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“Welcome to PS205 Research Design and Analysis” Video
Speaker: Instructor Laura Swart Instructor Laura Swart: Hi, welcome to PS-205
Research Design and Analysis. I’m the instructor for the course, and my name is Laura Swart.
There are a few items you need to take care of the week before the term begins to get
yourself and your computer ready. This class takes place entirely online, so it’s important
to have a reliable computer. It must be a PC or Mac. You may not take this course entirely
on a little smartphone or small-screen tablet. And your PC or Mac must have a working microphone
and a working video camera. On the bright side, the week before the term
starts; you may earn some easy points by opening our software we’re using to meet online,
making a little statement with your microphone and showing that your video camera works,
and drawing something on the whiteboard using your mouse. If you do those things, you’re
proving that you’re all set to participate in meetings for which you can get credit either
attending live or attending via recording, which we’ll talk about in a minute. You
may only get those points for proving that you’re up to speed on the meeting software
and on your hardware the week before term starts. Once term starts, you may not earn
those points anymore so don’t miss this opportunity. Some other points you can earn,
but only before the term starts, is a readiness assessment. And the lovely thing about the
readiness assessment is even if you do poorly, even if you miss some items, there is a method
where you can then get all of the points anyway. So, that won’t happen again; enjoy it and
take advantage of it, and again you cannot take that readiness assessment once the term
begins so do it right now. There are a few algebraic items on it and a few items using
your scientific calculator. The purpose is to identify gaps in those two areas, and then
I have resources for you if you need the week before term to brush up on either algebra
or using your scientific calculator, both are needed in this course. Also, you can earn
an easy point by voting on a meeting time, and then the first day of the term I will
email everybody to say what time we’re meeting online. Again, we’re not meeting in person
ever we’re always meeting over our computers. Let’s talk about attendance. Attendance
is mandatory every week in the meetings, and there are two ways to attend. One - you can
attend live as the meeting happens over your computer or two – before a certain deadline
watch the recording of the meeting, do all the same work we did in the meeting, and submit
it for meeting credit. Attendance in this course is mandatory and oh-so-important. In
fact, it’s so important that if you miss more than one meeting, that is, you’re not
exercising on those two options every week, miss more than one meeting and you might have
to be dropped from the class. And here’s why: this course is different from most psychology
courses you will ever take. In most psychology courses, if you snooze for a week and fail
to master the material, you can just do great all the other weeks and be fine. This class
is different. In this class, if for whatever reason you don’t master the material one
week, all the other material that occurs in subsequent weeks becomes more difficult to
master and by its nature, the material in this course is so cumulative that you may
have to be dropped if you fall behind by not attending in one of those two methods: live
or by recording. So, that brings me to the most important point in the entire welcome
video. In this class, it is so important that you keep up and toward that end, I will always
give you access a week early to the following week’s material and right now not only will
you see a folder for things to do before term starts, but you also will see the week one
folder, and I want to invite you to start on that material early. That way, if you have
illness, or some personal misfortune, or a computer problem you won’t fall behind in
a kind of irreparable way. I want to also address computer malfunction
issues. We have a wonderful team at DEIT; they can help you with the two pieces of software
that we’re using. If your internet goes out or your computer dies, you will still
be expected to complete the material online. So, I want you to always start early enough
on the work that if you have that misfortune you’ll be able to still get the work done
using a different computer or a different internet. You can always go to, if your Wi-Fi
goes out, either the library at DeSales or a public Wi-Fi hotspot. They have them at
Burger King sometimes; they have them at Starbucks. You will be expected to find an alternate
internet connection if yours fails or slows down. Similarly, if your computer has a problem
it would be a matter of getting to either a public library or the Trexler Library, and
you’ll still be expected to get the work done in time so know that and start early
enough. Okay, let’s talk about tech support and
communication issues. If you’re having a tech support problem, the people to call might
not be who you think. So, let’s say you can’t open a video, can’t open a PDF,
there’s something you can’t get into in Blackboard Learn, or you can’t get into
the meeting when we’re doing Blackboard Collaborate, or you can’t watch the meeting
recording. I don’t know whether the HelpDesk people have been briefed on the two pieces
of software we’re using, but we do have some experts that know these two pieces of
software really well. They are DEIT; write this number down. Don’t necessarily call
tech support, uh-uh, call DEIT when you’re having a tech support issue, and they are
at 610-282-1100 extension 2290. For all other items that are not tech support related, I
would encourage you to call me, 610-628-2397. I prefer phone to email. I will check email
at least once a day, but if you email me you might have to wait twenty four hours, there
might be more back and forth, if that’s not really what you wanted; you won’t have
an answer. If you call on the other hand, usually you’re going to get a quicker answer,
and less back and forth with more opportunity for clarification, and you get your needs
met better. So, I want to encourage you to call instead of emailing whenever possible.
Also, even though right now it’s the week before the term starts, I want you to feel
free to call me even this week if you get stumped on something as long as it’s not
tech support; it’s not “How do I install Java?”, “How do I open a video?”, all
those things are for DEIT. For everything else, call me, even this week.