Syllabus

Spring 2006

Section 001: Tuesday/Thursday mornings, 9:30 a.m. to 10:45 a.m. in SSB 216. ref # 47832. Course home page: http://www.d.umn.edu/~cstroupe/sp06/5230/001

Section 002: Tuesday evenings, 6:00 p.m. to 8:45 p.m. in SSB 216. ref # 47229. Course home page: http://www.d.umn.edu/~cstroupe/sp06/5230/002

Dr. Craig Stroupe, 726-6249, Humanities 425
cstroupe@d.umn.edu; Office hours Tuesday and Thursday mornings, 11:00-noon or by appointment

Purpose | Expectations | Resources Needed | Grades

Purpose

This semester, we will approach digital technology not as a tool, like a hammer or a toaster, but as a language. This course thus emphasizes creative and cultural problem solving in Web design, rather than just the mechanics of producing HTML pages and Web sites.

While I assume you have no prior knowledge of Web design, and will provide you with introductions and resources to master to the basic skills, this class is dedicated to your learning the social and rhetorical uses of Web-design techniques—including writing—rather than just the technological tools.

The goals of this course are to enable you to gain practice and expertise in the following areas:

applying principles of rhetoric, design, cultural theory, and creative thinking to your Web-design work and writing;
discussing your work in critically informed ways;
writing critically and knowledgeably about issues and questions raised by the digital culture;
conceiving and carrying out writing/design projects that engage potential audiences on a variety of levels;
participating in and contributing to a community of writer/designers;
learning to develop successful working relationships with clients and support teams, which are especially necessary in the creation of documents for institutions, businesses, and civic organizations;
using a variety of software to create documents for delivery via the Internet.

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Expectations

Exercises and Projects

This course is organized as a series of project and exercises. The projects are long-term, individual works. The exercises are done together in class, usually in 15 to 30 minutes.

The Projects. As described on the Works Page, the projects are larger pieces of work that you'll complete individually over a period of two or three weeks using the skills you learned from the exercises and insights from the readings and class activities. Three of the projects are Web sites/pages, including a "Client Project" for a real-life organization, individual, business, professor, or campus unit of your own choosing. One of the projects is an essay about digital culture. You will also have an opportunity to do a "global revision" of one of the projects.

There is a three-point penalty per day for late projects, including the commentaries and printouts that are explained below.

Due dates for all requirements are included in the online schedule, which will be updated throughout the semester.

Exercises. We'll do the exercises together in class to learn particular skills or techniques, and you'll have 24 hours after the class meeting (if needed) to complete and post each exercise to the Web for credit.

Printouts and Commentaries

I will give you detailed directions for submitting particular, finished projects and exercises. The following, however, are some general guidelines:

All Web-based projects should be:

posted to the Web,
the URL sent to the Webx discussion board, and
all the pages printed out and handed in. Be sure to number the pages of your printout.

In a separate, printed document, you will write a commentary on your project, which will comprise two parts:

An opening paragraph that explains how your project fulfills the most basic criteria and goals of the assignment. This paragraph should reflect the depth of your understanding of the assignment--what it asks you to do rhetorically and creatively, what's interesting about it--rather than just a list of mechanical requirements. Here you should make big claims for your project as you look back at it, even if you weren't aware of everything you were accomplishing as you were working on it.
A list of annotations should follow the opening paragraph. The items in this list should comment on particular features in the project to which you want me to pay attention, or about which you want me to answer questions or understand more.
Each of these comments should be labeled with a number like "1.1" or "3.5." The number before the decimal point refers to a page number on the printout. The number after the decimal point refers to a number you've handwritten on the printout to point to the particular feature. For instance, the banner on the first page of your site's printout might have a circled (1) next to it, and, on your typed comment sheet, the annotation on that banner should be labeled 1.1 (page 1, numbered item 1).

Other Writing and Design Work

In addition to the design, creation, and writing of the exercises and projects themselves, you will complete:

writings on our online Webx discussion board
plans and preliminary writings or designs for your projects,
peer critiques for workshops
other writings.

Readings

On days when readings are assigned, please do the following:

have the readings done by the beginning of class;
expect brief quizzes or guided reading responses at the beginning or end of class. There are no make-ups on these responses if you are absent, late or leave early.

Attendance

Since this class will function as a community of writer-designers, your regular attendance is absolutely necessary.

Absences: For the Tuesday/Thursday morning class, an excess of 3 absences will deduct 3 percentage points each from your overall grade. For the Tuesday night class, an excess of 2 will deduct 3 percentage points each from your overall grade
These possible absences can be spent however you wish and so there are no excused or unexcused absences. Save your "free" absences for a rainy (or snowy) day.
If you are absent, you are responsible for all material covered in class.
In the case of absences or lateness, some requirements like quizzes and guided in-class activities cannot be made up when timeliness or group interaction is critical.
In addition to your budget of allowed absences, you also have instances of arriving late or leaving early to use (with or without an excuse) if necessary: 3 for the Tuesday/Thursday morning class, 2 for the Tuesday night class. Instances in excess of these allowed occasions will decrease your overall grade by 2 percentage points each. If during the semester you need to leave class early, even if it's one of your allowed instances, please arrange it with me in advance.

Participation

A larger goal of this course is to establish a community or network of writer-designers—with a wide variety of backgrounds, expertise, and interests—to enhance your learning and enjoyment during the next sixteen weeks. The class is designed to provide a number of avenues for this community building, including peer workshopping and critiquing, in-class "studio sessions," support groups, and various Internet-based communications and collaborations. Your sincere and regular contributions to maintaining this collaborative environment will count in your grade, and of course will greatly benefit your final products in the course.

Because your work is the subject matter for this course, turning in all projects and writings on time is critical; work turned in late will be assessed a 3% penalty per day.

Incompletes

Incompletes for the semester will be given only in the following very limited circumstances:

you must contact me in advance of the semester's end to make a request for an incomplete;
no more than one or two weeks of class, or one or two assignments, can have been missed;
you must be in good standing in the class (not already behind, in other words);
you must have a documented family or medical emergency, as required by university policy;
you must arrange a time table with me for completing the missed work that is acceptable for both of us.

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Resources Needed

Jakob Nielsen's Designing Web Usability. New Riders Publishing, 2000
Tarin Tower's Macromedia Dreamweaver MX for Windows and Mac. Thomson Course Technology, 2004
David Trend (editor), Reading Digital Culture, Blackwell, 2001
a UMD e-mail account
Zip disk or jump drive (a.k.a., pocket drive, thumb drive) for saving and transporting your work (at least 100 Mg.)
occasional access to a digital camera, or several high-density, IBM-formatted floppy disks for use in a digital camera to be checked out from UMD
access to a printer, or funds for printing

Grades

Your work on the major projects and various exercises (weighed according to the size and complexity of the project): 85%
Participation in class generally, including in-class activities and contributions, online discussions, attendance, conferences, quizzes, peer workshop responses, Webx discussions, class discussion, promptness: 15%

Purpose | Expectations | Resources Needed | Grades | Top