"The harder you work, the luckier you get"
Structure, Grading, and the Text
Structure of the Web
Course Readings
For most of you this course will be very different from what you are used to because all of the material is on-line which will require a little adjustment in how you work during the semester. The course is divided into three segments, each of which contains units that correspond to chapters in a book. The list of the three segments and units can be found in the Course Readings Page. This is the equivalent of the Table of Contents in a traditional book. The three segments are:
Introduction
The Basics of Microeconomics
The Market System
There will be a test at the end of each of these segments. The first of these contains units on Opportunity Cost and Supply and Demand, two basic building blocks for all economics. There is also a unit on Data Analysis. In any economics course there is the question: How much mathematics? Mathematics is simply a language, not unlike Japanese or French. If you want to be an authority on France you will need to be able to communicate in French. The same would be true in Japan. If you want to be an authority on economics, you will need to master the language of mathematics since that is the language that economists use.
Fortunately you do not need sophisticated math skills to understand the basic principles of economics and thus mathematics is not central to this version of introductory economics. In fact. there are three different kinds of economics - three ways to approach the subject. I first ran across the three types in the preface to Paul Krugman's book, The Age of Diminished Expectations and most recently in the introduction to Peter Kennedy's book, Macroeconomic Essentials for Media Interpretation. The three types of economics according to Kennedy are curve shifting, pop art, and media economics. Krugman refers to the three types as Greek letter, airport, and up-and-down economics.
The first of these is what many students see in their introductory courses where they have instructors who use intensively the tools of mathematics, where economic principles are presented in the form of equations with Greek letters (a and b) or as graphs where the lines are shifted. At the other end of the spectrum we have the books that you are likely to find in airport bookstores, books that are non technical in nature and have a certain narrow focus that are often selling gloom and doom.
Lastly, there is the media economics that you are likely to see in the business press. Krugman refers to this as "up-and-down economics" because so many of the stories are about movement of economic variables and the relationship between the movements. For example, inflation is up which drives up interest rates; interest rates are down which sparks an increase in housing starts; the increase in the balance of trade deficit puts downward pressure on the exchange rate; and the budget deficit is down which increases business spending. Kennedy includes a second category here - economic policy evaluation - that includes news stories praising or condemning certain public policies. The stories concerning the Fed's decisions regarding interest rate policy, the privatization of social security, and the establishment of the European common currency fall into this category.
This course is clearly focused on the last of these "types" of economics, although there will be a bit of the first type. During the semester there will be some times when we will use some formal modeling, but only through graphs. The best examples are the possibility curve diagrams that we will use to demonstrate choice situations and the supply-demand model of markets. Generally, however, we will concern ourselves with the world of economics as seen in the business press.
The second two units deal with traditional microeconomics. In the first unit, The Basics of Microeconomics, we construct the model of a market system by examining models of individual and business behavior. In the second unit, The Market System, we take a more careful look at the situation with a focus on some market imperfections and the potential solutions to these imperfections. After each of these segments there will be an exam.
There are three components of each unit - Questions of the Day, Overview, and Outline. The first component is the Questions of the Day. These are questions which you will be asked to review and answer for each class. In answering these questions you should read the material in the unit since the questions are related to the economic concepts introduced in the unit.
To get an idea of what you will encounter in each unit you should read the second component, the Overview. The overview provides a general guide to the concepts that will be introduced in the unit.
The third component is the Outline component - the equivalent of the traditional textbook. This will be the source for most of your reading during the semester. There are two major differences between this and a textbook. The first is that you will be reading the material on-line which will limit your ability to curl up and read this in bed or in a comfortable chair. The second is that the text has many hyperlinks that will direct you to specialized material or material on the WWW. You may find this difficult at first, but you should become comfortable with this approach before the first exam.
For an example of the web's structure, you can look at the first unit of the course entitled Introduction to the Basics. The page is reproduced below. The four units in this segment are An Intro to Economics, An Intro to Data Analysis, An Intro to Opportunity Cost, An Intro to Supply & Demand.
Introduction to the Basics
The supply-demand unit contains a number of components in addition to the outline. These are all examples of applications of the concepts introduced in the unit. There is a simple example based on URI, an introduction to Exchange Rates, and an Introduction to Investing that includes a discussion of stocks and bonds. There is also a discussion of Present Value Analysis that is a prerequisite for any understanding of bond prices.
If you click on An Intro to Supply & Demand you will get an index that is reproduced below. If you look at the Questions of the Day you will find that there are eight questions and if you look at the Overview you will find that this unit is about prices, or more specifically, about the model economists have developed to explain prices.
The Outline section will provide you with the page below. This will provide the basic structure for the class time spent on supply and demand. To find out more about buyers, you would simply follow the link to Buyers / Demanders, while to find out about supply and demand curves, you would go to How do we represent the market graphically?
- Identify the market (what is it)
- Identify the participants (who are they)
- Identify the determinants of behavior (why do they do what they do)
- How do we represent the market graphically?
- How does government intervene?
- Supply and Demand in Action
Schedule
The Schedule page should be monitored regularly because this is where you will find the daily schedule of readings, assignments, and questions of the day.
E-mail
The E-mail page should also be monitored regularly because this is where I will post messages to the class if there are any schedule changes. It is also where I will post any assignments and extra credit project during the semester. Each assignment and extra credit project will be posted as a separate posting and your responses will need to be a reply to the posting if it is to be credited to you. At the end of the semester I will have records of the extent to which you participated in the on-line discussions and the assignments and extra credit and this will be factored into your grade.
