Welcome to PLS 211, U. S. Government I and enjoy politics as you are learning. As Larry Sabato, a co-author of your textbook and a well known national commentator, says "politics is a good thing." Watch Larry on CNN, MSNBC or Fox news.

This Course Guide gives you detailed information on the submission of assignments and exams. It is important to start your course on time and that you will perform assignments on a weekly basis according to the critical dates below.

Online Learning in PLS 211 course: For each week of the course, you should do the following.
1. Consult the list of Critical Dates below for exams, learning activities and the analytical paper.
2. Read the chapter and complete the lecture outline found in course documents in blackboard each week.
3. Instructions for completing assignments will be found under assignments in blackboard.
4. For exams, review the reading assignments, lecture outline and the review list. You will find details below.
5. Submit your assignments on time! Double check your dates in the critical date list.
6. Learning Activities do not require the use of a text.

After reading thoroughly this guide and syllabus, should you have questions, I will happy to answer them. Before you complete your assignments, be sure you understand what is being asked of you. if not, please ask.

1. Learning Objectives for each chapter are found under Course Documents on College Blackboard. Review questions, exam review lists, critical thinking details are found under course documents. Use the learning objectives to guide you in the course. English 111 is a prerequisite for this course. Good writing skills and research skills are important for success in this course.

2. Introductory Letter: Please see assignments in Blackboard on how to write your introductory letter.

3. Office Hours and Email: I will have office hours vial cell phone on Monday and Thursday, 8:00 PM - 11:00 PM. Students are invited to call me on my cell phone during these time or any day through out the week when I can be reached. If not available I will return the call in the evening. If I am teaching a course on the Annandale campus, I will have a one hour available on that campus. Please call for an appointment.
Email
Email Protocol is defined as using College email only and it also includes your full name, course number such as PLS 211 and assignment number in the subject line in all email communication. I use your college email address as a filing ID and so your grades and assignments are recorded using this ID. Using another email address will result in lost assignments and grade complications. College policy also requires that you use college email. I use college email for course reminders and updating of course policy. Students are required to check their email, and announcements in BB twice a week. Students, who do not fulfill this responsibility of checking email, will assume all risks for missing any update on course policy, or failure to abide by course policy. Student emails are not considered sent until they arrive in my in box .Please be aware that when students have their email forwarded, some sites such as AOL do not accept them because of their filters. Please do not send postal mail to the ELI address. All assignments are sent via email.

4.Blackboard is a course management system used to teach this course. When you register for this course, you are automatically enrolled. Go to ELI policies on Nova's homepage and find your user name and password,. Check Blackboard at least twice a week for course announcements, changes, etc. Students are responsible for exploring Blackboard. If you are using blackboard for the first time, please go to this site for orientation and tutorial. Learning about Blackboard.

5. Learning Activities or assignments Four learning activities are required by their due dates. See critical dates above. Detailed Instructions on these assignments are found on Blackboard under assignments.
Plagiarism: Plagiarism is the submission of work that you have copied. It is dishonest, and will not be tolerated in this course. The bar is set very low and a few words can constitute plagiarism. Use your own words and avoid severe penalties. See critical thinking document under course documents for more information.
Partial assignments and duplicates: Assignments can not be submitted in parts. Assignments are graded as a whole. Duplicate assignments raise grade questions and so will be penalized when frequent. Students are allowed one submission of an assignment.
Checking your assignment before submission: Students are responsible for checking or proofing their assignments for misspellings, grammar, punctuation errors, and any typos before submitting. Avoid needless loss of points for these types of errors. Follow directions meticulously for every assignment. Verify that your assignment has complied with directions before you submit.
Grading and feedback: Normally, I try to have a turn around time of three business days for grading assignments excepting weekends. You will receive feedback on all assignments. If feedback is delayed, announcements in BB will be posted. After four business days, and you have not received your graded assignment, please contact me to see what has happened to your assignment. Student must inquire after two weeks when feedback has not been received, or grade is forfeited.
In text documentation: All sources should be documented by "in text documentation." See the critical thinking document in BB for details. Students are not permitted to copy and paste any words from a web site to complete assignments.
Attachments are not permitted in this course at all because I want to able to give you feedback directly on your email. One exception is made for excel documents in your final paper because this document is not returned for feedback.
Copying from a word document: It is not recommended to copy from a word document to an email because it leaves out apostrophes, and also footnotes. While we use in text documentation in this course, it is still not recommended. Student assumes the risk of loss of points for copying errors.

