending the weekly module.
Paper or emailed assignments will not be accepted. You must follow all instructions in the assignment, including where and how to post it, to receive credit for it.
Email and Technology
- Lost files, lost passwords or computer troubles are not an excuse for late work, especially in this class! Have a backup plan! We’ll discuss options the first week of class.
- Unless specific permission is given for disability accommodation purposes, class sessions may not be recorded under any circumstances. Recording audio, video or by other means may result in dismissal from the course or a zero for class activities at the instructor’s discretion. You may not redistribute any recording Dr. Kane has made without explicit permission ahead of time.
- Students are required by University policy to check their albany.edu email once every 24 hours. Students are responsible for receiving any updates about the course via email.
- Please allow at least 48 hours for a response from Dr. Kane. There are many of you and one of me.
- Email any time but do not expect a response outside of the 9AM-5PM business day. Especially the night before an assignment due date.
Accommodations
- All reasonable accommodations will be provided for students with documented physical, sensory, systemic, cognitive, learning and psychiatric disabilities in accordance with the University’s Statement of Reasonable Accommodation Policy http://www.albany.edu/disability/docs/RAP.pdf
- If you believe you have a disability requiring accommodation in this class, please notify the Director of the Disability Resource Center (Campus Center 137 / 442-5490 / cmalloch@albany.edu). That office will provide Dr. Kane with documentation of your disability, and will recommend appropriate accommodations.
Academic Honesty
- Students who violate the University’s academic honesty policies http://www.albany.edu/undergraduate_bulletin/regulations.html may fail the assignment or course and will be reported to the Office of Undergraduate Education or Office of Community Standards for a Violation of Academic Integrity.
- It is assumed that your intellectual labor is your own. If there is any evidence of academic dishonesty, including plagiarism, the minimum penalty will be an automatic failing grade for that piece of work. Plagiarism is taking (which includes purchasing) the words and ideas of another and passing them off as one’s own work. If another person’s work is quoted, summarized, or paraphrased, this must be indicated with quotation marks and/or a citation.
- Group work and consulting other resources are allowed for all assignments, even encouraged. If you choose to work together, or get significant help from a classmate or other source, I do expect you to credit all parties in the assignment post or comment.