Unit structure

This unit is worth 10 credit points and consists of a series of assignments which must be completed week-by-week during Terms I and II. In order to enable the department to monitor your progress, and to provide help where needed, you are required to submit four of these assignments for marking during this period, and, at the end of Term 2, to complete a database project.

There are no lectures, seminars or tutorials for this unit but help with your weekly assignments is available in a timetabled workshop held in the computer laboratory (time to be agreed at planning meeting in week 0) in the basement of the department ( and also one-to-one assistance for those who are really struggling, available by contacting Dr Roger Middleton via e-mail to arrange a time).

There are also additional means available for Getting help. Those whose assignments are unsatisfactory will be informed by e-mail that they are required to attend a workshop, and you are reminded that it is a departmental require ment that you read your e-mail on a regular basis. Failure to attend a workshop is a disciplinary offence equivalent to non-attendance at a seminar; failure to submit an assignment equivalent to non-production of an essay; and the copying of someone else’ s work an act of plagiarism. Details of the seriousness of these offences, and of the potential penalties that can be incurred, can be found in the MA handbook which you have already received.

The working week
Within any week you are free to choose when to begin your assigned work and, subject to the proviso about maintaining a satisfactory standard for the four marked assignments, whether to attend that week's workshop. In weeks 4, 7, 11 and 15 you are required to submit your assignments by 1700 hours on the Friday of the respective week. In planning your work schedule do make allowance for the weeks in which you have to submit assignments.

In those weeks where there is assessed work you are strongly recommended to begin your assignments early so that if you are having difficulties you can seek help as soon as possible. You should be aware also that there can be queues for the printers (t here is a parallel course for 140 undergraduates which can result in much congestion), with this providing an added reason for beginning your work early in each week. Equipment can also break down, with knock-on effects for your schedule.

Those who have no or little previous experience of computers are advised that they will need to spend more time in the early weeks getting up to scratch than may be the case for those more experience, but you are reminded that this is less a unit about IT per se and more about using IT to be a better historian. In any case, many of you will have hardware- and software-specific skills which may need to discarded if you are not familiar with a PC-Windows working environment.

Assessment
To secure the credit points for this unit, without which you cannot progress, you must:  

• Complete to a satisfactory standard the four marked assignments.
• Complete to a satisfactory standard the database project (see Project).

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(c)R. Middleton 1997.    Last Modified 4 September 2000.