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Syllabus EC 303 Money and Banking, Marathon S 2008 [YOU SHOULD PRINT AND CAREFULLY STUDY THIS COURSE OUTLINE - BLACKBOARD IS BEST VIEWED WITH MICROSOFT INTERNET EXPLORER]
Welcome to EC 303 Money and Banking. This is Marathon S course! This means that the class is set up to be
taken online, although we will meet three times over the semester on Tuesday
nights from 6:00 to 8:30 pm in Merrill 261.
There will be remote sections at campuses in Gadsden, Pell City, and possibly
in Boaz and Scottsboro. The class will
be broadcast live to these sites via Distance Learning. [Most of the course contents are available online. Everything is, for the most part, explained here. Nevertheless, you should check your email regularly for additional information.] Instructor: Chris Westley A. Office Hours Tuesday and Thursday 11:00-12:00, and 1:00- 2:30 (in 112 MB - (256)782-5392) and by appointment or email (cwestley@jsu.edu). [I am generally in my office everyday. If you need to visit with me outside our office hours, it is best to call to make sure I am there.] I will not send grades in an email or tell grades over the telephone. If
you email, please do the following: B. Required Text R. Glenn Hubbard, Money, the Financial System, and the Economy 6th edition, 2008. All exam questions will come directly from your textbook. C. Course Objectives To be knowledgeable of and able to critically think about the banking system and monetary issues and to understand the theory, history, and policy of monetary and banking institutions. D. Grading 1. Composition of Final Grade and Exam Dates
Your
course grade will be determined as follows: Please note that this course is not graded on a curve. Consequently, if you perform well, you will not be penalized if others perform well. However, if you do poorly, the fact that others perform poorly will not help your grade. If necessary to improve the class average, your instructor reserves the right to increase the available class participation points and/or count exam 3 more (if it will improve your course grade). Do not ask for this increase! If it is necessary, details will be provided via email. There will be no other grade adjustment. All exams are scheduled above. You may not take an exam early. 2. Type of exam questions Your exams will be completed online. Exams will contain multiple choice questions. You will be responsible for the material presented online and your textbook chapters listed below. Be aware that this is not a course in memorization. Many of your chapter quiz and exam questions will require you to apply course concepts to correctly solve problems. Exams will be administered online as scheduled above. You will have 50 minutes to complete each exam.. You may begin the exam anytime between 1:00 am and 10:00 pm on its scheduled day. In order to receive credit for taking an exam, you must click SUBMIT after answering all of the questions. If you exit Blackboard or close the window, your exam will be ended by Blackboard. Never click the Back arrow during an exam. If you are using a different computer for exams, before starting the exam you should practice a quiz to make sure the settings will work for the exam. If you take longer than the scheduled time for an exam, your score will be deducted 1 correct answer per minute over the time. (You get one minute extra for your submission to log). Once you begin, you cannot stop or start over. [Because the internet is sometimes slow, it is best to take exams early in the morning or after business hours.] The majority of exam questions will come from the listed chapters for that exam. However, since this is a building course, exams 2 and 3 may contain an occasional question from a previous exam. 3. If You Miss an Exam/Assignment Everyone will have one opportunity to re-take the first or second exam (not both exams). On Monday, August 25, you will have a second opportunity to take one of the first two exams (Be aware that, like regular lecture classes, the course schedule does not stop for this makeup.). If you missed an exam for any reason (sick, forgot to take it, technical trouble, not prepared, etc.), this will be your makeup exam. If you complete both exams one and two, you can re-take one if you wish to try to improve your score. I will only count the high score of the two exam attempts. The exam will be scheduled online the same hours as your other exams. Be careful to avoid technical trouble as there will not be a makeup offered for this exam. To give everyone the choice or either exam, you will see two exams available on the makeup day (Exam One Re-take and Exam Two Re-take). You should only attempt ONE exam. If you take both exams, your high score will be dropped. If you start one exam, that is the only exam you are allowed to take. You cannot start one exam and then stop and take the second. This will be considered the same as completing both exams. If you miss two exams and do not
