IST 111 (PSU 008) - Seminar in Information Sciences and Technology

Fall 2001, Section 3

8:00 – 8:50 PM   T - GCC110

INSTRUCTOR:            Alan Peslak, Ph. D. (ABD)

EMAIL ADDRESS:      arp14@psu.edu

COURSE OBJECTIVE:

Introduce students majoring in IST to academic requirements, academic survival, career planning, communications, research, critical thinking, and computer literacy.

REQUIRED COURSE MATERIALS:

·                                    Daily/Weekly Planner

·                                    Not having an answer to the questions -  "What is IST?" and "What are some strategies for successfully completing my freshman year?"

GRADING CRITERIA: 

Students will be responsible for completing assignments throughout the semester.  Students will also be responsible for writing a final course paper about IST.   Students must attend 13 out of 15 classes to receive full credit for attendance.

COURSE GRADING:

The purpose of a grade is to give students feedback on the degree of their success in assimilating course content.  In IST111, we have adopted a grading scale that will hopefully provide each student with the opportunity for a good grade.  The following grading structure is based on the required plus/minus system of the University.

ACADEMIC INTEGRITY:

All students are expected to act with civility, personal integrity; respect other students' dignity, rights and property; and help create and maintain an environment in which all can succeed through the fruits of their own efforts.  An environment of academic integrity is requisite to respect for self and others and a civil community.

Academic integrity includes a commitment to not engage in or tolerate acts of falsification, misrepresentation or deception.  Such acts of dishonesty include cheating or copying, plagiarizing, submitting another person's work as one's own, using Internet sources without citation, fabricating field data or citations, "ghosting" (taking an exam for another student or having another student take an exam for you), stealing examinations, tampering with the academic work of another student, facilitating other students' act of academic dishonesty, etc.

Academic dishonesty violates the fundamental ethical principles of the University community and comprises the worth of work completed by others.  A student should avoid academic dishonesty when preparing work for any class.  If charged with academic dishonesty, students will receive written or oral notice of the charge by the instructor.  Students who contest the charge should first seek resolution through discussion with the faculty member or the campus Director of Academic Affairs.  If the matter is not resolved, the student may request a hearing with the Commonwealth College Committee on Academic Integrity at the campus.

Sanctions for breaches of academic integrity may range (depending on the severity of the offense) from F for the assignment to F for the course.  In severe cases of academic dishonesty, including, but not limited to stealing or "ghosting" and exam, students may receive a grade of XF, a formal University disciplinary sanction that indicates on the student's transcript that failure in the course was due to a serious act of academic dishonesty.  The University's statement on Academic Integrity from which the above statement was drawn is available at: http://www.psu.edu/dept/oue/aappm/G-9.html

TENTATIVE CLASS SCHEDULE: Activity order is likely to change somewhat.

NOTE:  THE COURSE SCHEDULE AND ACTIVITIES ARE TENTATIVE AND CAN BE MODIFIED BY THE INSTRUCTOR AT ANY TIME.