Welcome to the first assignment of this course about addiction. The most important thing for you to remember is that, if at any time you have any problem at all, send course mail in oncourse or e-mail jlafuze@indiana.edu or call Dr. Lafuze's voicemail is 765-973-8246 or 317-274-2276). Do not hesitate. Do NOT wait a day or two and then get in touch saying, "I hate to bother you but...." My goal is to be here for you. If I am going to be away from my computer, I will let you know. If my computer crashes, I will find another computer and let you know. Otherwise, I will log on every day and respond to oncourse mail messages. If you do not understand something, contact me immediately.

Remember that you are required to enter the classroom three (3) times a week. (If you will be on vacation, business travel or for other reasons will not be able to enter the classroom three times during the week, please let me know ahead of time or at the time that you cannot participate, and we will make appropriate arrangements).

Note: Students find it helpful to write responses to the formal assignments outside the course and save them on disk. Then you can cut and paste them into the appropriate forum. The exception to this might be in interactive conversation.

The trick to copying and pasting is to:

1. create your post in Word,

2.) use the "select all" feature under the edit menu

3.) use "control-c" key combination to copy what you have selected to the clipboard

4.) hit the minimize button at the top right part of the screen,

5.) open your browser (Explorer, Netscape, etc.) and go to the course,

6.) open a new course mail message and put the cursor where you want the text to be,

7.) hit "control-v" and it should paste what you copied into the new message you've opened. 

This first assignment may seem tedious, but it is designed to "get you around" our Oncourse classroom. If you have a problem here, we can solve it. If you don't understand something or can't access someplace in this assignment, it will alert us "up front" to a problem that will, hit harder if not solved later in the semester. Most of the assignments will not have so many little tasks for you, so don't let this one get you down! :)

This assignment is worth a total of 100 points. You may begin the assignment when it is posted. In fact you may complete the assignment as early as you wish, but if you do that, please go back during the week and look at responses from other students and course instructors.

Reading:

Text: pages i - xvii (Let me know immediately if you are having problems getting a text book! I will work with you on getting one, and can wave the penalty for late post, but I need to know right away that you are having this problem. If you do NOT have a text let me know (send a message in course mail), be certain to complete the rest of the assignment..

Other: Read the syllabus, the attendance and grading information, the IU East Learning Objectives and the med library information.

Assignment:

Begin this assignment as soon as possible after you enter the class. Take the steps in order. You should complete it by the end of thesecond week of classes.

By noon Monday, January, 21, please complete parts A, B and C.

A. Click on the PROFILE icon, and edit your profile. Please include your year in school, your major and all the ways that I might contact you. If there is some reason that it is necessary for you to remain hidden in the class, please let me know that. Otherwise, you are expected to be listed so that you can be "seen" by all in the class. (10 points)

B. Go to the Class icon and look for the designation "show Groups," Click on that link. Ignore the groups that start with the word Group. Look only at the groups that begin with one of the following scientists' names (David Satcher, Nancy Andreasen, Rosalyn S Yalow, Marie Curie, Sir Hans Adolf Krebs, and Carlsson/Greengard/Kandel). Determine that you are in a group that has a scientist's name and that you are in only one group with a scientst's name. Then go to the In Touch icon. Midway down the page you will see an option called Course Mail. Click on that and send me a message as instructor telling me that you have checked the listing of groups, that you are in a scientis's group and which one it is, and that you are not in more than one scientist's group. (10 points)

NOTE: Continue to use the course mail throughout the semester to contact us at any time that you have a question. PLEASE ASK SOONER RATHER THAN LATER. THANK YOU!

C. Click on page 3 to bring up a pdf file to download. Page 3. Post a statement in Assignment 1 Discussion Forum telling me how many people (both men and women) are sitting around the table in the picture. It may seem to take forever for it to load. Please do NOT give up too soon. (10 points). Next go to Oncourse Mail from jlafuze titled Brainfacts and download Brainfacts from that Oncourse Mail message. Then post a statement under the Brainfacts forum stating one fact that you learned from the publication (10 points)

NOTE: It is NOT the content of this part of the assignment that is important. It is finding out whether or not you are able to download it.