6. Lecture Outlines: Lecture outlines/notes are found under course documents in Blackboard . These lecture notes are the equivalent of attending a classroom lecture. They contain most of the important elements of the course and may contain additional information not contained in your text. These lecture outlines are found in two formats: Impatica and Power point to facilitate your accessing of these files.

7. Attendance in this course: Attendance is a crucial part of an ELI web based course. Attendance means to participate fully in the interactive components of this course on a weekly basis. These components are learning activities, exams, preparation of your weekly reading assignment and the lecture outlines. ELI has instituted a required attendance sign in instruction, which if not done will require your being dropped without notice. See ELI calendar or this date. It also appears under critical dates above.

.8. Inactive student drop dates: You must complete the minimum assignments by your inactive student drop dates or be administratively withdrawn. See Critical Dates above.
First Inactive student drop dates: The minimum assignment is the intro letter, LA 1 and LA 2.

Second Inactive Withdrawal Date (Last Date for withdrawal without penalty): The minimum assignment is the intro letter, Exam 1, LA 1, 2, and 3. Generally, I will withdraw students who have not met the second inactive drop date. If a student is not withdrawn then it is his responsibility to withdraw himself or face an F in the course. Students can not get extension of these dates.
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9.Analytical Report:For this assignment, you will need skills for setting up a table and creating a bar graph. Using given data, you will test or prove a hypothesis. Expect to spend 4 -5 hours on this paper. Then you will write a 400 word analytical report on the validation of the hypothesis. Detailed instructions are under assignments. If you are having problems writing a paper, research or any other facet of an assignment, there is on line tutorial help. Go to http://eli.nvcc.edu/smarthinking.htm for help. English 111 writing skills are required for this paper and loss of points will result for poor writing skills.

10. Clarifications in the assignment during the course: While assignments are not ordinarily changed during the course, sometimes errors are discovered during the course and clarification changes are made. So students are responsible for checking for the latest update on any assignment in Blackboard before the submission of assignments

11. Student responsibility in this course: Students take full responsibility in meeting deadlines in this course. Life events do not excuse students from this responsibility. If you believe this course is important to you, find a way to remember the deadlines.

12. Help in this course: If you have had difficulty with or a poor grade on LA 4, go to http://eli.nvcc.edu/smarthinking.htm for on line tutorial help with research papers. If you have poor research skills or poor writing skills, take steps to get help. If you have had a poor exam score that is below 70 or below 60 in your first exam, take this as a wake up call. Contact me for a tutoring or contact http://eli.nvcc.edu/smarthinking.htm for their help.

13. Add policy: Students adding the course during the first week are expected to submit their assignments within the due dates of the course. Students are not allowed to add the course after the first week without the permission of the instructor.

Final grades will be based on the following scale:

A = 90 -100% = 400 to 360 points
B = 80 - 89% = 359 to 320 points
C = 70 - 79% = 319 to 280 points
D = 60 - 69% = 279 to 240 points
F = Below 60% =239 to 0 points

The student is responsible for keeping a running total of their grade points. Feed back will given for all assignments. I use the point system above to enable you to keep track of your scores. Your exam grades are kept on Blackboard. Penalties for late exams are added at the end of the course.

