Editing Online Communities and Crowds (Spring 2025) (section)

==== Weekly assignments ====

The course schedule provides details of all reading assignments as well as links to materials and Canvas pages for submitting written assignments. Specifics for several types of assignments follow below.

===== Discussion prompts =====

The discussion prompts are a set of questions focused on the materials assigned for class for the week. At some point during most of our class sessions, I (Aaron) will cold-call people in the room to address a question inspired by or taken from the discussion prompts. By "cold call" I mean that I will call on people without asking for volunteers first. I will assess the responses to these questions for evidence that you have engaged with key aspects of the course material. In some cases, there won't be a singular "right" answer. I won't grade your answers, but will mark them complete/incomplete.

A goal here is to support accountability to the readings, attendance, preparation for the class, etc. That said, I understand that things come up. During the quarter you can "pass" on cold call questions twice. If you are absent and called upon and I haven't heard from you about the absence ahead of time, it will use one of your passes. If you anticipate being absent, you may contact me in advance to avoid using one of your passes. I will provide a supplementary assignment.

Because I understand that cold calling may be terrifying, I will circulate the discussion prompts ahead of time. The discussion prompts will include the kinds of questions I am likely to ask each week (in some cases, maybe even the same questions). They will also give you a good sense of where to focus your reading and note-taking. It is a good idea to do the readings with these questions in mind, to take notes guided by these questions, and/or to write out answers to these questions in advance. You are also welcome to work with other students, consult other resources, etc. to brainstorm or discuss possible answers outside of class (I will not collect your written responses or any records of your discussions).

Randomness will play a role in the cold calling. Ahead of each class session, I will use a computer program to generate a randomly ordered list of students and I will use this list to guide the cold calling in class. To try to maintain participation balance, the algorithm I use will try to ensure that everybody is cold called a similar number of times during the quarter. Although there is always some chance that you will called next, you will be less likely to be called upon relative to your classmates each time you are called upon.