All lectures and interactive assignments are online in this course. The course provides unit credit toward graduation on all UC campuses, as well as GE at UCD, UCR, UCSC, UCSD. Both mid-term and final exams can be taken in person at UC Davis, or through the online service ProctorU at a quiet location of your choice.

 

The two main concepts of the course are social change and technological change by digital means. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is not only an essential building block of a society, but currently also the driving force behind social evolution. Our generation has the luck to live through –and the responsibility to shape– an era in which mediated information has become the catalyst of human progress. Digital technology is the most powerful and also the most tangible tool we currently have available to shape social change. In this course we are not afraid of asking the big questions that arise from the complex dynamic of ongoing digitalization (...the dynamic that all of us already live in, day by day...).

 

 

Course Objectives

By the end of the course you will:

• Interpret personal experiences and global digital trends with formal theoretical frameworks;
• Apply the learned concepts to examples of your own choice, making them meaningful to you;
• Understand strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and imminent threats of the digital age;
• Appreciate the complexities of human development during fast-paced technological change;
• Gain insights into how organizations manage the disruptive social change of digitalization.

 

Office Hours and class interaction:

• For content questions: use Piazza or Chat (see navigation bar). Sign up and don't miss the ongoing conversation in the class!
  
• For personal questions: send me a private message on Piazza or Canvas (see "Inbox" in navigation bar).
• We can always set up a video-conference / or a personal meeting at my office in Davis.
• I make regular "Announcements" (see navigation bar), incl. video messages. Make sure not to block them.

 

Evaluation

Final grades are based on a 100-point system as follows:

Grade Component	Points	Weight	Canvas shows you two grades throughout the course: one based on graded assignments, and one for total achievable. This allows you to calculate "what-if" scenarios, but can be confusing! Final grade is % of obtained points of 100 possible points.
Interactive Assignments	30	30%
Midterm Exam	30	30%
Final Exam	40	40%
TOTAL	100	100%

 

Midterm (30 %) and Final Examination (40 %)

Study Orientation: Exams consist of some 50 multiple choice questions. There are three kinds of questions on the exams:  (1) application of learned concepts; (2) how well you paid attention / took notes during lectures; (3) if worked through readings / assignments: Sample Mid-term Exam Questions. Here some recommendations on how to efficiently and effectively study for exams, starting on day 1: Exam study orientation

Exam Format. There will be exams on UC Davis campus, or, alternatively, use the online proctoring service ProctorU and take the exam at a quiet place of your choice. If you have special SDC requirements, please arrange your exam with Jessie Murray.

Dates for on-campus exams (face-to-face): Midterm: Feb 5th, 7:10-9:00pm, Haring 2205. Final: Wednesday, March 21st from 6:00-8:00 PM, location Rock Hall. If you have a scheduling conflict with these times, please opt for the "Proctored exams" option below. For on-campus exams bring a Scantron Form 2000, pencils and eraser. During the exam you cannot leave the room before handing in both your exam and the exam booklet.

Proctored exams (online exam): Instead of showing up to the face-to-face exam, you can take the exam online through your laptop or computer. ProctorU is available 24h a day during the two days before and two days after the face-to-face exam date (see above). It is free for you if you schedule your exam more than 72 hours in advance. You will need to have a high-speed internet connection, a webcam (internal or external), a windows or apple Operating System, and a government issued photo ID. To sign up for it, go to ProctorU link in the Navigation bar here in Canvas, and set up an account (also see instructions here: ProctorU - How it Works - TEST-TAKER.pdf). Then follow these instructions: https://www.proctoru.com/resources/test-takers/live. The exam will appear here in Canvas under Assignments. ProctorU recommends that you test your equipment at https://test-it-out.proctoru.com/  . You can find more technical and service provision details on the ProctorU website.

Academic Integrity. No notes, or other help is allowed in either exam setting. Any student found holding any potential aid during an exam (incl. electronic, paper, etc.) will be referred to Student Judicial Affairs. Cheating, plagiarism, and other misconduct are serious violations of your contract as a student. Please make sure you are familiar with them: http://sja.ucdavis.edu/scs.html . Ignorance is not an acceptable excuse.

 

Interactive Assignment Participation (30 %)

Interactive assignments include Reading Questions (multiple choice) aimed at guiding you through the reading and pointing you to important concepts; as well as Online Discussion questions that allow you to apply learned concepts to concrete real-world examples of your choice. Discussion questions also ask you explicitly to comment on the contribution of at least one fellow students, and you are always encouraged to comment on more.

