This syllabus is subject to revision as necessary at any time during the semester.

GGR 376 / PRM 376
Planning for Sustainable Tourism
Spring 2006 Syllabus

Spring 2006 - 3 Credit Hours
Professor: Dr. Alan A. Lew

Office Location: Southwest Forest Science Complex (Bldg 82), Room 120
Mailing Address: Dept. of Geography Planning & Recreation, NAU Box 15016, Flagstaff, AZ 86011-5016
TEL: 928-523-6567 (office); 928-523-2650 (dept.)
FAX: 928-523-2275 (attn: Dr Lew)

FORMAT: 100% online using VISTA (VISTA) - The Class Homepage is http://vista.nau.edu (I think!!)
You must log in using your NAU Dana or Jan account. The class will not appear until you have registered for it AND the Professor has manually opened the class for the semester. You should bookmark this website.

• Registered students will not be able to access the VISTA version of this class until the Weekend prior to the first day of class. DO NOT SUBMIT ANY ASSIGNMENTS UNTIL THE FIRST OFFICIAL DAY OF CLASS (on TUESDAY, January 17, 2006)!
  
  
• If you Register for the class AFTER the FIRST ASSIGNMENT is Due - Click Here

Office Hours: Email the Professor to set up an appointment.
Off-campus students: if you want to talk by phone, send an e-mail and the Professor will call you from Flagstaff. You can also arrange to meet in the VISTA CHAT ROOM to address your questions.

IMPORTANT: E-MAIL POLICY: All Correspondence starting January 17th, 2006 must take place through the VISTA website (http://vista.nau.edu). Correspondence prior to that date may be sent to Alan.Lew@NAU.EDU.

• Outside of VISTA, please use your DANA account to send email message. Dana is the official and only acceptable email server for all NAU email correspondence. Use of non-Dana email accounts may not be responded to.
• Unless specifically instructed otherwise, All Written Assignments must be submitted through VISTA. Any assignment emailed outside of VISTA will be ignored. Contact the NAU Help Desk (see below) if you cannot send an email or an assignment within VISTA.

To Send an Email from VISTA: Click On MAIL on the left sidebar menu; Click on COMPOSE MAIL MESSAGE; Click on BROWSE and then click on the Professor's Name; click on DONE; Compose your message; then SEND it.

If you are having PROBLEMS WITH VISTA
- DO NOT EMAIL THE PROFESSOR, instead:

Contact the NAU Academic Computing Help Desk at:
Flagstaff: 523-9294
Toll free: 1-888-520-7215
On the web: http://www4.nau.edu/achd/
Via e-mail: help@dana.ucc.nau.edu

• For a comprehensive list of resources available to web students please visit: http://www.distance.nau.edu/guide/student_resources.aspx

If you ADD this Class after the First Day of the Semester -- Email the Professor As Soon As Possible so you can be added to the VISTA class site. Click Here for special requirements for Late Registered Students.

If you Drop this class, you need to let your Professor know as you will need to be manually dropped from the class VISTA website.

COURSE DESCRIPTION: This course covers both issues and methods in planning for tourism development from the perspective of sustainable development. Sustainable development is generally defined as using resources to meet the needs of society today in such a way as to ensure the availability of resources to meet the needs of future generations. To accomplish this requires the application of many traditional public planning methods, with an emphasis on community participation and ecosystem management models.

Prerequisites: None – Please note that access and use of the the Internet are required for All Students.

FORMAT:

• This is a 100% web-based class. All of the material and assignments will be on the WWW. You will mostly be working on your own in the class and you will be entirely responsible for your own work. This class requires an enormous amount of SELF DISCIPLINE. To consider whether or not you should continue with the class, it is recommended that you read: Tips for Success in this Class

SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES: By the end of this course, students will:

(1) Understand the concept of Sustainable Development
(2) Be familiar with various planning paradigms that may be applied to sustainable development efforts
(3) Understand the major components of the tourism industry and phenomenon
(4) Understand the relationship between tourism and larger community and environmental systems
(5) Be able to theoretically apply sustainable development concepts to tourism planning in both developed and less developed situations

ASSUMPTIONS: Students are expected to have:

1. Good familiarity with personal computers, the Internet and World Wide Web.
2. Ability to use a word processor, such as Microsoft Word, which can be found in all of the NAU computer labs.
3. Access to the WWW from a computer that meets the VISTA System Requirements. Note that your computer must be able to play MP3 audio files.
4. Ability to devote an average of 7 to 9 hours a week to this class (this is based on the fact that a full-time load of 15 credit hours is roughly equivalent to 40 to 45 hours of work a week)

• TBA - the principal textbook will be announced here once it is confirmed
• Planning Guide to Tourism Development for Rural Areas by the Arizona Department of Commerce - NAU Cline Electronic Reserves
  

COURSE SCHEDULE

Click Here to view a Draft Class Schedule.

