SO470B Policy Letter

SO470B--Capstone Seminar in Geology and GIS

Spring 2007 Course Policy Statement

Instructor:

Professor. P.L. Guth
Available Hours: By arrangement (use E-Mail)

Text:

Assigned readings

Objectives:

To prepare you as you develop your capstone paper
To improve communication skills, both speaking and writing
To examine advanced topics in geology and GIS not currently covered in existing SOC courses
To foster a sense of professionalism in your scientific field of interest

Section Leader: Section Leaders and assistants are expected to be familiar with the procedures associated with the academic accountability system. The section leader will have the report ready for the instructor at the start of class.

Class Decorum: In accordance with USNA policy, there will be no sleeping or eating in class.

Fire or other evacuation: if the classroom or lab must be evacuated, we will move in an orderly fashion to the oceanography department assembly area and wait for further instructions. The assembly area in the Yard adjacent to Maury Hall.

Extra Instruction (E.I.): While this course does not have the traditional requirements for EI, because your grade will be based almost entirely on an individual paper, you should consider EI. There will be one individual progress report, but you should feel to contact the instructor to set up as many other meetings as you want. You can use the phone, email, or the time before or after class to set up EI. I am normally in from about 0745 to 1645, except for classes, lunch, and mandatory meetings, which may be heavy this semester as I am on the Promotion and Tenure Committee. We will find a way to get together, but you should try to plan in advance.

Grading. The table below shows the grading for the course. There will be no final exam. If classroom participation warrants, there will be announced or unannounced quizzes on the papers assigned for discussion. As should be obvious, this course is all about writing a scientific paper.

	Marking Period 1	Marking Period 2	Final course
Other	100%	100%
Paper			75%
Oral presentation			25%
	Failure to turn in a satisfactory outline and reference listr will result in an F grade for Marking Period 1.	Failure to turn in a satisfactory rough draft of the paper will result in an F grade for Marking Period 2.	Failure to achieve a passing grade on either the paper or the oral presentation will result in an F grade for the course.

Student Requirements:

Capstone Paper: this will be a 10 page paper. In accord with OCEANOGRAPHY DEPARTMENT INSTRUCTION 1530.1B, each paper will have at least 9 current journal article references. You will need instructor permission to use more than 2 papers published before 1993. You will also need instructor permission to cite web pages; web sources must be used sparingly, and do not count toward the 9 paper requirement. For the SO470B capstone, you must include some analysis of digital data in your project. We will go over ways to get and use digital data.
Oral Presentation: each student will prepare a 15 minute Power Point presentation on their capstone paper.

Syllabus.

Readings (USNA Only)