receive an excused absence, you will receive a zero for one exam. If you
receive two excused absences for missed exams, you can
schedule a makeup exam from a test bank (to be taken on paper in TIPS TO AVOID TECHNICAL TROUBLE ON EXAMS: NEVER START AN EXAM DURING A THUNDER STORM. NEVER CLOSE THE WINDOW DURING THE EXAM. NEVER USE THE SAVE FEATURE DURING THE EXAM. AFTER ANSWERING ALL QUESTIONS, CLICK SUBMIT AND ALLOW TIME FOR IT TO PROCESS BEFORE CLOSING THE WINDOW If you have technical trouble during an exam, you must immediately send me an email with contact information. If you have technical trouble with exam 3 (the final), in addition to the email, you should also call my office number listed above and be prepared to resume the exam on its scheduled day. If I am unable to find you, you will receive a grade of zero on exam 3, and an F will be submitted for your course grade. This policy is necessary because, in the past, some students have claimed technical trouble during exams, and waited 5-6 days to contact me and complete the exam. 4. Excused Absences Students are expected to follow the schedule outlined below. Since only a minimal amount of "scheduled" time is necessary to complete this course, you are encouraged to seek time off to complete exams. To receive an excused absence from an exam you must: (1) have a University authorized excuse, (2) include your name, course number, and the correct date for exam missed, and (3) bring the excuse to me within 3 class days after the absence (or as soon as you return to school). If you feel bad enough to miss an exam, you need to visit a physician and get a medical excuse for the exam date missed. E. Course Outline. You are expected to begin work on Thursday
August 7 (the first day of Marathon S) and follow the Chapter Assignment
schedule below. You may work ahead of schedule, but exams must
be completed when scheduled. We have three 100 point tests on
Wednesdays, and will meet on the Tuesday before each test, during which time
I will primarily provide an abbreviated lecture on the material for the next
day’s test. This course is very reading-intensive. You are expected to read four chapters for
each test (the first chapter is introductory). If you cannot read four chapters a week,
then you should not take this class. Past
experience strongly suggests that students who attend lectures but do not
read the assigned chapters will not perform well on the exams. Upon finishing a chapter, you are encouraged
to take the chapter quizzes provided on the Hubbard web site (at http://wps.aw.com/aw_hubbard_moneyfse_6/73/18850/4825756.cw/index.html
). In most instances, students do
poorly on traditional economics exams because they do not get enough practice
solving problems and because they have difficulty applying the material (as
opposed to simply memorizing it). Falling behind the course schedule or
not completing all of the assignments is the primary reason students do
poorly or drop this quasi-online course. Course Schedule:
F. Recap This course covers 12
chapters of R. Glenn
Hubbard, Money, the Financial System,
and the Economy (6th edition). Roughly four chapters are assigned per week. Your final course grade is based on your
performance on three non-comprehensive tests given through BlackBoard. There are 300 total possible points. DON'T FORGET TO COMPLETE THE EXAMS AS SCHEDULED ABOVE! You will find the major exams by clicking on its red tab to the left. Major exams only appear during the times they are scheduled. All exams will be taken online. However, I reserve the right to require campus attendance (or proctor) for one or more exam(s). In the event campus attendance becomes required, I will email everyone and post the information near the top of the Course Document page. G. Academic Honesty If I believe an exam has been compromised, I reserve the right to retest the whole class or any individual in the class. Violations of the university's academic code include, but are not limited to: possession of, or use of unauthorized materials during exams; providing information to another student. Violation of this code may result in academic penalties. "All students enrolled at the University shall follow the tenets of common decency and acceptable behavior conductive to a positive learning environment." H. Disability Accommodations Any individual who qualifies for reasonable accommodations under The American With Disabilities Act or Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 should contact the instructor immediately. This course outline may be revised by the instructor. In the event of a revision, you will be notified in writing. It would be helpful to review some of the things that will be important to you as an online learner. I. Pros of learning online You
control the time that you set aside to learn -- not the university. J. Cons of learning online You
have to have the self-discipline to do your course work regularly and on
time. |