Contributions are usually due Sundays at 8:59pm Pacific Time and have to be registered before the indicated deadline. Later contributions to assignments are still welcome until the day the week 9 homework assignment is due (if no other deadline is announced), but will MAXIMALLY RECEIVE HALF POINTS (50 % of obtained points, discounted at the end of the course). If you are traveling, Canvas might adjust due dates according to other time zones (i.e. on mobile devices). Just remember that due dates are always 8:59pm California time PST (to adjust time zone see guide here).

The Reading Questions guide you through the reading by pointing to some of the important aspects. The exams will test if you fully understood these concepts. My suggestion is to work on the reading questions by yourself. You only have one attempt to answer them, but as much time as you want, before the indicated deadline. Reconfirming your findings in Study Groups can be helpful to clarify questions, but experience shows that simply copying answers from others is counterproductive, as this does not help you to understand the concepts and will cost you more (easy) points in the exams than it brings you through the homework assignments.

For open ended written answers to Online Discussion questions we use grading rubrics along the following lines:

• Develop each key concept thoroughly with respect to your chosen example: responds to all aspects of the assigned question in a consistently forceful manner that is not only thoughtful, but also thought-provoking. The author does not leave any doubt on how the judiciously-chosen examples relate to the concepts treated by the question.
• Explicitly use the terminology mentioned in the readings: adopts formal concepts correctly with own innovative examples, making them natural part of the personal narrative.
• Grammar, spelling: written eloquently, does not contain grammatical errors or typos.
• Comment on other’s post: proactively, thoughtfully, and critically engaging with the thoughts of the peer, potentially opening up new substantial discussions and collective conversation.

As in any good online social network: inappropriate online behavior will be penalized (within the class and/or through official university channels). This protects the rights of everybody involved. So please watch your words and be a respectful cyber-discussant. Please let me know if you feel there is inappropriate behavior of anybody in our online discussions.

Please make sure that you understand and avoid PLAGIARISM. We do check with plagiarism software and regularly report misconduct to Student Judicial Affairs ( http://sja.ucdavis.edu/scs.html ).

Avoid Plagiarism (1:50min)

Plagiarism, Quoting & Paraphrasing (4:25min)

 

FAQs (important: please read!)

