DALE HERBECK

Office:	Lower Campus Office Building 521
Office Hours:	2:00 to 4:00 p.m. on Tuesday and Thursday, 10:00 to 11:30 a.m. on Wednesday, other days and times by appointment
Phone:	(617) 552-4281
Fax:	(617) 552-2286
Internet:	herbeck@bc.edu
Herbeck Web Site:	http://www2.bc.edu/~herbeck/
Cyberlaw Syllabus:	http://www2.bc.edu/~herbeck/cyberlawspring2004.html/
Cyberlaw Readings:	http://www2.bc.edu/~herbeck/cyberreadingsspring2004.html

Description | Readings | Examinations | Extra Credit | Grading | Course Requirements

COURSE DESCRIPTION. This course will study the extension of communication law to the Internet, assess a range of pending proposals designed to regulate free speech in cyberspace, and discuss a variety of national and international schemes intended to govern the developing global information infrastructure. In the process, the course will consider issues involving political speech, sexually explicit expression, defamation, privacy, trademark, copyright, unsolicited commercial email (spam), schools, and encryption. This course will not cover issues related to electronic commerce or contracts, personal jurisdiction, or Internet taxation.

READINGS. As an alternative to a traditional textbook, the reading materials for Cyberlaw are available online at . Since this is a virtual text, new readings may be added during the course of the semester. As a general rule, readings will be available one week before a topic is discussed in class.

The "Tentative Course Schedule and Reading List" contains specific reading assignments for each class session. Readings should be completed before class and you should be prepared to answer questions about the assigned reading. Failure to adequately prepare may adversely affect your grade for this course. The virtual reader identifies three types of assignments:

1.WEB WORK. Visit, review, or read this material as instructed on the schedule. WARNING: Completing the web work may require you to visit web sites that contain offensive material. You will find links and references to sites that contain racist, scatological, indecent, sexually explicit, and otherwise objectionable content. This material will not be covered on the examinations, but you may find it helpful to attempt the web work as it forms the basis of many of the cases and controversies to be studied in class. Please do not read this material if you find it to be offensive.

2. CASE WORK. The case work contains links to court decisions to be discussed in class. In contrast to the web work, you will be held accountable for knowing the facts, the holding, and the broader significance of all court cases identified on the reading list. WARNING: The subject matter for this course is extremely complex and it would be difficult, if not impossible, to master any appreciable portion of the readings in a single extended sitting.

3. SUPPLEMENTAL WORK. To help with some topics, the virtual reader also contains links to supplemental material. As the title implies, this content is not required and will not be included on the examination. You may find it helpful, however, to review this material as you attempt to master the principles of Cyberlaw.

EXAMINATIONS. Course grades will be assigned based on two midterms and final examination.

1. MIDTERM EXAMINATIONS. There will be two midterm elections, one on Tuesday, February 17, and another on Thursday, April 22. The midterms will be composed of sixty true/false and thirty multiple choice questions. A comprehensive study guide and a practice examination will be distributed ten days before each of the midterms.

2. FINAL EXAMINATION. The final examination will be given during our regularly scheduled examination period on Wednesday, May 12, at 12:30 p.m. The final examination will be comprehensive and will be composed of one hundred true/false and sixty multiple choice questions. Like the midterms, a study guide and a practice examination will be distributed ten days before the final.

WARNING: The dates for all three examinations are indicated on the course schedule. Absent the most unusual of circumstances, there will be no make-up examinations. If the scheduled exam dates are inconvenient, you are strongly advised to drop this class.

EXTRA CREDIT. A limited number of opportunities will be provided to earn extra credit points for attending lectures and events sponsored by the Communication Department. To receive extra credit (10 for each event), you must satisfy the following conditions:

1. You must attend the entire event. This means you must be present when the event starts and stay until the event ends.

2. You must answer the questions on the back of the extra credit sheet to demonstrate that you were in attendance and that you listened to the presentation. Sheets will be distributed one week prior to any designated event.

3. You must give me the completed form at the culmination of the event. NOTE: To prevent one student from completing a form for another student, each student is allowed to submit a single form.

GRADING. Letter grades will be assigned according to the following scale::

By definition a large proportion of all work is "average." If a large proportion of the work prepared is "very good" or "excellent" then the "average" standard will be adjusted accordingly. Consequently, there may be substantially fewer scores in the 80 to 100 percent range than in the 70 to 79 percent range. In assigning course grades assignments will be weighed according to the following distribution of points:

Individual assignment scores will be totaled to determine course grades. In the past, scores of between 900 and 1000 points have received an "A," 800 and 899 have received a "B," 700 and 799 a "C," 600 and 699 a "D," and between 0 and 599 an "F." This scale may be adjusted upward as necessary when assigning grades. Scores in the lower 30 to 40 percent of a range will receive a "minus" qualifier. Scores in the upper 10 percent of a range will receive a "plus" qualifier. An excessive number of absences may result in the reduction of a final course grade.

