Intensive Asynchronous Online (Winter)

The Winter Session has no scheduled class meetings: you work through the lecture videos, readings, and assignments on your own, paced by daily deadlines. What makes it different from the asynchronous section offered during the regular semester is the pace — a full 16-week course delivered in eleven days.

Plan on Eight Hours a Day

The accelerated calendar leaves no buffer. Log in every morning to check deadlines and announcements, work ahead when you can, and never fall behind the suggested pacing — quizzes lock at midnight Eastern and are not reopened. If you fall behind at any point, you will probably need to drop the course.

Winter 2025 Section

Section

Instructor

001 DIS

Timothy Reese

Your section’s official Simple Syllabus document is available through Brightspace.

Course schedule: Winter Session Schedule

For the eleven-day roadmap, the daily time budget, and the getting-started checklist, see the Winter Session home page.

Grading

Category

Percentage

Daily quizzes

10%

Homework (including computer assignments)

34%

Midterm Exam (day 6)

24%

Final Exam (day 11)

32%

Total

100%

Course Evaluation (bonus)

+1%

Daily quizzes (10%)

Timed 20-minute quizzes in Brightspace, one per instructional day, covering the material from that day’s chapters. Each quiz is worth 10 points and mixes true/false questions (1 point each) with multiple-choice questions (2 points each), and mirrors the more theoretical questions you will see on the proctored exams. One attempt only; quizzes lock at midnight Eastern. The two lowest quiz scores are dropped, and there are no make-up quizzes.

Homework and computer assignments (34%)

Delivered through Edfinity, due the day after the corresponding reading, before midnight. Due dates are marked on both Brightspace and Edfinity. Homework problems are automatically graded: you get 10 attempts on free-response problems and 3 on multiple choice — use them to learn, not to guess. Computer assignments use a provided data set and require R code, graphs, and written interpretation. The lowest homework score and the lowest computer assignment score are dropped. No late submissions are accepted. The syllabus assignment is on Brightspace rather than Edfinity.

Exams (56%)

One midterm (24%) on Wednesday, December 31 and a comprehensive final (32%) on Friday, January 9, both delivered online in Brightspace through Respondus LockDown Browser with webcam monitoring. Each opens for a 24-hour window; once you begin you have 80 minutes for the midterm and 140 minutes for the final. There are no make-up exams. See Course Syllabus — Winter Session 2025 for equipment requirements, allowed materials, and the practice-run checklist.

Course evaluation (+1% bonus)

The anonymous online evaluation is open Tuesday, January 6 through Friday, January 9, 2026; you will receive an email at your Purdue address with a direct link. If at least 80% of enrolled students complete it by January 9, every student receives 1% extra credit added to their final course percentage. Results are released only after final grades are submitted.

Your Daily Cycle

Each instructional day follows the same four steps:

  1. Absorb (≈2–4 hours). Complete the assigned reading in the webbook and watch the segmented lecture videos. Use the search bar and timeline in the video viewer to target topics you find challenging.

  2. Apply (≈2–4 hours). Work the Edfinity homework and computer assignments on scratch paper first, then submit. Record the steps that slow you down and revisit those notes before the exams.

  3. Assess (≈20 minutes). Take the timed daily quiz in Brightspace.

  4. Review (≈1 hour). Check posted solutions, revisit video segments on hard topics, and post or answer questions on the peer board.

Staying on Track

  • Check Brightspace announcements and your Purdue email every morning — due dates and course changes are posted there.

  • Keep tidy notes as you go. The exams are open-note, and notes written the night before are not as useful as notes written while you learned the material.

  • Start early. The course site opens before December 22, so begin working ahead.

  • Lean on the peer discussion board. In a session this compressed, your classmates are your fastest source of help; instructor email replies may take 24–48 hours.

For everything shared across the session — resources, exam procedures, grading scale, academic integrity, and university policies — see Course Syllabus — Winter Session 2025.