The Official Course Schedule is kept in the CALENDAR link within VISTA. Note that you can also add your own, private, entries into the VISTA Calendar. You should check the Calendar daily (as well as your VISTA email) to make sure that you are getting your assignments done.

• If you Register for the class AFTER the FIRST ASSIGNMENT is Due - Click Here

ASSIGNMENTS

ASSIGNMENT POLICIES

1. ASSIGNMENT SUBMISSION VERIFICATION: You are responsible for verifying that your assignment was properly submitted.

   • For assignments that are posted in VISTA, you must Reload/Refresh your screen to check that the assignment is indeed posted for others to see. (Click on the Refresh or Reload button on your browser.)
   • For assignments that are e-mailed to your Professor, you are required to check your Mail OUTBOX to verify that it was sent to the correct person. NEVER Delete Any Email in VISTA. If your INBOX gets too full, create a new folder and move the messages to it.
   • If there is a problem in the posting of a grade, you must notify your Professor in a timely manner (within 1 week of when you thought it should be posted). If you wait until the end of the class term, I am not obligated to address your problem.
     
     
2. WRITTEN ASSIGNMENTS
   • ALL WRITTEN ASSIGNMENTS, INCLUDING THOSE POSTED IN THE DISCUSSION AREA OF VISTA, WILL BE CONSIDERED LATE IF RECEIVED AFTER 11:59 P.M. ON THEIR DATE DUE.
     
   • LATE WRITTEN ASSIGNMENT POLICY: 15 points will be deducted for each day that an assignment is late. Late assignments will not be accepted after 7 days. You are also less likely to receive an immediate response to your assignment if it is late, since the class needs to move on and not as much time can be devoted to late assignments.
   • Submissions outside of VISTA will be ignored.
   • EARLY SUBMISSIONS OF ASSIGNMENTS ARE ENCOURAGED AND ALWAYS ACCEPTED.
   • Please note that Due Dates and Times are all Arizona Standard Time. If you live in a different time zone, you must compensate for the difference.
     
     
3. MAKE UP LATE ASSIGNMENTS - Both Written Assignments & Quizzes

• Requests for make up assignments, both written assignments and quizzes, will only be allowed for reasons beyond the control of the student. In addition, you must provide:
1. A clear and complete explanation of the reason the assignment is late, including why the assignment could not have been submitted before the problem arose;
• Note that waiting until the last few hours before a quiz or an assignment is due and then running into a personal problem will not be considered an acceptable reason for why the assignment is late.
2. Written proof, such as a letter from a doctor, minister or funeral home, or a letter from the NAU Dean of Students (or the Associate Dean of Students), supporting your justification
• The Instructor Mailing address and Fax number are at the top of this syllabus.
• You will receive less credit if you could have done the assignment before the problem arose.
• See the section on Extra Credit (below) if late assignments become a problem for you.
  
  

ASSIGNMENT TYPES:

• (1) WEEKLY ASSIGNMENTS (50 points each)

  Weekly Assignments are DUE on Thursdays (by 11:59 p.m.) starting Thursday, March 2nd. You are required to complete the 14 module assignments. Some assignments will be sent to me by e-mail, while others will be posted on the NAU Virtual Conference Center for others to read. A Final Exam will be given in the form of a review assignment -- also worth 50 points each. There is no midterm assignment and no assignment will be given for Spring Break. (14 assignments = 350 points total, excluding Week 1)

• (2) Class Intro Assignment - Due on Thursday, 26 January (20 points only)
  
  
• (3) FINAL TERM PROJECT (100 points)

  The Final Term Project is a web-site that you create on which you present a Sustainable Tourism Plan for a community or small area that you are familiar with. More information on this will be provided later in the class on the Week 15 Assignment Page. (100 points total)
  

FINISHING THE CLASS EARLY

Web-based students often ask about finishing the class early. Because not all assignments will be posted early, this is generally not possible. In addition, the Final Review Assignment will not be posted until the last week of classes. It may be possible (in some semesters) to finish all assignments, except the Final Review Assignment, a few weeks before the end of the semester. Only one or two students ever actually do this in any semester.

GRADING

The Percentage Grading Breakdown will be:

• Assignments = 360 points
• Term project = 100 points
• Check-ins = 40 points

TOTAL POINTS POSSIBLE = 500

• To Receive an 'A' = Minimum 450 points (90%)
• To Receive a 'B' = Minimum 400points (80%)
• To Receive a 'C' = Minimum 325 points (65%)
• To Receive a 'D' = Minimum 250 points (50%)
• Below 250 points (50%) = ‘F’
  
  The 'A' grade is intended for students who consistently submit work that is both on time and superior to the majority of the rest of the class. You need to demonstrate mastery of the subject matter through the quality and thoughtfulness of your answers. Between 10% and 20% of the class will likely receive an 'A'. (It could be more or less than this, depending on the makeup of the class.)

