In answer to the first question about "when the homework should be due", the homework for Section C was assigned to be due last Thursday, like the other assignments, but because there was a problem with the webpage with the assignment, I made the due date flexible to give everyone time to get it done. I didn't give a final deadline since I didn't see a need for one.

Regarding the second question about when to expect feedback on the homework, let me say three things so that we're all on the same page (a lot easier to do in a classroom based course!).

First, as some of you know, I had taught this course as a telecourse the last three years, but was dissatisfied with the lack of student interaction possible in that format. Basically, the telecourse consists of students reading a textbook and watching a few videos, with no real chance to interact with other students. So I decided to offer this course as an on-line course primarily so that students could interact with each other more, since I think that sociology is best learned by people working together to try to make sense of their social worlds. That's the reason I decided to use the WebBoard, and I think it's serving that purpose reasonably well. Any ideas on how to make it serve that purpose better are warmly invited.

Second, the homeworks, like homeworks in my classroom-based courses, are designed primarily to get students to deal with subject material. Just trying to complete the homeworks requires that students engage in sociological thinking. The homeworks are NOT so much "right or wrong", as they are practices in thinking sociologically. Therefore, I do not "grade" the homeworks as an instructor in a math class might; rather I read them and see if students are getting engaging the assignment and learning the material.

However, I had hoped, of course, to engage in discussions of the postings and comment on the homeworks; I have been frustrated in not being able to do so to this point. Despite burning the candle at both ends, and working seven days a week, I simply haven't been able to find the time up to this point to do so. Unlike faculty at the University of Oregon, who teach two courses per term and have teaching assistants to write and grade homeworks and tests, LCC faculty in my department are expected to teach five courses per term, and have no teaching assistants at all.
As I've written in previous e-mails, I've worked to find time to engage in the webboard discussions, but "urgent" matters have kept coming up, forcing me to put it off. This points to one of the problems with distance education: while a classroom course requires students and instructors to be in a particular place at a particular time, an asynchronous web course doesn't, making it too easy to put off until after the present crisis has abated. This, of course, IS unacceptable, and requires a change in how I structured the course. To insure that I do have the time to participate in the postings, as well as to encourage students to submit posts and expect rapid responses both from me and from other students, I will experiment with committing a specific period of time every weekday to be used solely for communication with students in this course, starting with the homeworks already posted. Let's see how that works, or if other adjustments are necessary.

Finally, I might close by making a personal pitch. One of the things that has been eating up a great deal of time is my work with other instructors to obtain a fair and equitable faculty contract from the college administration. I won't bore you with the details, and I apologize in advance if this seems "partisan", but the faculty has been struggling for a fair contract ever since the Administration announced in the Spring of 1999 that they had messed up and "double budgeted" money they had planned to use to pay faculty the regular "step increases" that faculty have been paid for that last 30 years. The administration has also offered faculty a contract that would result in a significant pay cut (almost 7%) this year. Needless to say, most faculty members have not been happy about this, and many have openly questioned the administration's actions and claims. I tell you all this because I am chair of a faculty union committee that has been forced to spend a great deal of time fighting to get the step increases we earned as well as a fair contract. I would love to be able to abolish the committee and get back to spending all my time working with my students, but that isn't possible until the Administration settles the contracts fairly. So, you might help me out by encouraging the Administration to offer a fair contract to LCC faculty members so they can support their families and get back to doing what they love: teaching! I've learned that college administrations often listen more to students than faculty, and you just might be able to help us out.

Good luck on the first exam,

Jim Salt