A BRIEF GUIDE
To How the Community Action Website Works
(For Teachers and TAs)

CREATING AN ACCOUNT: Once the webmaster has set up teacher accounts, teachers receive an email. They click on this email, fill out the requested information, click submit and then will see their home page. They are now "good to go."

TAs need to wait until your teacher has inputted your name and email address. Once you have done this, you will receive an email. You then fill out the requested information, click submit, and then you too will see your home page. You will then be set as well.

Please do not try to register yourself as a student on the home page since, if you do, the webmaster or your teacher will not be able to use that email account to send you an email. Accounts are organized around email addresses; one account per email address. You cannot use the same email account as a teacher or TA and as a student.

DASHBOARD: The Dashboard is the set of numbers and bar graphs in the middle of your home page (the page you see when you log on). The Dashboard allows you to track: (1) the number of students who have initiated the registration process,(2) the number of students who have completed the registration process by paying the registration fee, and (3) the progress of students through the 2½ week Action Period. It is important students understand they cannot gain access to the Community Action Website without completing the registration process.

NAVIGATION BAR: The Navigation Bar is on the left side of your webpage. It allows you to select important webpages. Home brings you back to the dashboard and the main (or home) page. My Account allows teachers and TAs to check and change specifics about themselves. Students who have not completed a particular week's assignment -- writing a letter or doing the evaluations, for example -- receive an email reminder regarding that assignment and when it is due. Under My Account a teacher can choose to have these emails sent with the teacher's email address on it (to readily attract student attention) or with the website's email address on it. For teachers, My Classes specifies information regarding their class (or classes) participating in the Community Action Website. At the end of project, teachers can print out all the letters in a class with their grades. Since a student's grade is marked as a percent -- 92%, for example -- teachers can decide what percentage range represents an A versus a B versus a C. For TAs, My Classes allows TAs to focus solely on students they are responsibile for rather than having to deal with the class as a whole. They can print out, for the students in their sections, these students' letters with their grades. My Action Period allows teachers and TAs to see the winning letters and how many students support them. Finally My Students allows teachers and TAs to call up information on a specfic student – including (1) a student’s email, (2) a special password (called Review Password) that allows a teacher or TA to enter the student’s website and see exactly what the student sees on his or her website, and (3) how a student’s letter was graded on each of the four writing standards. (The grades under My Action Period, because they involve all the students in a class, only list the total grade to simplify what teachers and TAs see and print out.) Teachers also have a special link entitled My Teaching Assistants. It allows teachers to check information listed for each of their TAs. It also includes a special password (called Review Password) that allows teachers to log on to TA's webpage and see exactly what the TA sees.

The Action Period (What Happens When)

The heart of the Community Action Website Project is the two and one-half week Action Period. The Action Period you are associated with determines the specific dates for what happens when. The dates for Action Periods are set by the webmaster with three occuring during the fall (September-October-November) and three during the spring (February-March-April). Overall, Action Periods work on a Monday-Friday schedule for an assignment with a late period of Saturday-Sunday added for students who fail, for one reason or another, to make the Friday deadline.

Prior to the beginning of the Action Period, students in your class (or, if you are a TA, in your sections) should do TWO THINGS: (1) complete the registration process and (2) if they are reading the online book WHY A PUBLIC ANTHROPOLOGY? they should read it at this time. Once a student has registered, she or he can log in and see the link to the book on the left side of the student's home page. Clicking on the link, the student is brought to the on-line version of WHY A PUBLIC ANTHROPOLOGY? Students can read it on-line or, if they prefer, print it out. They might also wish to read it online and copy and paste key passages into a Word document rather than going to the expense of printing the book out.

(A) If students run into trouble registering they should, in this order: (1) Read the INSTRUCTIONS FOR CREATING AN ACCOUNT on the left side of the www.publicanthropology.net web page. (2) If this does not resolve the problem, students should click on HELP! SOLUTIONS TO SEVEN COMMON PROBLEMS (also on the left side of the web page). (c) If neither of the above solutions work, students should email the webmaster at webmaster@publicanthropology.org. The webmaster tries to respond to students’ queries within five hours of receiving their emails. (In perhaps half the cases, the webmaster refers students back to the HELP! SOLUTIONS TO SIX COMMON PROBLEMS to solve a problem.)

(B) The online book WHY A PUBLIC ANTHROPOLOGY? has two chapters. Each chapter is divided up into several questions with short answers (for introductory students) and longer answers (for advanced students). Reading the short answers, introductory students should be able to complete the book within an hour or two while still gaining its main points. (Reading the short answers simply means they are not overwhelmed by details.)

While completing all three stages of an Action Period usually only takes two to three hours of a student’s time, each stage is spread out over a week so students at different schools with different schedules can complete that week’s assignment with ease. Usually from four to ten schools participate in an Action Period.

During the first week of the Action Period, students write professional-style letters relating to the topic covered in the project. Specific background information and details regarding how to proceed with the assignment are provided through a link on the student’s webpage. Also included on the student’s webpage is a link to the four writing standards the student should keep in mind when writing his or her letter.

During the second week of the Action Period, students evaluate four letters from other students without knowing who wrote them or which schools they are from. During this peer review process, students are drawn into reflecting not only on the perspectives presented in other students' letters but on how they, themselves, performed in respect to the grading criteria.

During the third, and final three days of the Action Period, students can, if they wish, do extra credit assignment. As noted under Section X, students can receive up to two extra credit points for publicly voicing their views on the specified topic. Currently, the topic is:

Please select one or two social problems that you feel anthropology is particularly well-equipped to address. Write an essay explaining (1) why you think anthropology is well-equipped to deal with this problem or these problems and (2) what steps would you take, based on your knowledge of anthropology, to address it or them. Your essay needs to be AT LEAST 300 WORDS LONG in order to receive credit. (A word counter exists below the box.)

Some students wait until the last minute to complete their assignments. To handle this problem there are two deadlines. The first, Friday at 11:59 pm (Pacific Coast time), is when students should have their assignments submitted. But, for a variety of reasons, some students fail to meet this deadline. To provide these students with a "second chance" there is second, final deadline of Sunday at 11:59 pm. Assignments that fail to make the first deadline but manage to make the second are marked late. Teachers decide to what degree those who fail to make the Friday deadline should (or should not) suffer some consequence. After the second (or Sunday) deadline, students cannot submit their assignment and are shut out from participating further in the project.

AN IMPORTANT, PERHAPS SELF-EVIDENT, NOTE: Students should not be told about the seond deadline until after the first, Friday, deadline has passed. Otherwise, they will ignore the first deadline and the whole purpose of the two deadlines will be defeated.