This course can be accelerated and completed in half the time or less. To finish in 8 weeks, do the assignments for two weeks in one week. There is an incentive for early completion. In order to be eligible for this extra credit, all exams and your analytical paper must be 70 and above and all requirements completed. You may still complete early if you fall below the 70 mark, but you will not receive any extra credit. You will need to email me to let me know that you have finished the course and I will determine if you are eligible for the extra credit. Sunday is used as the determining day in deciding which week you are finished .Students who finish the course early will receive extra credit points according to the following schedule:

8th week 20 points
9th week 15 points
10th week 10 points
11the week 5 points

Exams: Exams can be taken early or at any time. You must take the exam by the due date in order to avoid a penalty of 10%. Exams later than two weeks beyond the due date have a penalty of 20%. You should complete all the work assignments scheduled for that exam before taking the exam. You should complete all the work assignments scheduled for that exam before taking the exam. There are no retakes or repeat exams. Exams will include 50 multiple choice questions covering assigned chapters and lecture outlines. Learning Activities.

Final Exams: You must submit your final exam at the end date of the course. The penalty for late final exam is a 100% penalty. I post exams at midnight of the end date. If you are missing a final exam, it will be given a zero and you grade will be posted as is.

Minimum requirement to pass this course: Students must be able to recall or identify 70% of the key terms in the margin of the text or back of the chapter on a multiple choice exam.

Studying for exams: The best way to study for exams is to review the lecture notes and the review list under course documents.

Penalties and Extensions: Late exams have penalties.If you can not take the exam by its due date, you must request an extension before the due date. A one week or less extension normally will be granted for sickness or bereavement. Extensions are not usually granted for work related reasons. To request a two week extension, you must have a serious sickness or military leave, documented by doctor or commander. You must request the extension before the exam due date to avoid the penalty. Remember, it is your responsibility to know the due dates of assignments, and participate on a weekly basis.

Withdrawals: See minimum requirements under attendance. The student always has the option of withdrawing through Nova Connect up to the last date for withdrawal. See college calendar. Withdrawals after this date or at the end of the course are not permitted unless the student has documented evidence of mitigating circumstances. The student must complete Form NVCC 125-047and send supporting documentation to the instructor. Ordinarily, I do not grant withdrawals after the last date for withdrawing except for serious medical circumstances extending over a prolong period of time. W grades must also be approved by the ELI director.

Extensions at the end of the course: You must have satisfactorily completed 65% of the course work including two exams in this course and you must have serious extenuating circumstances. Requests must have documented reasons such as a doctor's note and will be sent to ELI. The length of the extension depends upon the extenuating circumstances and will be an agreed upon date.

Procedure for taking an Exam at the Testing Center.
 
1. At the testing center, you will take the exam on a computer. You will be given a five minute warning before the end of the exam. If you make any notes during the exam, these notes will be taken from you by the testing center.

2 . Call the Testing Center to find out their open hours before you go to campus. Their numbers are found below. You must arrive at the Testing Center at least two hours before the Center closes. Please allow time to park and for traffic conditions. A map can be found in the class schedule for directions to the Testing Center. Take a photo ID and your exam pass with you. Click here for ELI Examination Passes This is your responsibility to make the Testing center by its closing. Please be aware that testing centers may close early on Friday for staff meetings!

Need a proctor:If you are a student who is taking this course out of Northern Virginia area, then you must get approval for a proctored exam. You can find the form and information at http://eli.nvcc.edu/testinginfo.htm#proctor. Since this will take time for this approval, give yourself three weeks for this process. Due dates will not be extended because you forgot to do this.

3. Feedback for exams: At the end of the exam, BB will give you feedback including your errors with correct answers.

4.. If you happened to go to a testing center and BB is down, the testing center will offer you a paper exam. I would prefer that you wait a day and take it when BB is running. If you take a paper exam, I cannot give you any feedback on your exam except your grade. If this happens on the last day to take the exam, I will give an automatic extension of one day. You will need to alert me to this problem.

Testing Centers

Academic Dishonesty
Academic dishonesty will not be tolerated in this course. See student handbook for penalties.

Links for Campus Based Services
Counseling Services
Services for students with disabilities
Library
Help Desk - IT Services
Facts: payment of tuition
Student email account information
Difficulty in writing and researching papers