History 685 will serve as a prerequisite to Information Science 310, Introduction to SPSS, which deals more specifically with data bases and quantitative research. Together, History 685 and Information Science 310 will fulfill the Alternative Skills requirement for history graduate students. Since the skills acquired will serve students well throughout their graduate education, we recommend that students take History 685 in their first semester of enrollment.
History 685 will be a two-unit course offered each Fall (with INSC 310 offered in the Spring) meeting once a week in HSS 380, the HSS computer laboratory. Following the regularly scheduled class each week, there will be an optional laboratory hour for students to complete their assignments and hone their skills. Students will also be expected to spend additional time fulfilling course assignments.
TEXTS: There is no specific text for this course. For those who feel more comfortable with a computer manual, I have asked the bookstore to order copies of Geoffrey Mandel, Word 6 for Windows (Peachpit Press, 1994). However, this is not a required text.
COURSE ASSIGNMENTS: There will be weekly exercises demonstrating each student's ability to perform various computer tasks. Students must complete these assignments each week as assigned. Each student will also be required to complete a term project. There are two options for the term project:
OR
2) Students may demonstrate their ability to organize research notes with the Word Outliner by either organizing and writing a research paper for one of their other courses. All research notes and outlines must be handed in to fulfill this requirement.
A WORD OF WARNING: As this is the first time that this course is being offered it will be highly experimental in nature. The pace of the course will be dictated by the relative computer skills of the participants. Some topics may take more time and others less than scheduled. Feel free to make suggestions and participate in the ongoing creation of the course.
August 30 Introduction to BSS Computer
Lab
Basic E-Mail
Assignment: Secure an e-mail
account and send a message to the
instructor informing him of your e-mail
address.
September 6 Using the Word Outline
Facility
Assignment: Access the LA2.DOC file and make the
assigned revisions to it.
September 13 Using the Word Outline
Facility
Assignment: Complete Atomic Bomb assignment
September 20 E-Mail: Sending, Receiving,
and Editing Messages
Asignments: Create a class distribution list and send
a message to the class; forward a message
that you have received from a class
member to the instructor;
reply to the message that you have received
from the instructor; print out a message
that you have received.
September 27 E-Mail: Folders, File Transfer
& other tricks
Assignments: Create folders to save messages; export
files to your Mercury account; transfer
files from Mercury to your
hard drive; convert one of your Atomic
Bomb files to ASCII, transfer it to
Mercury and send it to the instructor.
October 4 Campus Library Searches: Investigator and CD-Rom (includes American History and Life, Periodical indexes, Newspaper Indexes, etc.)
Assignment: Do a bibliographic search on any topic
and send the results to your E-mail
account; forward results to instructor.
October 11 Off-Campus Library Searches:
Melvyl, Library of Congress, and other libraries
Assignment: Do a bibliographic search on any topic
and send the results to your E-mail
account; forward results to instructor.
October 18 Off-Campus Searches: CARL &>
other periodical indices.
October 25 History List Services
Guest Speaker: Professor
Robert Cherny, moderator, SHGAPE list.
Assignment: Sign up to an H-Net list; forward a
message that you have received to the
instructor.
November 1 Using Gopher to locate History
Sources and Usenet Groups.
Assignment: Transfer files to your account and
forward to instructor.
November 8 Using Netscape to access the
World Wide Web.
November 15 Historical Sources available
on the World Wide Web.
November 22 Catch-Up Laboratory Session.
November 29 Other On-Line Documents.
December 6 The Great American History
Machine and other CD-Rom programs.
December 13 Recent Developments.
Return to H-TEACH Home Page.
| ||||
