The Weekly Rhythm

in Policies

There are lots of parts to class. However, to keep things simple, we will follow the same pattern every week:

  • There will be a Week in Vis posting reminding you what will happen in class in the week ahead. (generally, this posting will be made on Friday of the week before).
  • There will be readings which may include videos to watch. Some of these will be “introductory” and due Tuesday (and used in the online discussion and Wednesday’s class). Some of these will be “advanced” and can be read after Wednesday’s class (but before Friday). Readings might be the wrong term (since it will also include video), but it’s what I’ll use.
  • There will be synchronous class meetings during the official class time slot (11-12:15, Wednesday and Friday). Some of this will be lecture, but often it will involve some interactive class activity.
  • There will be a required online discussion that requires you to make an initial posting by Tuesday, a second required posting by Friday, and to generally participate in the conversation with your group. The discussions will remain open for one week after the deadline for continued conversation. There are other things that are online discussions, but the online discussion refers to this one (not the seek and find, or unstructured discussions on Piazza).
  • There will be a seek and find assignment that requires you to find a visualization and post it (to a discussion board). These are due on Fridays, and the discussions remain open for a week so you can discuss.
  • There will be a quiz or survey each week. Generally, we care that you do the survey and answer honestly - we keep track that you do it, and are less concerned with the score. We use the survey to get a sense of how the class is going.
  • There will be some aspect of a design challenge. Generally, these will have occassional bigger deadlines, but there will be a milestone each week (due on Mondays). Not every week will have a challenge milestone.

A few things to note:

  • some of this is experimental (we’ll see how synchronous online things go)
  • there are many things due at the end of the week - plan ahead!
  • if a deadline is on a day, the deadline is that day in Madison. 12:01am Wednesday is not Tuesday.

See the Parts of Class for more information on these things.