Moral issue journal instructions
Here are the specific things required for writing your posts in the moral issues journal. The following two links are the same document, in two different formats.
Note: the instructions linked below have been revised as of Nov. 6, 2014. There are now two options for the fourth journal entry:
(1) You can decide not to do it, and I will just average the marks from the first three to get a score for the 10% of your course mark that the journal counts for; or
(2) You can do the last journal entry, and I will count the score if it is higher than the lowest score you received on the three other journal assignments. If that’s the case, I will average all four scores for the 10% for the journal. If the score on the fourth journal assignment is lower than any of your other scores, the fourth journal score is dropped and your overall journal grade will just be the average of the first three scores.
The reason for this change was discussed in class: the journal was largely for trying out your ideas for the essay and getting feedback, and the fourth journal entry doesn’t help with that. Also, in the feedback from the survey I did on how the class was going, it was expressed that there are quite a few assignments for the course (true!), and I thought this would be a way to address that concern.
I would still love it if people did the fourth entry, because the last part of the entry is something I’d very much like for you to reflect on (and I want to hear what you think!): do you think studying moral theory is valuable for making moral decisions in your everyday life? So only counting the score for this entry if it’s at least as high as any of the other scores for the journal means more people will likely do it than if I just count it regardless of what score you get on it.
Moral Issue Jrnl Instructions (revised Nov. 6, 2014) (MS Word)
Moral Issue Jrnl Instructions (revised Nov. 6, 2014) (PDF)
How to do journal entries (blog posts) on this site
Here’s a video that explains how to write a post for this site, for your moral issues journal, and how to post with a pseudonym, or password protect it, or make it private just to the instructor and TA (none of these is required, but you can do one of them if you choose; or you could just post as yourself, publicly!):
Link to this video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0ZIYRDsP8Y
How to make your journal entries anonymous, or viewable only by students in the class
Here’s a sheet that explains how to be anonymous in your blog posts, or how to password protect them so only students in the class can see them (covers much of the same material as the above video).
The following are the same document, in two different formats.
Anonymous or password-protected journal entries (MS Word version)
Anonymous or password-protected journal entries (PDF version)
[the text of these documents is below]
By default, the posts you write on the course site (https://blogs.ubc.ca/phil230), will appear to anyone who sees the site—it’s open to the public. If you would like to limit who can see your blog posts here are ways you can do that.
Use a pseudonym
You could keep allowing anyone who sees the page to see your blog posts, but post by a pseudonym. But to do this, you’ll have to edit your profile on UBC Blogs. When you’re logged in to UBC Blogs, go to the top right, where it says “Howdy,” and in the drop-down menu, click “edit profile.”
Scroll down until you see the area with your username and full name. If you want to use a pseudonym, be sure to put that pseudonym into the “nickname” area.
Then, in the area that says “display name publicly as,” use the drop-down menu to select your pseudonym.
If you choose to go this route, tell Christina what your pseudonym is! Otherwise, she won’t know who has posted what, and you can’t get credit. Please email her at c.hendricks@ubc.ca
Make your posts viewable only by people in this class
Your posts can be made available only to people in the course if you “password protect” them and use the class password, which will either be given in class or emailed to you.
How do you put the class password on your blog posts? After you’ve written your post, go the box called “publish” on the top right, then choose “visibility,” click “edit,” and choose “password protected.” Then put in the class password given out in class.
See a screencast video on how to post to the class site, make a pseudonym and use passwords: it’s posted on the course website, “assignments” menu.
Make your posts viewable only by Christina and the TA
You can make your posts hidden to everyone except Christina and the TA by making them “private.” To do so, when you’re writing a post, find the box called “publish” at the top right of the page. Then go to “visibility” and click “edit,” and then click “private.”