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A216
General Course Information.

General Course Goals.

I hope to accomplish several things in this course. While we have been doing this course for several years, and I have a pretty good idea of what needs to be covered and how, things can change as we progress.

In general, there are two areas I want cover: the conceptual/technical and the practical. In many cases, these are related, but not always. The conceptual amounts to the "why" and the technical amounts to the "how" aspect of any class. We want to learn why things work and how to use them.

The practical is the "hands on" component. This is what you will do primarily in the labs, where we will show you how to do use the various software tools to accomplish a variety of tasks.

"Technical" Course Goals.

The conceptual/technical goal of this course is still very practical in nature. We want you to learn about multimedia. This includes hardware, software, operating Systems, and standards, as well as more general issues that may not be obvious at first, like mathematics, biology, human physiology, television and film technologies, etc.

When you complete this course, you will have learned about or worked to some degree with: analog and digital display technologies, image types and image capture, digital and analog audio, audio capture and editing, digital and analog video, video capture and editing, audio and video codecs, streaming audio and video basics, networking fundamentals related to multimedia on the internet, computer hardware fundamentals, etc.

I will try to make this experience as practical as possible, using what I know about systems currently in place in both business and education, so that when you are done, you can honestly say you have some useful multimedia knowledge and experience.

For your information, here is the official course description:

A216 Digital Multimedia Concepts and Technologies (3.0 cr.) P: A110, A111, or equivalent computing experience. In-depth introduction to the technologies of digital hardware and software relevant to efficient multimedia communication methods. Meetings focus on computational foundations, underlying concepts, and digital methods. Laboratory provides direct experience with concepts presented in meeting, using latest available digital tools to create direct and web-based multimedia content. Meeting and laboratory.

Here is a bit more detailed description the gives some idea of various topics we will cover:

In-depth introduction to the use of mixed-media digital hardware and software tools for effective communication with focus on computational foundations, underlying concepts and technologies, and the notion of "digital convergence." Meeting topics will include: Digital capture techniques and technologies (CCD, CMOS, GIF, JPEG, MP3), fundamentals of compression (lossy/lossless), audio and video codecs and their underlying concepts as well as the import of sensory experience and human physiology to such codecs, simple spatial and temporal algorithms, networking fundamentals as related to streaming digital audio and video, and fundamentals of digital display and digital storage. Laboratory will provide direct experience with meeting topics using the latest available tools to create multimedia for both direct and web-based communications. Strong emphasis on problem solving techniques.

Grading.

I know this is often the first thing a student wants to understand. Here's what I have in mind at this point.

Attendance: Because I post the meeting outlines in advance, attendance is mandatory if you want to pass. If you skip meetings on a regular basis, thinking you can get by on the posted outlines, you will fail. I know, it's happened many times in my other courses where I make similar resources available. Meeting attendance will be part of your final grade and taken in the form of attendance cards, explained on the first day of class. This will represent 5% of the course grade.

Individual Homework: There will be 4-6 homework assignments that will be graded and represent 20% of the course grade. The labs will not be graded, per se, but the 4 assignments will be based on material presented in lab.

Quizzes/CATs/MINIs/JITs:There will also be 6-8 quizzes, 6-8 MINIs, 6-8 JITs and 6-8 CATs (Classroom Assessment Techniques ) given over the course of the term. Quizzes will be given in lab and will not be announced in advance. CATs will be done in the regular meetings and not announced in advance. MINIs and JITs (Just-In-Time) will go together and you will have 2-4 days to get them submitted. All of these will be used to evaluate how well you are understanding the material in both meeting and lab. The quizzes/CATs/MINIs/JITs will be worth 15% of the course grade.

Participation: Because being well-prepared will be such a crucial part of the meeting and team-based experience, your active participation will be required and it will represent 10% of the course grade.

Team-based Assessment and Review: You will be partnered with someone else in your lab section. Being a "good" partner and fulfilling your responsibilities as a peer partner will be crucial. Fulfilling your peer responsibilities will represent 10% of the course grade.

Team-based Projects: There will also be two (or more) different, but related, projects for A216.

