Class Communication

This course requires the use of e-mail and the World Wide Web, with which we will assist you if necessary. You must obtain a UW Net ID (for using various UW services). Go to < http://www.bothell.washington.edu/library/newstudent.html> for instructions for obtaining a UW Net ID account. Remember your password!

Make sure that your UW e-mail account is switched on, which you can do at MyUW, located at < http://myuw.washington.edu>.

Starting no later than the second class meeting, you are required to check your e-mail account at least once a week (i.e., do not let more than seven days pass without checking) and to read all messages except the ones marked "Opt." in the subject line, which are optional. Note that you can check University e-mail accounts anywhere you have access to the World Wide Web, including public libraries, by using Webpine < http://webpine.washington.edu>.

Important: If you do not usually use your UW e-mail account, immediately have it forwarded to one that you check regularly by following the simple directions at MyUW < http://myuw.washington.edu>. (Click on "UW Net ID Resources" and then on "Change your forwarding.") As noted in your Student Handbook, the University and I have only your official UW e-mail address and will send all mail to it, so you will miss important messages if you do not have them forwarded to an account you check regularly.

Note that free web-based e-mail like Hotmail and Yahoo are less reliable than e-mail that you pay for or that you get through the University. Close to 100 percent of the e-mail failures that my students encounter have been with Hotmail and Yahoo. If you use an e-mail client like that, just be aware that you are more likely to miss important messages. Just because you receive some e-mail messages from me does not mean that you are receiving all of them. Use free e-mail at your own risk.

Also important: Some bulk messages, like from class discussion lists, go into the junk e-mail folders of some students because their e-mail application thinks it is spam. To avoid this problem, you should do two things:

First, you should add the class discussion list to your contacts list (address book or "safe list") so e-mail from this course will go to your inbox instead of your junk mail folder. (The e-mail address of our class discussion list is the course number and section number, followed by an underscore, and then followed by the first two letters of the quarter and the last two digits of the year, followed by "@u.washington.edu"--for example, for BIS347A in Autumn 2006, the e-mail address is bis347a_au06@u.washington.edu.)
Second, add my e-mail address (which you can get from the hard copy of the syllabus) to your contacts list (address book or "safe list").
Third, you should regularly check your junk e-mail folder because the University of Washington sends important information to students via bulk e-mail that might look like junk mail to your e-mail client.

If you have questions or concerns about e-mail, you can contact the UWB Computing help desk at help@uwb.edu.

For courses that use the online courseware called Blackboard, you need to enroll in the Blackboard area set up for this course (<http://bb.uwb.edu>) no later than the Friday of the first week of classes for the quarter. Online instructions for enrolling in Blackboard are available at < http://faculty.washington.edu/davidgs/Blackboard.html>.

Please consider these requirements to be an investment in class communication. With a little extra effort at the beginning of the course, we can improve our ability to communicate with one another throughout the course. Communication is crucial to collaborative learning.

We will use electronic methods of communication in my courses for any or all of the following reasons:

Class Communication

David S. Goldstein, Ph.D.

University of Washington, Bothell