COURSE REQUIREMENTS. This course will be governed by the "Academic Regulations" delineated in the Boston College Undergraduate Catalog and by the policies of the Communication Department. Two of these policies are of particular importance:

Department of Communication Attendance Policy

Attendance is required as a condition of successful completion of all courses in the Communication Department. After missing any class session, a student is responsible for finding out about assignments, due dates, announcements, handouts, and so forth that were covered during the missed session, and for making up any missed work. The student is also responsible for obtaining class notes from a classmate for the session, and for learning the material from that session for any relevant exams or quizzes.

The equivalent of two weeks of absence from any course will reduce a student's course grade by one full letter grade. Absence from more than a combined total of three weeks of class meetings will result in automatic failure of the course. (Since this class meets twice a week, four absences will result in a letter grade reduction and six absences will result in automatic failure.) There are no exceptions to this rule.

Absences for any reason--illness, personal crises, athletics or other extra-curricular activities--are included in this total. If a student is involved in any activity that might require that student to miss three or more weeks of a particular course, then that student should not enroll in the course.

WARNING: Many students make the mistake of taking absences early in the semester. Having expended their "free" absences, they are disappointed when they need to miss a class later in the semester for a legitimate reason. Please do not make this mistake as it can seriously impact your final course grade.

Department of Communication Policy on Academic Integrity

The Communication Department holds the highest standards of academic honesty for all students The maintenance of these standards is essential to the basic functioning of the department as an academic community, and makes possible the conduct of fair, meaningful, and worthwhile educational experiences. Because the faculty of this department takes academic honesty so seriously, we remind all students in all Communication courses of the academic integrity statement signed by all students upon matriculation at Boston College.

Instances of cheating, plagiarism, dishonesty or collusion will be treated seriously within the Communication Department. Sanctions for such breaches of academic integrity will include failure of the course, ejection from the major, and/or expulsion from Boston College. All cases will be referred to the department chairperson and/or the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.

In order to help ensure honesty in written work submitted as part of the course requirements for courses within the communication department, the department requires that ALL written assignments for ALL department courses be handed in on diskette as well as on paper. The diskettes will routinely be checked for plagiarized material through a professional service that analyzes the content of the work against a broad range of Internet and on-line databases. Written work will not be accepted unless it is accompanied by a diskette version.

Statement on Academic Integrity from the College of Arts and Sciences:

The College of Arts and Sciences expects all students to adhere to the accepted norms of intellectual honesty in their academic work. Any forms of cheating, plagiarism, or dishonesty or collusion in another's dishonesty is a fundamental violation of these norms.

CHEATING is the use or attempted use of unauthorized aids in any exam or other academic exercise submitted for evaluation. This includes data falsification; the fabrication of data; deceitful alteration of collected data included in a report; copying from another student's work; unauthorized cooperation in doing assignments or during an examination; the use of purchased essays, term papers, or preparatory research for such papers; submission of the same written work in more than one course without prior written approval from the instructor(s) involved; and dishonesty in requests for either extensions or papers or make-up examinations.

PLAGIARISM is the deliberate act of taking the words, ideas, data, illustrative material, or statements of someone else, without full and proper acknowledgment, and presenting them as one's own.

COLLUSION is assisting or attempting to assist another student in an act of academic dishonesty.

As part of your scholarly development, you must learn how to work cooperatively in a community of scholars and fruitfully utilize the work of others without violating the norms of intellectual honesty. You have a responsibility to learn the parameters of collaboration and the proper forms for quoting, summarizing and paraphrasing.

Faculty members who detect any form of academic dishonesty have the responsibility to take appropriate action. The faculty member also has the responsibility to report the incident and penalty to the Department Chairperson and the appropriate Class Dean. The report will remain in your student file until you graduate.

If the gravity of the offense seems to warrant it or if the faculty member prefers that another academic authority decide the matter, he or she may refer the case to a Dean. In addition, if the student is unwilling to accept the faculty member's decision, he or she may choose to have the matter adjudicated either by an Associate Dean or by an Administrative Board. The section of the College of Arts and Sciences in the Boston College Undergraduate Catalogue has further details about this process.

Academic integrity is a very important matter. If you have any questions in any of your courses about what is allowed or not allowed, please discuss the matter immediately with the instructor.

WARNING: The Communication Department is fully committed to academic integrity and all instances of cheating, plagiarism, and collusion will be punished.

Copyright © 2003 Dale A. Herbeck
Last update: 14 January 2003