The discussion forum prompts ask for your own opinion, understanding, or position on the topic up for discussion; therefore, all discussion forum posts must be original. No outside sources should be used or included in discussion forum posts/responses. If you wish to include information, links, and the like that would be of interest to the class, feel free to do so, but your responses must be written by you with no help from outside sources.

Any instance of cheating/plagiarism on any discussion forum post will result in a zero grade for that entire forum and possibly a report of academic dishonesty to the Associate Dean of Humanities.

You should have substantial responses for all original discussion threads (you MUST answer ALL of the original threads for full credit). To meet the criterion of being substantial, your posts should throughly respond to the prompt by answering all questions with reasons, examples, and detailed explanations for your position(s). The original threads are those you see when you click on a discussion forum (for example, for discussion forum 1 there are 4 original threads), not posts from other students.

In addition to answering all original threads, you must respond to at least 3 posts in each thread. Your responses should be thorough and substantial (for example, posts that essentially express agreement or disagreement with others’ posts are not thorough and substantial); you should discuss, react to, question, and challenge what others have said. As an example to calculate the minimum required posts for each forum, for forum one, you should have at least 16 posts (there are 4 original threads, so you should have 4 posts in response to those, as well as 3 posts to other students or to me in each of the 4 threads, making a total of 16).

People often lose points because they do not participate in the discussion forum from open to close but wait until the end or a few days before it closes. If your posts are not spread out over the duration of the discussion forum, you will not receive full credit. You do not need to participate in all of the threads from beginning to end, but your overall participation should be spread out for most of the duration of the forum. In this flex course, you must participate in each forum on at least 3 of the days that it is open for the possibility of full credit. 

When you respond to others, make sure to use their name (e.g. ‘Julie, I agree with your point that blah blah blah because…’). When you don’t use the person’s name, nobody, including the person to whom you are responding, knows whom you are speaking to. Also, directly quoting the specific point you are addressing helps others understand your point(s).

45-50 points

• Substantial posts for all original threads
• Responded at least 3 times to others in each thread 
• Posts to original threads and to others are complete, thoughtful, well-written, and original
• Posts are spread out over the duration of the discussion forum
• Posts demonstrate mastery of the material
• NB: all of the above must be the case for you to receive 45-50 points

40-44 points

• Responded to all original threads
• Not significantly fewer posts than required
• Posts to original threads and to others are complete, thoughtful, well-written, and original
• Posts are mostly spread out over the duration of the discussion forum
• Posts show understanding of the material
• NB: if any of the above applies you will receive 40-44 points

30-39 points

• Did not respond to all original threads
• Significantly fewer than required responses
• Posts to original threads and to others are sometimes brief and vague
• Posts isolated to a few days for the duration of the discussion forum
• Posts show little understanding of/engagement with the material
• NB: if any of the above applies you will receive 30-39 points

15-29 points

• Did not respond to all original threads
• Significantly fewer than required responses
• Posts to original threads and to others are often brief and vague
• Posts isolated to a few days or all on one day for the duration of the discussion forum
• Posts are minimally or not at all engaged with the material
• NB: if any of the above applies you will receive 15-29 points

1-14 points

• Many missing posts
• Posts all on one day
• NB: if the above applies you will receive 1-14 points

0 points

• Failed to post any responses
• Cheated/plagiarized on ANY single post/response