Exam study orientation

Here are several recommendations to help you prepare for the exams. It is useful if you start using them right away, starting in week 1.

 

In general, my recommendation is that you have the class lecture slides ready when watching the lectures and take notes. Since we don't have a textbook, this is your natural guide of covered material. Use the notes to formulate the content in your own words. For each week, I upload a pdf version of the weekly slides as a version that has space "ForNotes_Slides...pdf". An annotated example of a slide from week1 might look something like this:

I do NOT recommend that you study on basis of the notes from somebody else. This is because to be successful in this class, it is essential that you understand the concepts (not merely memorize them), and you best do so by formulating the ideas behind the slides in your OWN WORDS (this is also the reason why I don't simply hand out fine-printed textual definitions ready for memorization...). Putting the concepts into your own context makes sure you understand the idea. It reveals which parts are not totally clear TO YOU. If you study for the exam, and look at your annotated slides, and cannot formulate it yourself, you found that you do not understand it fully yet. The questions in the exams will test if you truly understand these concepts and if you can apply them to new contexts, or if you simply memorized some text. Experience shows that students who study by memorization and never took the time to think through the content have difficulties to succeed in the exams. They might study long hours before the exam (often based on the notes of others), but then still fail, because they lack a deeper understanding, which is what I test for. For example, a question on the exam might look like this:

Politicians and entrepreneurs alike have often claimed that the Internet is a tool for freedom. It introduces transparency, enables participation, and fosters dialogue. This attitude is an example of:

a) technological determinism
b) social constructivism

Another one might look like this:

Politicians and entrepreneurs alike have claimed that the Internet is a tool for total control. It introduces transparency, enables participation, and fosters dialogue which is then monitored by secret services, national security agencies, and private enterprises as part of their surveillance practices. This attitude is an example of:

a) technological determinism
b) social constructivism

Another one might look like this:

Politicians and entrepreneurs alike have claimed that applications on the Internet can be designed in a way to foster freedom. For example, social media can be used to introduce transparency, enable participation, and foster dialogue. This attitude is an example of:

a) technological determinism
b) social constructivism

Can you answer each one of them correctly? What's the difference between the first and second, on the one hand, and the third one on the other?

Before the exam, I recommend that you go through your slides and review your notes that relate to it, add whatever else you remember, and think about each slide for a bit. If there is a slide that you have no idea what it is about, there are at least three ways to fill eventual holes in your notes:

1- this online course allows you to go back and re-watch just that part. Also go to the reading, and use the search function to find out more about it. 

2- study groups are extremely helpful. Feel free to use the online platform to find others to get together in study groups: Study Groups Coordination. It is natural that your notes might be stronger on some concepts than on others, and that you end up having some holes in your notes. Also, we all come from different backgrounds with better understanding about some issues and less about others. In study groups you can complement each others recollections and compare and complement notes, and make sure you truly understand the concepts.

3- You can also use our Q&A platform Chat to ask questions (see the navigation bar on the left). Feel free to ask whatever is not totally clear. Questions are never "dumb" or "obvious". Otherwise they wouldn't be questions. In most cases, somebody else in class will know the answer. I encourage everybody to answer, which is another way of testing if you understood the concept well. I will monitor the exchange and of course offer clarifications if necessary.

 

More concretely, what kind of question will NOT appear on the exams? Questions like this:

Which one of the following concepts have you heard being mentioned in this course? Simply put a check-mark on the concept you remember and move on quickly.

a) elephants
b) asymptotic equipartition property
c) Schumpeterian creative destruction

Of course, this is exaggerated, but you get the idea. These kind of questions do not have any equivalent in the real world. What you will encounter in a real-world work setting are situations where you will have to apply concepts to new contexts. And for this you need to understand them well. Unfortunately, the only way I have to test for that in a multiple choice setting (which is far from optimal), is to put emphasis on differences in small details that show the difference in real understanding. More like this:

Many people argue that the so-called big data paradigm lacks regulation, especially with regard to privacy. They argue that technological progress made existing regulatory frameworks obsolete. Their call for an institutional overhaul is an example of:

a) The digital divide
b) Exponentially growing combinatorics
c) Positive feedback
d) Schumpeterian creative destruction 

We treated all of those concepts in class. You have to understand each of them them well in order to be able to answer the question correctly. Can you?

Often the difference between answers can be minuscule. I do this not because I like to be mean, but because I want to make you think carefully about the different aspects of what we've learned. For example:

The digital divide is defined as a divide between those that have access to digital technologies and those that do not.

a) True
b) False

My recommendation is NOT to think strategically about "what the Professor might want to hear", and also NOT to select whatever your first gut reaction suggests. But rather I urge you to think about the question after reading it carefully. A good way to do this is to think about counter-examples that discard one option after the other (in science this strategy is called "falsifiability Links to an external site."). This might take time and effort, but is worth it. For example, can you think of one example that we talked about in class where the digital divide is not defined as mere access to digital technologies? Have you seen graphs or figures where the divide is shown as a divide among individuals who all already have access to digital technology? If you can come up with only one, then you know the entire statement must be false.

By the way: in no question more than one option will be right. I don't give questions in which one option is "a little less wrong than another one". This would be an oxymoron... if you find something like this, and you are sure of it, please stay true to your conviction and come and see me after the exam to argue with me. I am happy to be convinced of your argument, and if you should turn out to be correct, I will take the question back due to lack of clarity (it would be my fault). In practice, this usually does not happen. However, it is a very good way to get to the bottom of a question: be critical and use all the knowledge you've learned. Many of these questions are designed for you to think carefully about them, using everything you heard in the class. If you are done with the exam after 20 minutes, I would be worried if I'd be you... If you would be able to answer them just by memorizing the notes someone else has handed to you, I would be very surprised!

...positively surprised... Because at the end, all of this being said, the most important thing for me is that you learn these concepts and will be able to actively work with them in your thinking and daily vocabulary. How you learn them, is really up to you! So of course, I offer this "study orientation" not with the intention to tell you what to do, but as reflection of what I learned from previous experiences, in the hope it helps. But please develop your own learning style for this online class!

Here are some sample study questions: Sample Mid Term Exam Questions