Seminar
- Each course has a seminar held on a particular day/time of the week. Most courses have one section (i.e., one available seminar day/time option). In most courses, seminars are scheduled for 1 hour once per week and cover one module’s worth of material.
- Seminars are scheduled so that required courses you should take concurrently do not overlap. However, courses that are not typically taken concurrently may overlap in their seminar time. If you choose to take classes with overlapping seminars, it will be your responsibility to regularly review the seminar archive for one of those classes.
- Some seminars may cover material that is addressed in quizzes. Therefore, faculty may advise their students not to take a quiz before a corresponding seminar if the seminar covers material addressed in the quiz.
- Note: Quizzes are a gated academic activity that you must complete before progressing to the next module. If you choose not to take a quiz until you have attended a corresponding seminar, which may slow your module progress slightly, this delay may be worth the preparation for a quiz that the seminar can provide. You can also turn your attention to another course while waiting for the course seminar to take place.
- Seminar participation—either attending a live seminar or accessing an archived one—is required. A small number of points toward your course grade area is awarded for seminar attendance and participation. Those who cannot attend a given seminar live may earn points by submitting a brief written assignment. Pay careful attention to individual course policies: to sit for the final exam in most courses, you must attend at least 80% of the seminars (either live or through submission of the alternate written assignment), although some writing courses require 100% seminar attendance.
Written and Visual Resources
Most modules in most courses will include three categories of required resources:
- Readings (textbooks and/or online materials accessible from Brightspace)
- Video lectures (accessible from Brightspace)
- Post-video interactive learning activities (accessible from Brightspace)
Discussion Boards
Discussion board topics are found in some modules. They may or may not be graded. If they are graded, a scoring rubric will be provided. Even if ungraded, they are a valuable opportunity to engage with the material, your instructor, and fellow students.
Attendance
While much of your coursework will consist of reading and working on graded assignments, it is critical that you perform certain academic activities on a regular basis that will register official attendance at the University:
- Access the Seminar tool by attending a regularly scheduled live seminar.
- Post an original thread to any classroom discussion.
- Post to the professor’s virtual office.
- Submit an assignment via the drop box.
- Submit an exam/quiz.
(Note: merely logging into Brightspace does not count as registering attendance. Failure to post attendance in a course at the start of the term may result in administrative removal from the course or withdrawal due to nonattendance.)
Meeting this requirement should not be a challenge for you, as the completion of attendance-bearing activities on a frequent basis is important for making good progress.
Course-Specific Late Policies
In most courses, there are grade deductions if certain assignments are not turned in on time. These are designed not to penalize students but to incentivize them not to fall too far behind. Please carefully read the course-specific late policies in each course syllabus, which may differ from course to course.
You can access the course syllabus on the Content tab on the left navigation bar. Once you are inside the syllabus, the course-specific late policy will be found under the Course-Specific Policies heading.
Make sure to refer to the course-specific late policy in combination with the module progress deadline dates published in the announcements for specific details on when assignments are due. You are responsible for all deadlines, so if you have questions, please contact your professor.
Content Requirements
All content in a course, unless otherwise stated in the course, is required. Some of it is:
- Attendance bearing
- Graded
- Both or neither
Examples:
| Content/Activity |
Required? |
Attendance Bearing? |
Graded? |
| Seminars |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
| Readings |
Yes |
No |
No |
| Videos |
Yes |
No |
No |
| Interactive Activities |
Yes |
Yes |
Usually not (but a minimum score may be required to move forward) |
| Quizzes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
| Discussion Board |
Yes |
Yes |
Some are, some are not |
| Assignments |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Note: seminars will be graded for students beginning in January 2021.
Due to gating, students must complete all work in all modules to be able to access the scheduled final exam. Final exam schedules are posted in each course’s announcements.
