Course Requirements and Policies for History 121

History 121 is divided into four chronological sections. Your assignments page indicates the dates when each requirement is due. The short essays are all based on documents and are good practice for other assignments. They are not graded except for pass/fail. Discussion forums must keep pace with course progress for your discussions to be meaningful and count toward extra credit.

+— Extra Credit, See below

For due dates for all requirements see your Course Assignment Page

Course Policies

Because of increased scrutiny of online courses by accrediting agencies, the Virginia Community College System (VCCS), which establishes policy for all community colleges in Virginia, has mandated changes in rules governing distance courses. Accordingly NVCC has modified its policies regarding the grades of "W" (withdrawal) and "I" (incomplete.) Those changes are reflected in the assignment sheet and below.

• Completion of Part 1 of each course, including Short Essay 1 and Quiz 1 constitutes the requirement for avoiding administrative withdrawal.
• At the end of the course, students requesting a course extension must have completed all assignments through week 14.   Extensions will be granted for brief periods—up to a maximum of 2 weeks—as indicated on your semester assignment page. Further extensions will be granted only for exceptional, documented circumstances such as military deployment or prolonged illness.

Quizzes and Essay Exams

1. Short quizzes must be taken during the week indicated on the assignments page. Deadline is Saturday of the quiz week, with Sunday as a day of grace. The quizzes will include brief true-false or multiple choice questions based on Readings and Documents for the weeks indicated. You may take them at home (or anywhere) without a password, and you may take each quiz twice.
2. Essay Exams must be taken at a testing center or at any other proctored location. They will consist of short answer and essay questions for the portion of the course indicted on the assignments page. You are given the question topics in advance, but nothing may be used during the exam. Arrangements can be made for testing elsewhere by getting a Proctor Request Form from the ELI Web Site. You will need an exam pass for each exam: Exam Passes are available in Blackboard under Exams. Note that you will also need a picture ID at the testing center.
3. Exam and quiz links will be placed in Exams in Blackboard when they are available.

Practice quizzes and practice exams with guidelines will be posted well before each quiz and exam. I do not grade practice quizzes: thus they do not count toward your grade. You may take them as often as you like or print them for study purposes. Questions will be similar to those on the regular tests and will cover the same general material. Practice quiz questions may or may not appear on the real exam, and there will be other questions on the same material that are not on the practice quiz. Forum questions will suggest the kind of essay you may encounter on exams. There are no essay questions on quizzes, and no objective questions on the Essay Exams.

General Writing Instructions

History 121 requires 3 short (3-6 page) essays and one site visit essay. See Writing Instructions. For your site visit should use materials on this web site for your sources and other information relevant to the site you choose to visit. You must visit an actual, physical site—virtual visits do not meet the requirement.

Writing Grades. Your first three essay are worth 100 points each, your site visit essay is worth 150 points.

Essay grades run as follows: A+=98-100% A=93-97%;A-=90-92%; B+=87-89%;B=83-86%; B-=80-82%; and so on.

Extra Credit Discussion Forums

Discussion Forum questions are posted in the discussion forums in Blackboard to stimulate conversations among students. You may answer the questions directly, respond to comments by other students, or start a thread of your own on a relevant topic. Discussions are good practice for the midterm and final exam essays. Extra Credit points up tp a maximum of 50 points will be added to your total score at the end of the course for regular participation. Points will be added at the instructor's discretion based on quality of comments.

History 121 Updated March 2, 2012

Aequam memento rebus in arduis servare mentem! [Keep your mnd on an even keel!]