Questions of the Day
The Questions of the Day page provides an index of the questions that you will be asked to review and answer for each class. In answering these questions you should read the material in the unit since the questions are related to the economic concepts introduced in the unit.
Syllabus & Exams
The Syllabus & Exam page provides the basic information on the course including the goals, course requirements, and grading procedure. Also included here will be an index of exams. On this page you will find a copy of a first exam from a previous year as well as copies of the semester's exams that will be posted soon after each exam is taken. After each exam, the answer key and a brief description of the correct answer will be posted in the Exam site on this page. You should check out the answers to determine your grade and make sure that you agree with the answers since there have been instances in the past where students have raised legitimate concerns regarding the answers. You will also find answers to the Questions of the Day posted after they have been discussed in class.
Review Quizzes
Learning to "do economics" is like learning to play tennis, ride a bike, or read - you get better at it if you practice. For this reason each unit also has an interactive Review Quiz. The Review Quiz associated with each unit gives you an opportunity to practice, to test your understanding of the concepts and principles introduced in the unit. For each unit course these quizzes will provide some practice with multiple choice questions drawn from previous exams. You should take the quiz at the end of each unit to test your understanding. You will access these off the main Web CT page. These quizzes are timed to provide you with a sense of working under a time constraint. You may also want to try an on-line quiz for microeconomics.
Data Sources
There are also a number of indexes to web sites that may be of interest to you. The Data Sources Page contains an index of good sites for finding economic data as well as some newspaper, news, and weather sites. You may also want to check out the Career Stuff page where you will find information on internships, resume and cover letters, and the job search.
My Records
Here is where you will find the information concerning your status during the semester.
Password
Here is where you will find the information on how to change your password. You should change the password immediately, but be sure to make it something that you will not forget.
Class
You have a Class page where you may find some pictures of you.
There is one final issue - printing of hard copies. Past experience has been that students tend to want to print out everything, but I would encourage you to make an effort to avoid the expense of doing it. You will find that because of the hyperlinks, this method will produce a large volume of material that does not look like a traditional textbook and that is difficult to follow. What I would suggest is that you print out the Handouts that will be associated with each unit. These handouts can be found on the Schedule page. I would strongly suggest that you print these out before class and bring them to class to be used as your notebook for the course. These handouts will contain most of the graphs and diagrams that will be used in class.
Evaluation
How you should be evaluated is always the tough question. You will be evaluated on your understanding of a few basic economic principles and the opportunity to demonstrate your command of these principles will arise continuously throughout the course. You should make an effort to distinguish yourself in the class. If you cannot distinguish yourself here, then where? Fortunately you will have a number of opportunities to do so during the semester. For each class there will be a few questions (Questions of the Day) based on the readings for which you will be responsible and you should come into class with some prepared thoughts on these questions. There also will be some extra credit opportunities where you will be required to hand in some work. The list of extra credit assignments will change over the semester and you should monitor regularly the Schedule and the e-mail pages. The class e-mail link will be where questions will be posted and where you will be expected to post your assignments. This is the only place where they will be recorded, so you will need to monitor the site.
In addition to the class participation, there will also be three semester exams and a final exam. The exams in this course will focus primarily on your skill at applying the principles discussed in the course rather than on your recall skills. When constructing an exam I have the choice of asking you to recall material covered in class lectures and assigned readings or ask you entirely new questions requiring you to apply basic principles discussed in class and the readings. For many, maybe most of you, the first is a framework that you have become accustomed to in your travels through the education system. While it has its place, it will not be employed here because you are not in training to be practicing economists and thus there is no need for an encyclopedic approach to the course. Mastery of some basic concepts and definitions is, however, critical. Economics will matter to you because it helps you understand your world, because you can relate it to your work as a pharmacist, an accountant, or a retail buyer and no instructor can anticipate where it will come into play in your world. This means that the exams will tend to be difficult and the scores low. Before you take the first test you should review the first test from the previous year that can be found on the Exam Page. This will give you a better idea of what to expect which should help reduce the surprise effect on that first exam - and improve your grade.
The exam scores will be weighted in the final exam as follows:
If you get As on all of the semester exams, you will be excused from the final exam - a reward for consistently superior work.
Each of you will be expected to read on a regular basis at least some sections of the Wall Street Journal and you can expect some questions to be on your readings. There will also be a few assignments during the semester. One of these assignments will be to find a company and follow the performance of the company's stock. You will all be asked to identify an industry that you would like to know more about, possibly an industry where you will be looking for employment once you graduate, and conduct some research in which you explore the prospects for the industry and a major firm in the industry. There may also be a movie or two, but more about that on the first day. As a first step in the right direction you might want to check out Yahoo's College Central where you will find information on resumes and cover letters and finding a career path. While you are at it, be sure to check out the Wall Street Journal career page.
So, as you begin to make your choices, keep in mind the fact that your success in the future is likely to depend less on your major or your first employer and more on the skills that you acquire, more on your creativity, originality and ability to think critically than on your ability to store and recall information. With a positive attitude and good choices, you can position yourself well for entry into the new "real world" and even have some fun in ECN 201.
And then there is class attendance. While I realize the temptation to cut class is higher in a large class (an example of opportunity cost), attendance does matter and it will be factored into your final grade. For those students that miss more than three classes during the semester, you may be penalized by a grade point for every class above three that you miss.
Finally, there is the question of how you are doing. You should be able to log onto My Records on the web and get your scores for the semester.
Text
You should also note that there is not a textbook and that all of the material that you will need is available on-line. There is, however, a cost to keeping the system current so you will be asked to pay $20 for expenses associated with the maintenance of the web and class materials. This will be collected during the first week of classes to activate the courseware.