Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Web Publishing 32 & 33

I announced today that we will be having the exam soon as per the course schedule. We decided to put it off until Wednesday of next week because of conferrings on Friday.

The exam will conver everything we have done in class so far and the material covered in the NewsU course that students took.

All the powerpoint presentations used in class are available by following the links off this blog.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Correcting

Today is my day for correcting essays. I find the library is a nice place to work than my office. But unfortunately I feel the need for a computer a lot. I find I very often have a need to google a sentence or a passage to check for plagiarism.


My tolerance threshold for copy & pasting is set very low. But I am actually surprised at the very low level of sophistication of the copying I encounter. So far today I have seen spelling mistakes on a website reproduced in a paper. A simple spell check would have caught that. The laziest thing I see every year is the copy and paste from wikipedia that leaves the hyperlinks in tact. That is just so lazy.

Students who copied and pasted any text should expect to get zero for the paper. But I expect that I won't catch everyone. Some students are a bit cuter than others, mostly because they have more experience of cheating.

Web Publishing 31

We continued our look at intellectual property. We discussed Trademarks and Trade Secrets.

We also looked briefly at the ICANN Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy and quickly passed summary judgment on a few pending cases.

Slides

Monday, November 10, 2008

COM1-CMOD6001 Essays

Coming Friday is the last day that essays will be worth any marks. Essays submitted after that will not earn any marks.

Students who have not yet submitted should get the finger out. Students who do not yet have an essay topic should e-mail Colin for one.

Students who get no marks for their essay will find it very difficult to pass this module.

ITS1 CMOD6001 09 &10

There were only a handful of students in class and they didn't seem to be doing anything very productive. Because students have been moved to different lab groups the time slot can't now be used for project meetings.

I gave the students some ideas for the structure of the game.

I met with students and asked them about the games and what they had done so far. There didn't seem to be much creativity, innovation, not teamwork in evidence. I expect that I will be disappointed by the results.

I reminded students that it was very important to document their project work in the group blog.

COM1-CMOD6001 27AB & 28AB

Presentations were this morning. We used the programming time slot too. That will have to be paid back at some stage before the end of the semester.

I was disappointed with the quality of the presentations in general. With a few exceptions, it didn't seem like a lot of preparation had gone in to them. I was also disappointed by the lack of respect students showed for their colleagues. Maybe that makes me old fashioned.

In general I expect that few people will get less than a pass mark for the presnetation assessment component. But few will get very good marks either.

If it is practical I will make the video and audio files available.

This leaves only the murder mystery assessment. I have not seem much evidence so far that students are taking this very seriously. But hopefully in the next few weeks the situation will improve.

COM1-CMOD6001 26

{Friday}
Deidre Dunlea took this class

Web Publishing 30

{Thursday}
Gary took this class

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Media Data Formats

Next semester I am offering Media Data Formats COMP6021 in the free module time slot. This modules explains how bits end up being sound and images.

What's the difference between a GIF, and JPEG, and a PNG? What's MPEG? How does digital audio work? How does digital TV work? All this and more! :-)

If you are interested please send me an e-mail and I will add you to my list.

If you previoulsy took (and passed) COM2 Internet Studies & Web Design you can't take this module.

Web Publishing 28 & 29

I met with each group and they walked me though what had been done so far. Most sites still only exist on paper and few groups have got the structure of their site properly sorted out.

We decided collectively to wait one more week before pinning down a delivery date. But obvioulsy the semester is only so long.

Thursday's class will be delivered by guest lecturer Gary Couse and will be in C123 as become our custom.

Colin

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Web Publishing 27

We looked at Intellectual Property. Just Copyright & Patent today. Trademarks and Trade Secrets next time.

I left the handout on copyright in B219. Go pick that up if you'd like to learn more.

Monday, November 3, 2008

COM1-CMOD6001 Project groups

Students are expected to advise Colin of any changes to the composition of the groups. The most up to date information Colin has is that shown on the list of blogs.

The normal size of the groups is four members. Groups of five may be allowed in exceptional circumstances.

ITS1-CMOD6001 07 & 08

Students were very busy getting ready for tomorrow's presentations.

COM1-CMOD6001 Presentations

The presnetations are on monday next.

The schedule is here.

If we are ahead of schedule we will break.

As I explained on Fiday last all students must attend all presentations. Late arrivals will not be admitted.

COM1-CMOD6001 24A & 25A

Some students worked away. Others appeared to be wasting time.

The presentations are next Monday.

COM1-CMOD6001 24B & 25B

I spend most of the class sorting out essay submission issues and dealing with group allocations.

The presentations will be on Monday next. If you missed last Friday's class ask someone who was there about the requirements.

Friday, October 31, 2008

COM1-CMOD6001 23

This morning was the deadline for the submission of the paper. In addition to the electronic copy e-mailed to Colin, students were expected to also deliver a hard copy by this morning. Many students did not. These students are now late.

The standard CIT penalty for being late is 10%. Students who are late now have one more week to submit a paper copy and matching electronic version. The penalty is applied weekly so there is no incentive to submit any earlier than necessary. Students are, however, welcome to submit their papers at any time.

If you were on time but you feel that if you had an extra week your essay would yield higher marks even with the 10% penalty you are free to re-submit. Please advise me if you intend to do this so that I can hold off correcting your essay until you decide.

The penalty for being an addition week late will be 20% of the original mark. After that week the penalty is 100%, that is you will get nothing.

Students were expected to write an essay on the topic that had been randomly assigned to them. Students were not free to switch topics without prior permission. Students who attended class so infrequently as to not even have a topic were not free to write on any topic of their choice. The list of topics assignments that I have is here.

If you do not yet have a topic you should request one by e-mail or (God Forbid!) come to class. You may submit in time for the next deadline for a possible mark of 90%.

Thursday, October 30, 2008

Web Publishing 26

The project in B217 wasn't working so we squatted in C123 for the hour so at least the time was constructive.

I gave out a list of all the assessment components for this module and the weightings. These components are more detailed than the course schedule.

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Web Publishing 25

I arrived a little late. Studenst were working away. Most groups are on the right track although I think more thought needs to go in to the structure of the sites.

Quite a few students were missing. There are job placement interviews today.

I left early because I too had a job interview!

COM1-CMOD6001 No CIT lecture today

I have a meeting at 1515 and can't be certain I'll be done for 1600. When I'm finished I'll call over to the classroom. But if you don't need me for anything you need not come to class.