Web page for CCSF Astronomy 1 Online, Spring 2013

If you are seeing a lot of annoying markings on this web page (empty boxes, or black diamonds containing question marks), please go to the “view” menu of your browser, select “character/text encoding,” and then chose “Western (Windows)” and this page miraculously will look nice and neat. If you do not have “Western (Windows)” as an option, any other “Western” setting will be much better than the default “Unicode” (although you might want to switch back to “Unicode” after leaving this page-- since leaving it at a “Western” setting supposedly weakens the security of your browser).

If you ever tried to send me messages to cbryja@ccsf.edu, I might not have received them. That address tends to fill with spam, and it freezes up when it gets overfull. If you have any questions about this course, please e-mail me at claia@phch.org instead. (Although, I do sometimes find important messages from my students in my spam folder for that address too, so it’s not perfect either. #sigh# Lately, I have been attempting to use a completely new account ( claia.bryja@mail.ccsf.edu ) exclusively for communicating with students, but I often forget to check that one for days at a time.)

I do not require students to check in when they register, so please don’t send me e-mail unless you have a question that needs answering.

The textbook for the course is the 6^th edition of “The Essential Cosmic Perspective” (not the full length version that lacks the word “essential” in the title, and not any of the five earlier editions of the same name), by Bennett, Donahue, Schneider, and Voit (ISBN # 978-0-32-171536-4). It is available in a cheaper loose leaf binder version as well as regular paperback. The CCSF bookstore also sells expensive copies that are packaged with password access to the extra “Mastering Astronomy” tutorial, but I am not requiring that you buy that. While I highly recommend the “Mastering Astronomy” package, and while I believe that it is well worth the extra cost, students with a limited budget may wish to order the textbook online without that extra package.

Important Notice #1: This course requires a mid-term exam and a final exam that must be taken in person at the CCSF main campus. (Multiple times for taking these exams will be offered, so personal scheduling is not likely to be a concern as long as you are in the Bay Area during the mid-term and finals weeks.) Please do not enroll in this course if you cannot attend exams in mid-March and late-May.

I will hold an optional but highly recommended orientation at 12:00 PM on Saturday, January 19^th (the first Saturday after classes begin), in Rosenberg Library Room 414. Simply joining the class without any orientation is okay, but a majority of students do experience problems or suffer confusion (especially regarding the course structure and expectations) that an in-person orientation would reduce.

As soon as the new semester starts, you may begin the course on your own, regardless of whether you plan to attend the optional orientation. Within two days of the start of the semester, or of your enrollment if late, you should be e-mailed instructions how to login. If you do not receive these instructions, you most likely are not checking the account that CCSF has on file as your e-mail address. Unless you have set it up otherwise, the default is the “mail.ccsf.edu” address assigned to you by the college, so please be sure to check that for messages. I also may use your CCSF e-mail address for communicating with you.

Important Notice #2: This course is “front loaded” in the sense that students are expected to work hard right away (but not so much in the last week of the semester, which is the opposite of most college classes). We will start working at a rather fast pace, from which it will be difficult to catch up if you begin the course more than a few days late. Because of this, and because so many additional students are waiting to get in if space is available, I will drop you from the course if you do not access the class and begin work within the first five days.

If you are waitlisted:

• Be sure to re-check your status on the first day of classes to see if you are still on the wait list. You might automatically have become fully registered due to other students dropping their registrations over the winter break. However, registration and wait lists are frozen right before the semester starts.
• Although the enrollment cap for this course is 59 students, and normal practice is not to add students from the wait list until spaces become available, my experience from past semesters is that at least 25 or more students will either fail to appear or will drop during the first three weeks. Given how seriously difficult it has been for students to catch up if they start more than a few days late, I will grant course access to all 25 students from the official wait list right away, if I can. (In order for me to grant you access, you must presently be enrolled, or recently have been enrolled, in a different online class. That puts you in CCSF’s online system. If you are not in this system, then—I’m sorry—but you will have to wait.) However, even though I grant access to wait listed students, I cannot give add codes for enrolling in the course until space becomes available. Being granted access to the course in this way does NOT mean you are registered!-- NOR does it mean that your registration is assured at a later date. (I truly wish I could give out the add codes immediately, but I am not permitted to add students above the enrollment cap. I first must wait for spaces in the class to open up.)
• Six days into the semester, I will check to see how many “no-shows” I have. Based on this, I likely will be able to add a very small number of additional students beyond the official wait list. If this happens, I will give late add priority to students who can document that they need the class for an important purpose (such as graduation) this semester. You must send an e-mail to my preferred address (see above), and include either a link or an attachment that documents your status. Also include your registration date. I will ignore most e-mails that do not include this information. (Please understand that many online instructors receive literally dozens of e-mails a day from students who are looking for classes to add, and that we don’t have time to reply to them all.)

I look forward to meeting everyone-- either on line or in person-- as this course takes off!

Sincerely,

Claia (rhymes with "hi ya!") Bryja (pronouncing the “y” like a long-I the same as the “ai” diphthong in my first name, and pronouncing the "j" in the usual English way)

--- --- ---

Here is a link to a great resource of other links to anything and everything you can think of about astronomy. I encourage you to browse.

AstroPlace (unfortunately, this seems to be defunct, so I will need to replace this link with something comparable sometime soon)

Finally, here’s my favorite webpage of all:

Astronomy Picture of the Day