If you have trouble: To download a pdf file you will need an adobe acrobat reader . You can download this as freeware by going to the the following URL: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep.html

By noon Friday, January 24, please complete D,E and F..

D. Use the In Touch icon to reach the Introductions Forum. Use the box that comes up that indicates for you to post a new message to introduce yourself to the class. At no time do you need to share information that is uncomfortable for you to share, and we request that you NOT share confidential information about anyone, including yourself. We are unable to protect confidential items. We ask that your introduction include where you are a student, your field of study, and a four to five sentence statement about your perceptions and perspective on the general topic of addictions. This introduction needs to be at least four or five sentences long. (10 points)

E. Go to the In Touch Icon. Go to the forum titled David Leffler and introduce yourself to David. David will tell you what he is about. (10 points)

F. Use the link to the medical library, the Ruth Lilly Medical Library

There is also one in the syllabus (http://proxy.medlib.iupui.edu/ovid.html ) that you can use at any time.

Be prepared to authenticate by entering your Indiana University user name and password.

OVID search. Five items down the list it will give you an option for Journals@Ovid Full Text . That would be the most appropriate one for you to use. There are several ways to determine whether a journal is peer reviewed. When you choose an article in a journal, look for a box that comes up with information on it. About halfway down there will be a prompt that states, "about this journal.". Click on it and read until you find a statement about whether the journal is reviewed by peers or a statement of peer review if the journal is peer reviewed. Even if that statement is not there, there may be an instruction to authors submitting articles for publication to submit multiple copies (usually three or four) of the article. This is indirect evidence that the article is peer reviewed because the editor sends those copies to peers for review.

Find one 2002 article from a peer-reviewed journal having anything at all to do with addictions and then post the author(s) name(s), title, journal, volume number, and date. (10 points). If you are unable to access the med library, please contact Dr. Lafuze immediately.

G. Go to the TOOLS icon and click on the Tests and Survey option. Take quiz 1. (20 points)

NOTE: The questions are based on the text reading assignment above. The quiz is set up so that o can see your answers and compare them with the key after you submit the quiz. You can take this quiz as often as you wish. I will record the highest score. Students in the past have used the quizzes as study guides, by taking them and then using them to search the reading for the topic that is covered on the quiz. Try it! You may like it!!! Unless I notify you otherwise, all of the quizzes will be set up with these same options.

H. Respond to at least one other student's introduction message in the Introductions Forum. To do our response, go to the forum. On the far left panel you will find a series of icons one under the other. Count down five items to a darkened folder with a plus in front of it. Click on the + sign in front of the folder. A string of envelopes indicating messages from other class members will appear. Choose the student whose message you wish to respond and click on that message. A box for you to reply to the message will appear under the message that comes up from that student. Your response will appear as a thread under the original introductgion that your classsmate origianlly made. If you try to respond by simply posting a new message of your own, your message will show as a new message rather than as a thread of the other student's introduction. (10 points).

You can view the calendar by going to the Schedule icon and click on the view the calendar at the top of the page. The due date for each assignment appears there.

10 points for the completion of your profile update; 10 points for sending the instructor (Lafuze) a course mail through In Touch in Oncourse telling me whether you have been assigned to a group, only one group and if so what group that is; 10 points for describing the picture on Page 3 from the downloaded pdf file; 10 points for downloading Brainfacts; 10 points for posting in the Introductions Forum and 10 for responding to at least one other student post in the Introductions Forum; 10 points for posting a greeting to David Leffler in the forum with his name, 10 points for posting a response to the request for information on an article from a peer-reviewed journal from the medical library; and 20 points for the quiz.