BUL Seminar Student Info

LINK TO PEER REVIEW FORM

LINK* TO ABSTRACT SUBMISSION

*Please note if you try to use the abstract submission link outside the NWC network, it will not work! It is on the NWC intranet. Either submit from the NWC or use VPN network access points.

SYLLABUS: METR 6970 FALL 2020
Boundary Layer, Urban Meteorology, and Land-Surface Processes Seminar

Time: Tuesday 2:00PM – 2:50PM
Location: Virtual

Instructor information:
Elizabeth Smith
Email: elizabeth.n.smith@ou.edu or elizabeth.smith@noaa.gov
Office: NWC4351 (behind locked NOAA doors, request time for meeting)

Seminar dates:
01 September
08 September
15 September
22 September
29 September
06 October
13 October
20 October – Francesca Lappin
27 October
10 November – Chris Rattray
17 November
01 December
08 December

COVID-19 Considerations
This course has been adapted in response to COVID-19. It will be conducted on Zoom (with live stream to youtube for federal partners’ access). Seminars will be recorded unless specifically asked. Other things to consider:

1. Nobody signed up for this:
   1. Not for the sickness, not for the social distancing, not for the different way life looks now on campus
   2. Not for an online class, not for teaching remotely, not for teaching from home, not for mastering new technologies, not for varied access to learning materials
2. The humane option is the best option:
   1. We are going to prioritize supporting each other as humans
   2. We are going to prioritize simple solutions that make sense for the most
   3. We are going to prioritize sharing resources and communicating clearly
3. We cannot do the exact same things from past courses
   1. Some facets of the course are no longer possible
   2. Some expectations are no longer reasonable
   3. Some objectives are no longer valuable
4. We will foster intellectual nourishment, social connection, and personal accommodation:
   1. Striving for accessible asynchronous content for diverse access, time zones, and contexts
   2. Maintaining the synchronous delivery of seminar to foster learning together, support of speakers, and to combat isolation
5. We will remain flexible and adjust to the situation:
   1. Nobody knows exactly where this is going and how else we may need to adapt
   2. Everybody needs support and understanding in this unprecedented moment
6. Please reach out at any time and provide feedback on how things are or are not working for you. We will continue to adapt.

Expectations of enrolled students:
This course is graded as Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory. In general, students are expected to attend the seminar series and be engaged audience members for all seminars. To earn a Satisfactory mark, enrolled students must meet the following requirements:
1. Delivery of an acceptable seminar (with timely submission of title and abstract) 2. Participation in peer-review of all student presentations.
3. Attendance to all seminars presented during the semester (if a conflict prevents the student from attending a seminar during the semester, they are responsible for contacting the instructor before the missed seminar).

Expectations of instructor:
The instructor will facilitate a seminar environment that is conducive to learning and scientific discussion. This facilitation includes the following:
1. Maintaining the seminar webpage and ensuring the timely dissemination of seminar announcements throughout the NWC
2.Introducing speakers as needed and moderating constructive question and answer sessions after each seminar
3. Collecting and compiling anonymous peer review information after each seminar
4. Evaluating student task completion and submitting final grades

General information:
Much of the information in this document is adapted from the SoM Graduate Student Handbook which is available online here. The instructor will be responsible for scheduling the talks given in the seminars, whereby speakers will typically be a mix of students enrolled in the seminar section, faculty members, members from the NWC scientific community, and outside speakers. The instructor will assure that all students enrolled in the section will be accommodated and will also assign the grade for the seminar class. Students will have to decide with their advisers in which sections they should enroll and coordinate their seminar date at the beginning of the semester with the instructor of record. This will apply to all students enrolled in the various sections, but instructors are encouraged to work with students that are graduating the same semester to find a seminar date that best fit the students’ needs. Accommodating all graduating students during the last couple of weeks of the semester will however not be possible and students and advisers should move away from planning of having the seminar the same week as the thesis or dissertation defense. Students enrolled in a section are expected to attend all seminars presented during the semester in which they are enrolled. 

Acceptable seminar:
The definition of an acceptable seminar depends on the current status of each enrolled student. In general, the seminar should be directly related to the research topic the student is focusing on for their degree. A seminar delivered as a requirement for the MS should cover the topic area of the MS thesis and present at least some cursory results (depending on proximity to defense). A seminar delivered by an early-term PhD student may be more flexible, covering a literature review, method design, or just limited or updated results. Seminars delivered by later-term PhD students should be more robust and include results and place the work in a broader scientific context. Ultimately, the determination of an acceptable seminar is up to the instructor, but a discussion with the student and the student’s advisor would be held before a presented seminar would be determined as unacceptable.

Seminar format:
Not all seminar presentations are expected to be of the same length and format.Seminars of beginning PhD students can be shorter and focus on literature review and/or provide an update on the student’s progress with his/her research.  A nominal length of 20 minutes is recommended for all but the final MS or PhD presentations. Seminars should not run longer than 40 minutes, allowing 10 minutes for questions at the end. Our meeting period is 50 minutes long, so timeliness is required. Typically, seminars are presented via slideshow format. The meeting room has a built-in computer system and hook-up for various laptops, including an AppleTV. It is strongly recommended that you check your desired method of connection BEFORE your seminar. SoMIT staff should be able to address any issues, concerns, or questions you may have about connecting to the projector. Again, please check your connection method and troubleshoot any issues with SoMIT before your seminar.

Schedule:
The schedule will be built based on student requests as soon as possible, with preference given to graduating students.The full schedule will be available online at http://weather.ou.edu/~oubliss/ under the Seminars tab. In the event of instructor travel/conflict , a qualified guest instructor will be appointed for any seminars falling in that period.

