PLEASE READ ALL OF THE FOLLOWING BEFORE GETTING STARTED ON YOUR POSTS.
Netiquette and Privacy
Words can mean many things and what we intend to say is not always what others hear. This is especially true of "online communication" during which other students do not have the opportunity to see your "body language" and therefore have a greater possibility of misunderstanding what you truly mean.
Please, follow these guidelines in all your online responses
and discussion groups.
· RESPECT. We would like to suggest respectful exchanges as a basic ground rule. We feel that informational errors should be pointed out- respectfully (even if stated strongly...). Disagreements that honor the viewpoints of the various contributors are productive and can lead to new learning and understanding.
· PRIVACY. Keep in mind not only your own privacy rights but others as well. Do not reveal any information that you deem private.
· BE CONSIDERATE of grammatical/spelling errors.
· REMEMBER that humor and satire are often misinterpreted online. Communication is more than words. So, be prepared for some misunderstanding and requests for clarification.
· BE SUPPORTIVE. We are all still learning. Our job is not to judge or condemn or even praise, although genuine encouragement is a necessary ingredient. We are here to provide information, to address topics in a discussion forum, and to provide assistance in helping each participant use her/his own unique learning style. Reflection generally precedes growth. So reflect upon what is said, provide sincere comments, and hopefully, we will all grow.
One good way to avoid problems is to reread your postings before sending them. Something written in haste may be misread.
Created by Val Donato, Sandra Looper, Diane Hostetler and Tom Braziunas
Assignment for Discussion 05
Remember, this Discussion Forum is set up so that in order to see anyone else's post, YOU MUST POST YOUR RESPONSE FIRST. Once you have posted your response to the Discussion assignment/question, you will be able to see other team members' posts, even if they were posted before yours. This is meant to help you to understand what you think you know before being persuaded by others' thoughts. I want to challenge you to really take risks in your thinking about how a problem might be solved, and this means opening your thoughts up to the constructive criticism of others. This also means that in response to one of your teammate's post, you must take care in how you phrase your constructive criticism. In this assignment we will continue to practice doing just that.
For this assignment, we're going to search the internet and assess the information that we find for reliability and plagiarism. In science, for any research to be published in a reputable journal, it must first go through the process of peer review. Here are the series of steps in a nutshell:
1) A science group that has completed putting together their explanatory model, backed up by evidence gained through their research, must also do a thorough search of the published research literature to back up their argument. They include this previous work by crediting the scientists who did the work. This citation of previous work helps to make their argument stronger. They must be careful not to plagiarize any previous work, as plagiarism in science and academics carries very strong consequences and in very serious circumstances can result in destruction of one's career. You can see the citations in any scientific article in any reputable science journal by looking at the list of references at the end of the article. For examples, take a look at any of the review articles that I've placed on our class website and you'll find them.
2) The researchers then send their article to a journal of their choice. The editors of the journal first assess the article for relevance to their journal and decide to reject it or to send it out for further review.
3) If it is sent out for further review, the article is carefully scrutinized by 3-4 other independent scientists at research institutions across the world who will have similar expertise in the type of research proposed in the article. These other scientists will then send back their recommendation that the article be rejected, accepted with further modifications, or accepted without changes.
4) The researchers then have the option to follow these recommendations in order to pursue publication of their research. This process can often take several months to accomplish. Thus, the scientific peer review process is a way for research to be critically evaluated by other knowledgeable peers before it is released to the public.
The information on the internet, however, can be released to the public without any peer review process and the individual or organization releasing the information may not have any reputable expertise in the subject area. These days we get an enormous amount of our information from the internet, so having the knowledge of how to assess that information for reliability becomes even more important to us and to the decisions we make based on that information.
For this discussion assignment you will need to do four things by Saturday at midnight:
1) Learn about plagiarism. Go to the following website and take the short tutorial that describes what plagiarism is and how to avoid doing it.
http://www.clark.edu/Library/iris/use/use_home.shtml
At the end of the tutorial, take a screen shot of your score with the computer or your phone or camera and e-mail it to me () if you've scored 75% and above on their short quiz. Keep taking the quiz until you reach that goal.
2) Learn about evaluating webpages for reliability:
Go to the following website that was made for our class by one of our former NSCC science librarians, Maria Paz:
http://facweb.northseattle.edu/mpaz/Sheridan/Bio160.html#evaluate%20website
Familiarize yourself with this helpful list as you'll use these checkmarks to evaluate two different websites for reliability in this assignment.
3) Search the internet to find two different websites about anything in biology that interests you. These websites can be any type of website: informational, educational, advertisement, opinion, scholarly, etc... Need search tips for the internet? Check out the following link on Maria's website:
http://facweb.northseattle.edu/mpaz/Sheridan/Bio160.html#research%20tips%20internet
4) Write a summary of the two websites and post them to the discussion forum. Your summary should include the following:
a) A citation of each website. Just copy and paste the website URL into your document.
b) Provide a brief (one paragraph) summary of the information about the topic in biology that you found in the website. Make sure you follow the rules to avoid plagiarism!
c) Use the checklist in the "Evaluating Websites" information http://facweb.northseattle.edu/mpaz/Sheridan/Bio160.html#evaluate%20website to evaluate each website for reliability. Write a summary of your findings, again in one brief paragraph.
After this you'll need to read and reply to two of your teammates' posts and peer review their summaries by Monday at midnight.
1) Check for plagiarism. If you find it, don't be alarmed, we are practicing! Make supportive comments to your colleagues about how they might change it.
2) Check for reliability. Help your teammates use the "Evaluating Websites" checklist in order to help each other check for the reliability of the information found at the site.
3) You will NOT have to write a revision post for this assignment unless plagiarism was found. Remember, this is practice!!
4) Remember to use supportive comments in your replies that will support everyone's learning!