Wayne State University
Time's Harvest
Fall, 1997

Link back to course "Welcome..."
Last updated: 9/5/97

The most recent version of this Syllabus can be read on the coruse Web site at http://www.cll.wayne.edu/isp/drbowen/thf97.

SYLLABUS

• AGS 336, Section 98430: Time's Harvest, 4 credits. Reading Course.
• AGS 334, Section 98431: Time's Harvest, 4 credits. Directed Study course.

If you have registered for these courses, or if you plan to register, you should check the course Web Site on a regular basis for updates. See the "Instructor" section below for the location of the course Web Site.

If you are only taking four hours of Time's Harvest, you should be registered for AGS 336. If you are registered only for AGS 334, you should do a "Drop and Add" to switch to AGS 336.

These courses will be taught primarily on-line. You will need an Internet e-mail account and World Wide Web access in order to take these courses.

E-mail and World Wide Web Connections available through WSU
You can use any Internet service you want, but the accounts and all necessary software are available free to WSU students through WSU's Division of Computing and Information Technology (C&IT). Call or visit C&IT's Computer Lab in the basement of the Science and Engineering Library (tel. 313-577-5805). The WSU connections are via a modem and a telephone call. The call will be a local call if you use one of the the dial-up numbers in your local calling area. The only fees for this service are the charges from your telephone company; there are no "connect" or "account" charges by WSU. Local telephone calls are billed per call, not per minute, and the per-call charges are small.

Late-breaking News:
There have been several delays in the introduction of the University's new e-mail system that will provide e-mail for WSU students. For this course, E-mail access will be allowed but not required until the new system is working.

The Univeristy's Internet access for students, however, has been working for years and continues to work. Internet access, including World Wide Web access, will be required.

Note that you are NOT required to use the University's Internet access or, when it is working, the University's e-mail system. These systems are/will be free for WSU students and as far as I am aware, they are equivalent to the commercial systems. For example, if you use the University's e-mail system, you will be able to send e-mail to anyone on the Internet, not just within the University.

Course Topics:
Many people today, including well-known social commentators, view society as being in a state of chaos and decay. In Time's Harvest you will be exposed to a very different view; that while industrial society is declining (which can be called decay), new social forms are being created. In AGS 336 you will read some wide-ranging views about these new social forms, and formulate your own views. In AGS 334, you will read more about implications of the forecast shifts in society, you will read a variety of more focused views, and you will learn about some of the technologies that are contributing to the changes.

Instructor and Office Hours:

The course Web site will include:

• The latest version of all course materials (Syllabus, assignment schedule, essay topics, etc.)
• A personal Web Page that each participant will create
• A computer conference and chat site for discussions and group work

IUC Format
The Time's Harvest courses are in the "IUC format", and are in addition being taught this semester in an on-line format. There will be only a few class meetings, and correspondingly more reading and writing. Therefore, you will not be spending as much time in class as usual, you will be more responsible for keeping yourself up to date than usual, you will be doing more reading than usual, and you will have higher text expenses than usual. For classes in this format, the Interdisciplinary Studies Program recommends:

A. That you have at least Junior standing, and

B. That you have at least a 3.0 HPA.

Some students that have not met these standards have had trouble with Time's Harvest.

Textbooks:

AGS 336:

1. Toffler, Alvin, The Third Wave (paperback).
2. Bell, Wendell, Foundations of Futures Studies, Vol. 1. Transactions Publishers, New Brunswick 1997
3. Huxley, Aldous, Brave New World.
4. Ed. de Alcantara, Cynthia, Social Futures/Global Visions. Blackwell and UNRISD, Oxford 1996.

AGS 334:

1. Negroponte, Nicholas, Being Digital. Knopf, New York 1995.
2. Gates, William, The Road Ahead, Penguin 1996.
3. Zuboff, Shoshana, In the Age of the Smart Machine. Basic Books, 1988 (paperback).
4. Volti, Rudi, Society and Technological Change. St. Martin's Press, New York 1995.

While the textbooks will be on order on campus, you can buy the textbooks at any bookstore you choose, or from a library. Many students have found that they need to make notes in their textbooks; in this case, library copies will not be suitable.

Course Meetings:
There will be four course meetings. The dates for meetings 2, 3 and 4 are tentative. If you need any changes, we will make them at the first course meeting on September 3.

A. Directed Study Course, AGS 334

B. Reading Course, AGS 336

The quizzes and Final Exam will be graded numerically, zero to 100%; Essays will be given a letter grade, allowing for + and -. In assigning the Final course letter grade, a numerical average will be calculated, and rounded to the nearest whole point. The correspondence between numerical and letter grades is:

For essay grades, a "+" adds 3 points; a "-" subtracts 3 points. For example, an A- gets averaged as a 92.

Essay topics will be distributed on the course Web Site in advance of the reading assignment. If a project is chosen, this will replace Essays 5 and 6. There will generally be five topics to choose from. Essays are to be 3 to 5 pages double spaced (4 to 6 hand-written), and will be graded according to the following criteria:

1. Content. 40%
2. Form. 40%. Title, Intro., Body, Conclusion
3. Mechanics. 20%. This refers to punctuation, spelling, and grammar

Formats for Essays:
Essays can be turned in using any of the following formats:

• Mailed, neatly hand-written, using every line, one-inch margins. While I am pretty good at most handwriting, tangled knots of writing will be skipped over, resulting in missing words.
• Mailed, typewritten or word processed, using every other line, one-inch margins. Computer-printed work also falls within this category.
• E-mail ASCII or "Save as text" file to drbowen@cll.wayne.edu.
• A word processing file attached to an e-mail message using a compatible file attachment method. NOTE: Test your e-mail attachment first.
• The computer conferencing system will have a file attachment method.