SAO HET603 Exploring Stars and the Milky Way - Hints

The following is a summary of hints for HET603 students, and for other SAO students submitting projects to me.

Please feel free to email me gmackie@swin.edu.au if you have any questions on HET603 content or assessment. All questions about computers, CD-ROMs, Internet access, etc. should go to SAO helpdesk and ltshelp

General

For any work submitted to me please make sure you include 1) Name 2) SAO Student number 3) Unit and class (eg. HET603B, HET604, etc)

Assessment Details

Before reading any further please carefully read the Assessment web pages on the HET603 Blackboard site.

Note that the breakdown of marks is

• CMT - Computer Managed Testing (up to 20% of total mark)
• Newsgroup Contributions (up to 30%)
• Essay (up to 20%)
• Project (up to 30%)

The allocated percentages will be very close to if not equal to those shown above. If you are organising your time then it is important to be aware that the major contributors to your final score will be the Project (equal with) Newsgroup Contributions, then CMTs (equal with) Essay.

Newsgroup Contributions

The following might be useful when you are about to submit your Best Newsgroup Contributions

Submission of Best Contributions This part of the course is worth (a large) 30% (the same as the Project) yet some submissions have been poorly presented to me. I particularly mention this because I know that many students have produced well presented Projects yet submit poor standard Best Newsgroup Contributions!

It helps me if you *clearly* state the dates, subject matter, questions submitted/answered, [and even some discussion placing the text/submission in context within the ongoing Newsgroup discussion. - though not required, a few students do this which again is helpful to the marker (ie. me!).]

For good marks you had to show that you understood a topic well; could clearly yet extensively state an answer or pose a good question (reciting from the textbook isn't enough however!). Best marks went to people who had something original to say!

Essays

Key points

• Some previous submitted works were not truly essays! (I am looking for a flowing composition rather than separate points or sections). Some did not (simply) answer the essay question.
• Keep closely to the word limit (1500-2000 words)

Spelling mistakes! There should not be any of these in this day of computer spelling chequers, err sorry, checkers. [** I'm not so hard on grammatical errors as I realise that SAO students come from a wide variety of countries**]

Take a look at the sample essay available in the Blackboard Assessment section - follow links to Essay.

SAO Astronomy Links

Astronomy Resources

Resource Lists * Astronomical Resources on the World Wide Web: A Guide to Surfing

Internet Search Engines

Google * HotBot * MetaCrawler

General References

CNN Space * Astronomy * Sky and Telescope * Scientific American * New Scientist Astronomy Links

Back to Errors, Typos and Bugs in the HET603 CDROM and Text

Back to Swinburne Astronomy Online

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