First of all, we wish to welcome you to Communication 363. We're glad that you've enrolled in this course. It will be challenging and rewarding for everyone, including us. This web page address is the homepage for the course website, so you can save this address as your primary access to the course. Come here on the first day of the course (May 23).

You may have noticed that there are co-instructors for the course. Dr. Lippert will be running the day-to-day operation of the course and all grading, while Dr. O'Sullivan will be managing the course content. Therefore, your contact for the course is me, Dr. Lippert.

If you want to know more about Dr. Lippert, here is my homepage. If you want to know more about Dr. O'Sullivan, here is my homepage.

We have a lot to do to get everything ready for you and your classmates, but we wanted to provide some basic information about the course content, how it will be run, and how you can best prepare for it. So we will spell it out as best we can below.

We developed this online version of the course with the following principles in mind:

1. Maximize participation of students who are geographically distant from ISU in summer. This means, of course, offering the course entirely over the internet.
2. Maximize participation of students who have a wide range of work schedules over summer. This means providing opportunity to engage course materials and experiences as your daily schedules allow.
3. Maximize participation of students regardless of their access to high-speed (broadband) internet connection. This means providing course content that is not data-intensive (e.g., text, images, and audio vs. data-intensive video) so that even those of you with relatively slow dialup internet service are not disadvantaged and can access all the course content with no (at least few!) problems.
4. Maximize social support for students who may know each other only via the internet so that they might succeed in the course .. This means to establish a sense of "classness" and to foster interaction among you and your classmates and with me, the instructor.
5. Maximize the quality of the educational experience so that it is as challenging, and rewarding, as any on-site course might be. This means to use the technology to its highest effectiveness for teaching and learning while recognizing the technologies' limitations while creating a learning experience of equalent quality to traditional onsite courses.

You will see how these principles play out in the design and execution of the course, which we outline below. If this doesn't cover something that you wish to know, don't hesitate to email me (Dr. Lippert). My email address is llipper@ilstu.edu; my office phone is 309-438-8869 (try me M-Th 10am-12pm.)

Course Structure

Internet Only

This is, as you all know, an "Internet Course." That term means different things to different people, but in this case in means that the entire course, start to finish, will be over the internet. We will have no scheduled or required face-to-face meetings. We will use the web, email and Webboard (an online discussion program) for all course interactions.

Course Length

The course will run for four weeks, from May 23rd through June 16th. For each of the four weeks, you will have course-related content (readings, postings, assignments, etc.) for four days a week (Monday - Thursday). Some assignments will extend over a weekend. NOTE: An additional week following the four-week class is scheduled for you to complete the final paper.

Daily Time Requirements

As with all summer school courses, this course is designed to cover the same amount of material and the same amount of time that is standard in a semester-long course. Expect to spend about 2-3 hours a day reading, listening, or viewing assigned materials, and another 1-2 hours a day completing daily postings and interacting with classmates.

Daily Schedule

We will all proceed through the course material together, although not necessarily at the exact same time. If that sounds a bit contradictory, let me explain. A key benefit of the course is the opportunity to exchange your ideas, thoughts, reactions, etc. with your classmates. We all need to be on the same "page" to be able to do that. Yet, we don't want to prevent someone from participating because of work schedules. Therefore, the course will unfold in what I call "coordinated asynchronicity." That's quite a term, but it means that you do not have to be online at any specific time of day to contribute to class interactions (asynchronous), but we will progress through the material together day by day (coordinated). Therefore, you will have a specific time window (e.g., 24 hours) to visit the course website and post your contributions and see classmates' contributions for each discussion topic.

back to top

Course Content

Course Name

As you may have noticed at the top of the page, the name for the course ("Legal and Social Issues for New Communication Technologies") differs from the official course name ("Privacy and Information Processing"). That is because we reshaped the course from one focused primarily on privacy to one that is a broader survey of legal and social issues emerging from the spread of new communication technologies. In the meantime, we can call it by its new name, which is more accurate.

Course Topics

As a survey in legal and social issues regarding new communication technologies, we get to examine some of the most interesting and difficult problems to date that surround current and emerging uses of digital technologies. This will include such topics as:

• Copyright
• Privacy
• Indecency
• Crime
• Harmful speech
• Other assorted interesting topics

This course is, then, really about the "dark side" of the internet. Most of these issues are very "live" -- that is, the're being debated and argued right now in many arenas: homes, schools, businesses, legislatures, and the courts. I hope to bring you to the point that you can understand and -- perhaps -- even participate in the debate.

Course Materials

All readings and all materials will be available over the internet. So there is no designated textbook for the course. I am assembling various readings and other online multimedia resources that will constitute the reading "packet." You will find direct links to the materials.

Course Interactions

We will be using Webboard as a means for you to share your reactions and thoughts to various course materials with me and with your classmates. If you have never used it before, it's not difficult to learn and there is an instruction book available online as well. These online interactions will be an important part of the course experience for all of you as well as a way for me to encourage and credit participation that helps you to learn.

Course Evaluations

Your grade in the course will be based on the consistency and quality of your online class contributions, assignments, and exams. You will find more details on the syllabus.

back to top

Course Preparation

Course Questionnaire

To help me get materials ready as well as to get to know you, I need each of you to complete a questionnaire that you can find at this link.

Hardware Requirements: You will need:

1. Daily access (2-3 hours per day) to a newer computer (2-3 years old) with high-speed internet access. "High-speed" means DSL or cable modem or some other broadband service. If you only have access via dial-up service over standard telephone lines, you may have problems accessing some of the material, but I'm not yet sure if -- or how well -- everything will work.
2. The ability to listen to audio files, which means the computer needs speakers or you'll need headphones that work with your computer. You may also need a sound card in your computer, which most late-model computers come with already installed.

We hope this is helpful! If something isn't clear, check with me and I'll do my best to help you. Agaiin, my email is llipper@ilstu.edu

back to top