1. Will the test cover mostly class material or reading material? Answer: Tests draw from both sources of information. Some questions will be based on both lectures, and reading material.
2. If I just read the material, participate in the online forums and to the assignments, do I need to watch the lectures? Answer: We do not have a textbook for this class. This is simply because I don't know of any adequate textbook out there and I haven't written one myself because the content is changing quickly, so I rather record what I know and tell it to you directly. Therefore, the content of the video lectures is the core of this class. Exams will include “video attendance questions” which ask for specific content from video lectures. These are questions that you would be unlikely to answer correctly if you haven't watched the video lectures, but often easy points if you did.
3. How should I prepare for the examination? Answer: The best way is to do watch lectures in the week they are assigned, do all readings and assignments when they are assigned. Do not procrastinate! ...past experience has shown that students who "binge watch" lectures before exams get utterly confused and do not do well (the exams test for a deeper understanding, not for memorization). For more, check out this video here: "Study orientation, learning recommendations, and course philosophy". Also check out the Exam Study Orientation
4. Are the intermittent questions in the video lectures graded? Answer: No. They are for you. To check your understanding and your attention. Some might reappear in the exams, but probably not in a literal sense! In the exams I test for understanding (not for memorization) and if you were not able to answer one of these questions, you surely didn't understand. So please go back and re-watch that segment. That's the best way to prepare for the exam.
5. Will there be questions that require any extra skills like a math background or statistics? Answer: No, no prerequisites required. If you pay attention and do the readings, there is absolutely no reason why not to achieve an A+. This class does not test “how smart you are” (we take your smartness for granted), but if you spent time thinking about and dealing with the issues we discuss.
6. Are we required to watch lectures through the PlayPosit interface or can we simply watch them directly from YouTube instead? Only PlayPosit provides you with all content. Technically, I use PlayPosit as an editing tool, and pull content from my lectures (which I had previously uploaded on YouTube), but also from other online sources. For example, this segment from week 2 contains only 3:38 min of me lecturing on YouTube, but on PlayPosit the segment is 7:42 min: 2.9: Man vs. Machine (3 parts: 7:42). This is because I integrated a TEDxTalk video. I do this so you get exposed directly to the source of some of these insights (why should I repeat what other have said much better before me...?). Also, only in Playposit do you get the intermittent questions. Both external videos and intermittent questions will help you prepare for the exams. So stick to PlayPosit!
7. I have anxiety during exams, especially during multiple choice tests. What can I do? This is a serious disadvantage, but one you have to learn to confront. I encourage you to visit the Student Academic Success Center or the equivalent at other UC campuses.  They offer workshops and individual training on taking exams.  Additionally, they can provide instruction on note taking in video lecture classes.  You can find out more about their services on their website: http://success.ucdavis.edu/ .
8. Will the final exam be accumulative (cover material from the first part of the course)? Answer: The final exam will only treat concepts and issues that came up during the second part of the course (weeks 5-10). Some concepts will follow us around during the entire course, in the first part (weeks 1-4) and second part (week 5-10). Naturally, the final exam will cover those. But the final exam will not ask about issues that did not come up (again) after the mid-term.
9. Can we collaborate with others in homework reading quizzes? Do you support Google docs and online helps like crowd-sourced study guides? Answer: I'm a big fan of Study Groups and being a scholar of digital communication, I'm of course also aware that there are a myriad of forms to collaborate online in real-time... Therefore, I designed the grade distribution in a way that that students who rely too much on the work of others in these "collaborations" will receive a double penalty during the exams due to a lack of understanding of context. In other words: you won't be successful in your overall grade when relying on the work of others. The reading questions guide you through and point you to some of the important aspects of the readings. They show you what to pay attention to. The reading questions on the exams won't repeat them literally, but will test if you read and if you understood these aspects. As for third party study guides, experience shows that you will not be successful when you work on basis of third party notes, compared to making your own notes. This is because what matters in this course is not the memorization of notes, but the understanding of concepts. It is not "about the notes" but about the "making of notes" and the "reviewing of YOUR notes" that allow you to engage with the content to a level that allows you to understand it. Experience shows that students who "study" (= memorize) the notes of others will fail miserably in the exams... they never engaged with the content themselves, which does not allow them to flexibly apply it to new settings... All of this being said, I think it is a great idea to join forces (in personal meetings or through online collaboration) to identify gaps in your understanding. At the end, your enemy is the lack of understanding, not your peer student. So join forces, please! However, if you rely too much on your colleague, and let them do the active work, while you gamble on flying through by passively consuming what they elaborate, you will pay the consequences. In this sense, collaboration is always good to check your understanding and to clarify doubts. However, they are counterproductive when abused.
10. What is "Piazza" and why do I need it? Answer: Our ongoing class discussions happen in Piazza. Just like it sometimes useful for you to listen in when others ask questions in class (and sometimes not), most students find it useful to follow along in these discussions. But just like with most apps, you can regulate the frequency these notifications get send to your email inbox. You have to sign up for Piazza: it is an add-on app to our main platform Canvas. Be aware that "if you choose to opt-in to Piazza Careers (a separate service they offer), you consent to the release of information included in your user profile, which may include education records, to companies that participate in Piazza Careers and to other users who have opted into Piazza Careers". We will NOT use and NOT need Piazza Careers and I do not promote it.
11. What communications / messages should I get in order to be on top of what's going on? Answer: Through Canvas (our main platform) you will get one Welcome email from the instructor per Session and sometimes general feedback for assignments from TAs. These are IMPORTANT! Make sure you have your Canvas notifications settings TURNED ON!

 

About the instructor:

Before joining UC Davis, Prof. Hilbert created and coordinated the Information Society Program of the United Nations Secretariat for Latin America and the Caribbean (http://www.cepal.org/SocInfo). In his 15 years as United Nations Economic Affairs Officer he has provided hands-on technical assistance in the field of digital development to Presidents, government experts, legislators, diplomats, NGOs, and companies in over 20 countries. Policy makers from the highest political levels have officially recognized the impact of these projects in public declarations. In combination with this practical experience he has written five books about digital technology for international development and has published in academic journals in the fields of communication, economic development, information science, psychology, political science, complexity, women’s studies, and forecasting. His findings have been featured in popular outlets like Scientific American, PBS, Discovery, NatGeo, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, The Economist, NPR, BBC, Die Welt, Correio Braziliense, La Repubblica, El Pais, among others. International perspectives are no mere theoretical work obligation to Prof. Hilbert, as he speaks five languages and has traveled to over 70 countries. More: http://www.martinhilbert.net