FAQ
The questions students actually ask, and the reasoning behind the answers. If yours isn't here, ask it on the course discussion board and I'll add it.
Q: Why Do We Need to Do Peer Reviews?
A: Because reading someone else's work against a standard teaches you the standard far better than reading the standard does. You'll catch a missing alt attribute on a classmate's page a week before you stop forgetting it on your own.
It also gets you feedback faster than I can give it. Twenty students reviewing each other produce twenty rounds of correction in the time I need for one. That only works if the reviews say something - see the Peer Review Guidelines, built from an analysis of over 800 real reviews, for the difference between a review and a compliment.
Do a peer review on every assignment unless it says NPR, No Peer Review.
Q: Why Do We Need to Keep a Journal?
A: The journal is where you notice what you learned, which isn't the same as doing the work. Writing "I couldn't get the footer to stay down and it turned out to be a margin on the element above it" fixes that lesson in a way that silently fixing it never does.
It also gives me a view of your thinking rather than your output. When somebody is stuck, the journal usually shows me where three weeks before the grade would.
Q: Why Do We Need to Keep a Work Log?
A: Because you're terrible at estimating how long things take, and so am I, and so is every developer who has ever quoted a project. The work log is where you find out. Date, start time, end time, total, where you worked, what you did - punching in and punching out of a job.
Two things fall out of it. You learn your own pace, which is the foundation of every estimate you'll ever give a client or a manager. And when you tell me an assignment took forever, we both have something specific to look at.
Q: Why Do You Not Want Email?
A: Because most questions aren't private, and answering them privately wastes the answer. Ask on the course discussion board and everyone with the same question gets the answer, including the ones who didn't know they had it. You'll usually get a reply faster there too, because your classmates can answer.
Use the messaging tool in the course's learning management system when the matter is about you alone - grades, accommodations, personal circumstances. If I haven't answered and you need an answer, text me - my number is under instructor contact information in your LMS course. Say who you are, which class you're in, and what you need.
Q: How Do I Ask You for a Recommendation?
A: Short version: you should likely have earned an A, write the first draft yourself in a shared Google Doc, and then it's your job to keep bugging me until it's done. The full process - what to write, what to send me, and how not to misspell my name doing it - has its own page.
Q: What if I Miss a Deadline?
A: Tell me, and keep going. Your course syllabus governs late work, and asking before the deadline gets a far better answer than asking after - but a missed deadline isn't a reason to stop, and it's never a reason to disappear.
One late assignment won't sink you. Going quiet for three weeks because of it will.
Q: Should I Wait for My Grade Before Starting the Next Thing?
A: No. Keep moving. These courses run as a loop: do the work, submit it, get feedback, improve it, resubmit. You can revise most work, so a submission marks a checkpoint rather than a verdict, and waiting on feedback before continuing just stalls you.
Q: I've Fallen Behind. How Bad Is It?
A: Recoverable, and more recoverable the sooner you say so. Assignments build on each other - each page, file, and skill supports the next one - so a gap early tends to widen rather than close on its own.
Come talk to me about a plan. I'd much rather rearrange something than watch you withdraw.
Q: What Counts as "Done"?
A: I write down every rule I grade against, and for web work a machine checks it. Run the checker on your own page as many times as you like before you submit - see Validation for the tools and Web Standards for the rules. Nothing about your grade should be a surprise.
Q: Can I Use AI?
A: Usually, and it depends on the tier - the AI policy runs from ZERO-AI to ALL-AI. Check the assignment for its tier, ask when it doesn't name one yet, and read the policy before you start rather than after you finish.
Q: How Often Do I Need to Post in My Work Log or Journal?
A: A work log entry belongs to a work session, not a week - log one any time you sit down and work more than about 15 minutes. There's no fixed count to hit; the number of entries should just match how many times you actually worked.
The journal runs on a looser rhythm: about once a week, plus two replies to classmates. A little more or less, or a week where a good conversation pulls you in for extra replies, is fine - the shape matters more than the exact count.
Q: How Do I Get My Name Into the Introduction's Table of Contents?
A: Format the "Last, First" line that starts your entry as Heading 2. The table of contents builds itself from headings, so nobody's name appears there until they've done this - it isn't something you add separately, and it isn't broken if it's missing before you've written your entry.
If you've already added the heading and the table of contents still doesn't show it, right-click the table of contents and update it - it doesn't refresh on its own. See the Introductions instructions for the full layout.
Q: Is Discussion Board Participation Actually Required?
A: For the general class discussion board, minimally - post at least once so you're comfortable doing it, and that's worth a small number of points. Everything beyond that first post is extra credit, not a requirement.
Reading is a different story: treat the whole board as course material. Questions get answered there once, in public, specifically so nobody has to ask the same thing privately - which only works if people actually read it.
Q: Why Is My Overall Grade So Low Early in the Semester?
A: Because most of what builds a grade in this course is cumulative - journals, work logs, and unit-based work all add up over the whole term, not the first two weeks of it. Early on, almost nothing has come due yet, so a low percentage is just the math of a mostly-empty gradebook, not a sign you're behind.
It starts making sense once a few weeks have passed and there's enough posted to compare against. If something specific still looks wrong once real due dates have passed, that's worth asking about - a generally-low early grade on its own usually isn't.
Q: The Class Discussion Board Is Painfully Slow to Load - What Do I Do?
A: This is a Canvas limitation, not something specific to this class or term - a discussion board with hundreds of posts is simply heavy for Canvas to render, especially on the general class discussion. A few things reliably help: switch the view to collapsed rather than expanded, mark posts as read as you go, and then filter to show only unread. Searching for a keyword instead of scrolling also avoids loading the whole thread at once.
Q: How Do I Know if You've Seen My Resubmission?
A: Canvas doesn't reliably notify instructors when you resubmit, so don't assume silence means it was missed - but don't assume it was caught immediately either. Give it a couple of days. If your grade still hasn't updated after that, post it to the grading/regrading discussion board so it's tracked somewhere visible rather than buried in one assignment's comment thread.