SAO HET616 Great Debates in Astronomy - Unit overview

Please feel free to email me gmackie@swin.edu.au if you have any questions on HET616 content or assessment, after you have looked at the Unit webpages (accessed via the HET616 Index Page).

http://www.online.swin.edu.au/subjects/y2003/sem2/su94hebe/het616/

However, 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) Your Name 2) SAO Student number 3) Unit (eg. HET603B, HET604, etc) and Semester (ie. S1, 2002) 4) Title of Work (i.e. Essay, Project, Best Newsgroup Postings).

Work should be submitted as Word documents. This allows me to return the document to you with inserted comments in the file, which will help you understand my assessment criteria.

Assessment Details

Before reading any further please carefully read SAO Assessment Details if you haven't done so.

The breakdown of marks for the Unit is

• CMT - Computer Managed Testing (20% of total mark)
• Best Newsgroup Contributions (30%)
• The Great Debate (20%)
• Project (30%)

Newsgroup Contributions

The following will 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 students have submitted very poor 3-best newsgroup contributions to me in the past. I particularly mention this because I know of many students that have produced excellent Projects yet they have submitted poor standard Best Newsgroup Contributions!

Also, I have had to remind many students to send me the text of their contributions - (this is stated in the SAO HET616 Assessment Details). 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 need to show that you understand a topic well; can clearly, yet extensively state an answer or pose a good (detailed) question (reciting from the textbook isn't enough however!). Best marks went to people who have something original to say!

The Great Debate

This is a team effort. You will be assigned to teams of three. A "for" team and an "against" team will debate a topic provided by the Instructor.

You will work together as a team to develop (via email) three debate submissions. One person will be responsible for the compilation of one submission and its delivery via email to their team, the opposing team and the Instructor.

More details (and the debate timetable) are available via the Unit assessment page.

Projects

I am the HET616 instructor, however I may not be your project supervisor.

I supervise a number of projects. I am happy to comment on a summary of what you intend to do (in fact please send me a summary as soon as possible so I know you are on track).

Spelling mistakes! There should not be any of these in this day of computer spelling chequers, err sorry, checkers. (I'll be very hard on this in the projects!) [** I'm not so hard on grammatical errors as I realise that SAO students come from a wide variety of countries, many non-English speaking as first language.**]

A hint: Start early on your Project preparation. Remember that you will be continuuing to contribute to the Newgroup Discussion as you prepare your Project.

It will help to get someone else to read your Project. Their comments will show you the weak spots. Please carefully read your Project before you submit it! This sounds obvious but I've noticed simple errors even in the first paragraph of many Projects.

Caution! The Internet

Internet search engines are listed below. A word of warning/caution to users of Internet/Web resources. Just because information is on a Web page, doesn't mean that it is correct. After a while you will be able to identify the more reputable sites (eg. most .edu, .ac sites).

• Check the credentials of the author of the site.
• Has the web site been updated lately?
• Does it agree with other (non-Internet) information?

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 * Mercury * New Scientist

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