Welcome to Science Fiction, ENG2420 OL74!

Dear all,

I would like to welcome you to our Spring 2021 Science Fiction class! To make sure you’re in the right place, this is ENG2420 OL74. I am Prof. Ellis and I will be leading our class this semester.

It’s important that you read through this message carefully and follow my directions below to join our class on OpenLab.

Even though classes don’t begin until Friday, January 29, the school asked faculty to reach out to students early to help everyone acclimate to distance education. At any point, feel free to reach out to me by email with any questions that you might have.

Our class is completely online this semester and we will not be meeting synchronously (meaning at the same time). Instead, our class is designated asynchronous, which means each student can watch lectures and do the work at times of their choosing as long as deadlines are met.

We will be using City Tech’s OpenLab to coordinate our class and the work that you will be doing this semester. To get you setup with the OpenLab, you will need to create an account using your City Tech email address (if you haven’t already done so), which you can do here: https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/register/

After you login to OpenLab with your account, you need to visit the Profile Page of our class and click on “Join Now” on the left side under the avatar of Boba Fett and other Star Wars characters: https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/groups/eng2420-ol74-science-fiction-spring-2021/

Then, to access our class site where I will post lectures and assignments, and you will turn in many of your projects in the class, click on “Visit Course Site” after you joined the course, or you can go there directly by following this link: https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/elliseng2420sp2021/

On our Course Site, you will see this Welcome message from me at the top of the page. Before Wednesday, February 4, I will post the first lecture video and weekly writing assignment. I explain a lot about how the class works and what we will be doing in that video. It is imperative that you watch each video lecture completely and have a notebook out to take notes in during the lecture.

Also, look at the menu on the left side of our Course Site to find the link to the class Syllabus: https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/elliseng2420sp2021/syllabus/. All of our class’ policies, major assignments and grades, and schedule can be found there. I go over the syllabus in detail in the first lecture video.

Finally, I will hold weekly virtual office hours on Wednesday from 3:00pm-5:00pm on Google Hangouts here: https://hangouts.google.com/call/ffqYdoXngPvd-4OB-HTtACEE. I will post a link to Google Hangouts on our Course Site each week, too. If you would like to meet with me at a different day and time, please send me an email with your availability for the coming week and we can arrange a time that works for both of our schedules.

I’m looking forward to working with you all over the fall semester. Remember to contact me with questions or if anything comes up that affects your performance in the class at jellis@citytech.cuny.edu. I want us all to complete the semester successfully!

Be well and stay safe!

Best, Professor Ellis