EES 205 Sustainable Energy and the Environment - Online
Fall 2009 Syllabus
Instructor: Emile Levasseur email: levasseure@easternct.edu EES Phone 465-4317
IMPORTANT - Special Requirements for this Online Course: Students who have signed up for this
online EES 205 course need to be aware that there are strict requirements in at least two areas, as
described in the next two sections below. Conscientious students with pretty good technology should
have no trouble completing this course and earning a good grade, but even they should look at these
special requirements. Students who have had trouble in the past getting to classes or staying organized
enough to complete assignments on time should probably not enroll in this very structured online course!
Course Activities - First of all, there will be frequent interactive quizzes that must be completed
during an availability period of about five days per quiz. For each section of the material, you
must spend at least an hour or two reading, viewing video materials, and taking notes. When you
are ready, you must take a one-hour quiz on that section’s material. The sections will usually
overlap each other by a day or two, which means that throughout the class, you must complete
and submit an assessment twice a week, about every three or four days! You will probably
not able to do the course in just one day per week – you will most likely need to have at least two
work sessions each week. Since each assessment will be available for nearly a week, there will
be no make-ups for any reason. If you miss a quiz deadline for any reason, you will have a zero
for that quiz, no exceptions! Each of the 17 quizzes is worth approximately 2 points toward your
final grade, but since even the most conscientious student might miss a quiz or two due to
technical difficulties or a personal issue, I will drop the two lowest quiz grades for all students.
I will not drop the lowest score for the four exams and four discussions, so don’t miss any of
them. (Keep in mind that the Exams cover the same material as the quizzes, so skipping a quiz on
purpose may mean that you will not be prepared for one or more of the questions on the module
exam, because you will not see your graded quiz.)
Technical Requirements – If you have never taken an online course using WebCT, or if you have
taken one but have used all of the tools we use in this course, you need to be sure that you can get
all of the tools and resources to work for you. You should probably not attempt this class unless
you will have a broadband Internet connection (DSL or Cable Internet, no dial-up modems) that is
reliable, with only rare outages or connection problems. You will need broadband, because if
you have a small “pipeline” to the Internet, you may be unable to make some of the material work
correctly (or at all), such as pop-up videos and web-based PowerPoint shows. Your Internet
connection needs to be reliable, because if you get disconnected during a quiz, you will probably
be unable to go back and finish it, and I may not be available at that particular time to help you out
before the quiz deadline. You will also need a decent computer that is fairly new, with sufficient
RAM for your operating system and for the WebCT applications. WebCT uses the Blackboard
software environment, which means that everything in the course is web-based from servers
located in Hartford, with Java applets (small programs) doing the actual work on your computer.
Your computer should be up-dated, or better yet, have Microsoft Update installed and working
on your computer. WebCT will give you some guidance when you log in, checking to make sure
you have the latest version of Java and have some settings set correctly. I will give you additional
guidance on getting the latest version of Flash, Adobe Reader, and other necessities so that you
can use all the resources in the course. If you are unsure about some of this, you can make
arrangements with CIT in the library to bring them your laptop and have them check it out.
Macintosh computers do work in this course, but tend to have more technical problems than PC’s,
and I will be unable to advise you how to solve some of these problems, since I must use a PC.
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