WARNING: Keep all of the work that you receive points for in this (and all of your classes)! If there is ever a discrepancy between what is recorded in the Grade book and what you think you received, the Grade book will only be changed if you have your original work.

The Total Grade Points and Percentage Grading Breakdown are subject to change due to unforeseeable circumstances that may affect the total points. Final grades will be based on the percentages above as they apply to the total final points at the end of the semester.

All Written Assignment Points will be posted in VISTA about a week after they are submitted. Late asssignments will take about two weeks (or more) to be graded. Points for Quizzes will generally be posted as soon as the quiz is completed.

EXTRA CREDIT

Your assignments are expected to be well written and checked for spelling and grammatical errors.

The web pages for this course should be the same -- though human error can occur. To help me maintain the class web pages as best as I can, you will receive 1 point for each typo or spelling error that you find in the text or assignment instructions. Only the First Person to find the error and inform the PROFESSOR of it will receive these points (yes, you should email Dr. Lew directly if you find something). You need to be clear as to where the problem is and what it is. And the error needs to be an obvious one, and not subject to semantic debate.

• These points will be placed in an Extra Credit column in the Grade book.
  
• The following words will often be tagged as typos in a spell checker. For this class, these are considered correct spellings: Checkin, Webpage, Website, Gradebook.
• Some international cities and countries have more than one correct spelling, both of which may be encountered in this class. Similarly, many scientific terms, commonly used in the physical and social sciences, will not be in most spell checkers. Before submitting these as potential typos, please do a more general search of the WWW to see if they are commonly used in academic publication.
• Some of the pages on the class website are developed by either VISTA or NAU, and not by Dr. Lew. These pages also have typos on them, but cannot fix by Dr. Lew. Therefore, you will not receive extra credit for pointing these out. You can usually tell if they are VISTA or NAU pages because they look different from the pages that Dr. Lew created -- though sometimes the difference is small.

There are No Other Extra Credit Options for this class. All students are treated the same, so any extra credit options that are adopted are only those that would be available to ALL students. (Do not contact Dr. Lew asking for a special extra credit assignment for yourself alone.)

SUSTAINABILTY & TOURISM EVENTS

You can earn extra credit in this class by attending up to two outside events or activities that are related to the class and writing a short report on the event and what you learned from it. Each report is worth up to 5 points and you may do no more than two reports in one week. I will read and edit what you have written, and then post it on the class discussion list for other students to read.

I will post announcements on the class dicussion list of campus events that qualify, however, if you have any ideas for other events (or site visits) that you would like to do, just get my approval in advance.

INCOMPLETES

Incompletes will not be given without written recommendation by the Dean of Students.

• Please note that the university policy for an incomplete is that it is only granted to students who have completed most of the work for the class and are only tardy on a couple of assignments that would enable them to pass the class. In addition, the reason for not completing the tardy assignments must be beyond the student's control. Finally, the policy states that "After a grade is submitted to the Registrar, the grade may not be changed as the result of the addition of extra credit work not available to all students in the course and/or work not outlined in the syllabus or an addendum which was distributed during the semester."

Retaking the Class to Raise Your Grade

If you are not receiving the grade that you prefer toward the end of the semester, then the recommended action is to retake the class in another semester and apply for a Grade Replacement using this form: MS Word, .PDF - the form must be submitted at the time that you register for the class the second time. Note that the assignments will probably be different the second time that you take the class.

OTHER POLICIES

ACCESS TO CLASS: Students who fall behind by more than two weeks without explanation may be locked out of the class -- i.e., you will not be able to log into class through VISTA. To get back into the class, you need to send an email to Dr. Lew at Alan.Lew@NAU.EDU and explain why you have not been doing your work and how you are going to catch up.

PLAGIARISM and CHEATING: You are expected to do all of the work yourself, and to properly reference any material that you use from other sources. DO NOT COPY ANOTHER STUDENT’S WORK. DO NOT GIVE YOUR PAPER TO ANOTHER STUDENT TO TURN IN AS THEIR WORK.

• If you do either of these, at a minimum you will receive zero (0) points for the assignment AND a number of points equal to that of the assignment will be further deducted from your total. For example, for a 100 point assignment, you will get 0 for the assignment, and 100 points will be further deducted from your total.
• In addition, and you may be dismissed entirely from this class.
  
• Related to this, DO NOT COPY SOMETHING FROM ANY OTHER SOURCE WITHOUT A COMPLETE REFERENCE TO ITS ORIGINAL AUTHOR (Author, Title, Year, Publisher, Page numbers, and Access date and URL for Web material). Points will be deducted from assignments if you do not properly reference your sources.

  The following WWW site on doing research and avoiding electronic plagiarism is recommended reading for anyone doing research on the WWW: http://www.sofweb.vic.edu.au/internet/research.htm