Summer semester - over at last!

Although supposedly the summer semester is only 1 week shorter in terms of classes and 2 weeks shorter if you count fall and spring's exam week, this summer semester has seemed so long.

I just turned in my final paper and attended my last class session of the summer tonight. Now I guess it's just waiting for grades.

I have two weeks off until the fall semester starts, and then I'll be back in class! Two weeks doesn't seem long enough to recover from these two summer classes. They were a TON of work, especially near the end. I had at least one project or paper due every week for the last month in addition to the normal weekly readings and discussion board posts.

The summer's almost over!

Last weekend I turned in my first big paper in my Information Organization class, so I was thinking we the summer semester must be half over. I looked at the calendar for the rest of the semester and realized it's almost over! Including this week, there are only four more weeks left!

For some reason, this summer semester has just flown by much faster than any other semester so far. It's been busy, but not too busy, and I've had a lot of homework, but not too much homework. The two classes I'm taking work really well together, I think, and that may have helped some.

All that's left now is one more big paper in Information Organization, and a final paper in References Services about my experience answering questions for the IPL (which thankfully, I answered all three questions I needed to early on before the homework level really picked up in both classes and the competition to claim questions picked up as well). Obviously there's also the usual weekly readings and discussion board posts, but those aren't too bad.

Excellent Professor

This weekend my first big paper in my Information Organization class is due. I have roughly 3/4, maybe a little more, of the first draft completed, and already I've e-mailed chunks of what I have so far to the professor for comment, and he's responded with good feedback. (Fortunately none of it has said, "This is no good, please start over," because I would cry; the paper is already 24 pages without counting the references at the end. I can't imagine having to completely start over on it.)

He is willing to read as many drafts as we send him, complete or partial, and send back comments within 24 hours. How nice is that? It's been really nice to know, before getting a grade, whether I'm on the right track, if there are areas that I should expand on, or if I left something important out altogether. And because he only accepts drafts up to 3 days before the due date, it's a good motivator to not wait until the last minute to get at least the first draft done.

I have never had a professor make this kind of generous offer before; it has got to be extremely time consuming to read through the drafts and offer constructive comments on them. I wonder how many students take him up on his offer?

Thoughts a week into the summer session

LIS 5603 - there is a lot to keep track of for this class:
1) The Course Topics area of the Blackboard site lists the readings for each week as well as any pre-recorded lectures that need to be listened to, and if there are any assignments due that week. Each week has at least some readings (combination of text book and other articles) *and* one or more pre-recorded lectures to listen to on top of the actual regular class lecture/in-class activities
2) The Course Library includes a folder that has additional readings that the in-class lectures are based on
3) The Discussion Board postings can only be made M-F and have to be 300-400 words and must cite outside readings. Excluding weekends seems strange as I would think people have the most time to work on school work on the weekends.

LIS 5703 - This class seems easier to keep track of so far:
1) Readings - not too many and only listed in the Calendar portion of the Blackboard site - one place to look
2) Exercise/Discussion Board postings - Instructions in the Assignments area of the Blackboard site and the actual Discussion Board in the Discussion Board areas - only need short posts a few times during the course of each week. This seems to facilitate better actual "discussion" than requiring word counts and outside citations.

LIS 5703 - Information Organization

Last night I had the first meeting of my second class of the summer term. This course will be conducted completely through Blackboard text chat and discussion boards. I'm not really a fan of classes by text chat, but despite the fact that the syllabus says this course will be "very hard" and "time consuming," I do think it sounds pretty interesting so far.

According to FSU College of Information course description website, the course description is:

Establishes the conceptual and theoretical framework for organizing and retrieving information, including the study of systems, their objectives and structure, formats. standards, and vocabularies; and the information object and its relationship to organizing systems and to other information objects.

We'll see how it goes as the summer progresses