One Project will be creating a fully-automated PowerPoint (or similar) project of the sort you could install and run in a kiosk or similar location. This project submission alone will be worth 15% of your Final Grade and shared by all team members. In addition, at least another 5% will be based on your Assessment and another 5% on your Journal for the project. The second project will be to adapt the first project to a web-based presentation will all content optimized for delivery over the network. This project alone will also be worth 15% of your final grade, shared by all team members, with the same 5% for Assessment and 5% for Journal. Both projects will be submitted on CD-R. [NOTE: This means the entire project process for each project will be worth 25% of your final grade and the two projects combined will be worth 50% of your final grade. Please be sure you are clear about this.]

Overall Grade: So, your overall grade will be based on the following:

Attendance: 5%

Individual Homework: 20%

Quizzes/CATs/MINIs/JITs: 15%

Participation: 10%

Team-based Assessment and Review: 10%

Team-based Projects + Journal: 40%

Grading Scale:We will begin with the standard 90-80-70-60 grading scale. +/- grades fall in the upper and lower 2.5% of each range, respectively. This scale could drop by the end of the term, but it will never rise. This mean if you earn a 90.00% average, you are guaranteed an A-.

Important Course Policies.

Be absolutely sure you understand the following course policies, as well as those out-lined on the "Important Course Guidelines" page. It will be assumed that you have read and accept these policies before the end of the first week of class.

If you have never been in a CS course before, these policies may seem inflexible. However, they are similar to those for other courses in the School of Informatics and they are not unlike the sort of guidelines or contract stipulations you would find associated with a job in the "real world." Consult the Important Course Guidelines for a more complete list.

You are solely responsible for your performance in this course. We are here to help you whenever possible, but all of your choices have logical consequences. Make sure you take interest in your scores and Final Grade before you earn them.
No work will be accepted late, period. If I do not have a homework assignment in my possession before I leave the meeting hall the day it is due, it will be scored a 0 (zero). Similarly, if you miss the deadline on any material submitted electronically, even by .01 second, you should expect a score of 0 (zero) there as well. Should this occur with something like one of the Projects, the result would be at least a full letter grade on your Final Grade.
I do not accept work electronically, UNLESS specifically requested. While there some things, like quizzes and homework assignments, MUST be submitted electronically, no other work will be accepted eletronically. If it is due on a certain day/date, I expect it in legible hard-copy form before the end of the meeting period at that time. Anything else will probably result in a score of 0. [See #2 above]. The same is true for anything submitted on CD.
This is an Information Technology course, and we expect you to use the technology. What this means, specifically, is we expect you to have an IU Email account and we expect you to use it. We expect you to check email at least twice daily, under normal circumstances. IU policy already requires that all faculty, staff and students check email once daily. We are merely extending that policy to be "twice daily." If an announcement is made in class regarding a schedule change, etc., we would expect you to check email at every opportunity. Additionally, we expect you to monitor the A216 Meeting OnCourse site relevant to this course. This is an important resource and you should learn how to use it if you don't already know how. Just be sure you understand that "I didn't check email" or "I didn't read OnCourse or check the Course website" will not be acceptable reasons for not getting work done on time or failing to meet other course requirments.
Any requests for an alternative exam time must include documentation supporting the need for an alternative and be submitted at least one week in advance. There are certainly legitimate reasons to request an alternative, such as job interviews, conferences, etc. However, these are also events you know about well in advance. Any such request must be made directly to me, at least a week in advance of the exam, preferably two weeks.
Emergencies: I realize emergencies will arise, but it is still your responsbility to notify me as quickly as possible should such an emergency occur. NOTE: I consider an emergency to be something like a death in the immediate family in the last 24 hours or severe personal injury requiring hospitalization. In all other circumstances, I think you should be able to contact me before an exam or other major course event. My email and voicemail numbers are clearly indicated on the course HomePage and I am in my office by 7:30am on meeting days. I try not to be totally unreasonable in this regard, but if you come to me a week after missing an exam and claim you missed the exam because of car trouble, I will not be very sympathetic. Again, this is a policy consistent with other courses in the School of Informatics. [Also consider, if you missed a project deadline at work and didn't contact your Supervisor for week, would you expect her/him to be very sympathetic? If you had a major presentation to a client and failed to notify your Manager in advance that you could not attend, what would you expect the consequences to be?] Again, I am in my office on class days by 7:30am and can be reached via email and my voicemail, both of which are posted on the HomePage.

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