This syllabus may be updated online as necessary. The online version of this syllabus is the only authoritative version.

Communication

Slack: All course communication will take place in our Slack group. Students should add themselves to the Slack group using your Mason e-mail address no later than the first day of class. All course announcements will be posted to the #Spring19 channel and you are responsible for joining this channel and checking it regularly. You may download the Slack app onto your electronic device or use the web based version. See this getting starting started guide for more information.

Office Hours: Students are always welcome to visit me during office hours. While you can drop in, I strongly encourage you to book an appointment. If the scheduled times don’t work for you, message me to suggest a few other times that would work for you.

It should be noted that my office hours are for clarifying course material and troubleshooting issues after students have attempted to fix issues using tool documentation. My office hours are not for re-teaching material that was missed during class and I will not demo a tool that you were absent for during my office hours.

Required Purchases

You will need to sign up for Student plan with Reclaim Hosting ($30) in lieu of a textbook. We’ll go over this in class, but please sign up for an account no later than June 6th. The wonderful folk at Reclaim have provided a discount code for students enrolled in this course.

All other readings will be available for free online.

Technology

You will need to bring a laptop or tablet to every class. You will need it to complete required in-class exercises. Please charge your computer beforehand and bring a charger to class with you. All devices are to be used only for course work. Students who are clearly disengaged from the course may be asked to leave.(i.e. sleeping, listening to music, clearly doing work for another class, etc.) Please be respectful to your classmates. Such activities are distracting and take away from the learning experience.

Technology, while often wonderful, can also cause unexpected problems. I encourage all students to back up their work on an external hard drive or in a Dropbox account. Always keep separate copies of your written assignments and other work. Computer failures are not an acceptable excuse for late assignments and will not constitute an emergency.

Late Work

No unexcused late work will be accepted. You must request any extensions before assignments are due. No work will be accepted after the last day of class unless specifically assigned. Quizzes cannot be made up for any reason.

Enrollment Status

You are responsible for verifying your enrollment status in this course. I will not drop students who do not attend from the roster.

If you do need to drop the course, please be aware of these dates from the academic calendar.

• Last day to add a class: January 29, 2019.
• Last day to drop a class without penalty: February 5, 2019.
• Last day to drop a class without permission: February 12, 2019.

Honor Code

Mason is an Honor Code university; please see the Office for Academic Integrity for a full description of the code and the honor committee process. The principle of academic integrity is taken very seriously and violations are treated gravely. What does academic integrity mean in this course? Essentially this: when you are responsible for a task, you will perform that task. When you rely on someone else’s work in an aspect of the performance of that task, you will give full credit in the proper, accepted form. Another aspect of academic integrity is the free play of ideas. Vigorous discussion and debate are encouraged in this course, with the firm expectation that all aspects of the class will be conducted with civility and respect for differing ideas, perspectives, and traditions. When in doubt (of any kind) please ask for guidance and clarification.

Please keep in mind that if you are copying and pasting text that you did not write yourself, you might be plagiarizing. If you are using copied text, whether pasted or retyped manually, you must be sure to accurately cite the information. Text is accurately cited when: 1) pasted text is surrounded by quotation marks or offset as a block quote and 2) the pasted text is attributed to its author and source and 3) the pasted text is cited in a footnote, endnote, or bibliography.

Classroom Conduct

In order to learn, we must be open to the views of people different from ourselves. In this time we share together over the semester, please honor the uniqueness of your fellow classmates and appreciate the opportunity we have to learn from one another. Please respect each others’ opinions and refrain from personal attacks or demeaning comments of any kind.

Disability Services

If you have a documented learning disability or other condition that may affect academic performance you should: 1) make sure this documentation is on file with Disability Services (SUB I, Rm. 4205; 993-2474; http://ds.gmu.edu) to determine the accommodations you need; and 2) talk with me to discuss your accommodation needs.

Acknowledgments

Variations of this class are regularly taught by numerous faculty at George Mason. I am indebted to the work of those who have taught this class before me, including: Sharon Leon, Lincoln Mullen, Erin Bush, and Gretchen Burgess.