Abstracts:
All speakers are expected to prepare a title and abstract (1-2 paragraphs in length) for their seminar. The title and abstract must be delivered to the instructor and submitted to the School of Meteorology (via an online form at http://intranet.nwc.ou.edu/SOM/ ) at least 2 weeks prior to the seminar so announcements can be disseminated to the community. Once provided to the instructor, the title and abstract will also be uploaded to the BLISS webpage at http://weather.ou.edu/~oubliss/ under the Seminars tab.

Peer review:
All enrolled students will be required to peer-review all other presentations via an online form (like provided on seminar webpage). The anonymous responses to a quick online survey will be provided to each speaker following their presentations. The instructor and all enrolled students will participate in the peer-review process, providing students with a number of reviews that equals the number of enrollees. Submission of a peer-review survey will serve as a mark of attendance for all enrolled students, therefore a name field is required but will not be shared with the presenter. Examples of questions included the peer-review form are provided below. The instructor welcomes feedback on how useful the questions are and if other questions are needed.

The results of these surveys are not tied to the Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory mark of the speaker, so please do provide honest feedback to your peers. In the first term these surveys were implemented, the average scores were near 4.5, which is not an honest reflection of seminar feedback. Consider a 3 average, a 5 absolutely excellent, and a 1 absolutely terrible, and please rank accordingly. Everyone providing politely high marks is not a good example of constructive criticism, which is critical to the peer review process.
Questions:
Question 1 and 2 are housekeeping
1. Presenter’s Name
2.Reviewer’s Name (will not be shared with presenter)
Questions 3-8 are marked on a scale from 1-5 where 1 is poor and 5 is excellent:
3. DESIGN (uncluttered and visually appealing slides, readable text and graphics)
4. ORGANIZATION (clear objectives, logical structure, succinct transitions)
5. PRESENCE (body language, eye contact, poise, physical organization)
6. LANGUAGE SKILLS (correct usage, appropriate vocabulary and grammar, good rhythm and intonation, and spoken loud enough to be easily heard)
7. MASTERY OF SUBJECT (pertinence, depth of commentary, spoken – not read, able to answer questions)
8.OVERALL IMPRESSION (very interesting or very boring, pleasant or unpleasant to listen to, very good or very poor communication)
Questions 9-12 are long-form response for more general feedback:
9. Describe one strength of the slides used in this presentation.
10. Suggest one way to make the slides better.
11. List one thing the presenter did particularly well with respect to delivering material.
12. Suggest one way the presenter could improve the delivery of the presentation.

Asking questions:
While you might assume the main goal of the seminar requirement is to provide students speaking experience, it is not the only important goal. From our seminar series, I also want to provide opportunities for all involved to learn to become better at listening, offering critique, and building the confidence to ask questions in a seminar setting. Accomplishing listening and critique skill development is built in through peer review. That leaves us with confident questions. Typically, in seminars at the NWC (and in my experience at professional meetings), it is pretty rare for students and post docs to chime in during the open question session. There are lots of reasons for this. Maybe the talk is too boring to follow. But also, maybe students don’t feel comfortable enough or confident enough to state their questions out loud. I know that there has never been a BUL seminar that I just simply understood so clearly that I had zero questions at all. This is an important skill that suddenly becomes required to lead a series like this one or be a session chair at a conference. I want to help change this norm, so I have built it into the BUL seminar. I promise to do my best to promote your question or engage with it to protect you from the perceived risk of asking a question and receiving little response or engagement.

Other important policies:

Reasonable accommodation: The University of Oklahoma is committed to provide reasonable accommodation for all students with disabilities. Students with disabilities who require accommodations in this course are requested to speak with the professor as early in the semester as possible. Students with disabilities must be registered with the Disability Resource Center prior to receiving accommodations in this course. The Disability Resource Center is located in Goddard Health Center, Suite 166, phone 405-325-3852 or TDD only 405-325-4173.

Academic Misconduct: All provisions of the Norman Campus Academic Misconduct Code shall apply in cases of academic dishonesty. Academic misconduct is defined as “any act that improperly affects the evaluation of a student’s academic performance or achievement.” All faculty at the University of Oklahoma expect academic integrity from each student. Misconduct such as plagiarism, fabrication and fraud, as well as attempting to commit such acts or assisting others in doing so, will not be tolerated. Students are responsible for knowing the academic misconduct code (http://integrity.ou.edu/files/Academic_Misconduct_Code.pdf), which is included in the student code. All instances of alleged academic misconduct will be thoroughly investigated and action will be taken according to the rights and responsibilities described under the academic misconduct code: http://integrity.ou.edu/files/Academic_Misconduct_Code.pdf.

Adjustments for Pregnancy/Childbirth Related Issues: Should you need modifications or adjustments to your course requirements because of documented pregnancy-related or childbirth-related issues, please contact me as soon as possible to discuss. Generally, modifications will be made where medically necessary and similar in scope to accommodations based on temporary disability. Please see www.ou.edu/content/eoo/pregnancyfaqs.html for commonly asked questions.

Religious Holiday Policy: It is the policy of the University to excuse the absences of students that result from religious observances and to provide without penalty for the rescheduling of examinations and additional required course work that may fall on a religious holiday.

Title IX Resources: For any concerns regarding gender-based discrimination, sexual harassment, sexual misconduct, stalking, or intimate partner violence, the University offers a variety of resources, including advocates on-call 24/7, counseling services, mutual no contact orders, scheduling adjustments and disciplinary sanctions against the perpetrator. Please contact the Sexual Misconduct Office 405-325-2215 (8-5) or the Sexual Assault Response Team 405-615-0013 (24/7) to learn more or to report an incident.