PrintRegistered students earn academic credit at Penn State by completing the following assignments. Assignment instructions are published in the corresponding modules in the Canvas course management system.
8 Weekly Quizzes, accounting for 25% of your grade
Registered students have access to more than 40 online quizzes in Canvas. Quizzes are open-book, multiple choice format, and provide feedback immediately after submission. The purpose of these quizzes is to help you self-assess your understanding of the course text. Many quiz questions also challenge students' ability to think beyond what they've read.
In addition to ungraded "practice" quizzes, starting with Chapter 2, each chapter includes one cumulative graded quiz. Like the practice quizzes, the graded quizzes are open-book format, but graded quizzes can only be submitted once. You are welcome to open, view, and even print quizzes, and to consult them while reading the text. Students who are diligent about reading the text are likely to perform well on the graded quizzes. Your performance on graded quizzes will account for one quarter of your final course grade. Due dates for graded quizzes appear on the Canvas Calendar.
1 Cumulative Exam, accounting for 25% of your grade
A single, cumulative online exam will be appear in Canvas during the final week of class. The exam is identical to the graded quizzes in format and style. Most students will find the exam to be fairly challenging. It consists of 32 multiple choice and matching questions. By passing the final exam you will have demonstrated that you are sufficiently acquainted with the fundamentals to proceed to Geography 483, in which you will begin to learn how concepts are implemented in GIS software (GEOG 482 students only).
3 Class Projects, accounting for 50% of your grade
In conjunction with weekly chapters, registered students are assigned three graded projects. Projects require you to conduct research (primarily via the Internet), perform tasks, and prepare reports that demonstrate your ability to apply concepts discussed in the course text. Reports are prepared as word processing documents (e.g., Microsoft Word) and uploaded to instructors via Canvas. Grading assistants provide detailed individual critiques and itemized scores in response to every student report.
Depending on your previous experience and comfort level with computing, you'll find projects to be moderately to highly challenging. The key to success is to pace yourself, pay close attention to the grading criteria, and take time to write at a professional level. Three to four weeks are provided to complete each project. Due dates appear on the Canvas Calendar.
We expect your project reports to be original. You may build upon ideas, words and illustrations produced by others, but you must paraphrase, cite, and reference such sources. Reports that contain unacknowledged contributions by others are considered to be plagiarized. We use the plagiarism detection service Turnitin.com to evaluate the originality of students' work. Detailed guidelines about how to prepare an original report are included in the "Academic Integrity Guide" that appears in the Resources section of the course text .