Individuals with disabilities who need to request accommodations should contact the Disability Services Coordinator, Student Center 214, 770-961-3719, disabilityservices@mail.clayton.edu

Students apply for internships with local businesses to focus and apply information technology skills. Hours may vary, but generally range between 10-17 hours per week, for a minimum of 150 hours per semester. Employers coordinate with the University to evaluate student performance in the workplace. Students must articulate clear goals and objectives and document their progress. Application must be made to Office of Experiential Learning and is subject to IT Department approval. Internship / Experiential Learning is designed to introduce students to the real world environment and to provide them the opportunity to apply their theoretical knowledge to a variety of systems.

Prerequisite(s): ITFN 2001 (C); Application due four weeks before start of semester. Prerequisite or co-requisite: ITFN 2123 (C) and ITFN 2601(C)

· Carefully study and follow all steps in Form #1 “Student Steps for Experiential Learning”.

· Complete Form #2 “Student Information for Experiential Learning” and return as soon as possible to the Office of Experiential Learning.

· Complete form #3 “Experiential Learning Agreement” and return it NLT April 1st, 2005 prior to attending the orientation meeting. (Blue Sheet)

· Apply knowledge, experience, and learning to a critical analysis of current issues you are facing or dealing with during your experiential learning.

· Section 1:
General Description of your working environment (Experiential Learning Environment):
Explain the business, its product and/or services, its size (annual sales volume, number of employees), its location, the industry they are in, their expertise, market they are in, geographical location(s), their competition, etc.

· Section 2:
Identify the objective(s) / problem you are, will be, working on:
Describe the existing function(s), the way system is, has been, working. Investigate the process in detail.

Clearly identify the problem, or more specifically, a discrepancy between an existing and desired state of affairs.

Clearly describe your learning objective, including your duties, responsibilities, and activities for meeting objectives.

· Section 3:
Identify decision criteria which is important to resolving the problem/objective. These criteria reflect what the management thinks is relevant in his/her decision. These might include criteria such as price, product model, efficiency of the existing systems, current hardware, software, applications, technology, clients/end-users knowledge, and equipment.
Since criteria are not equally important, you must assign appropriate weight to each criterion. A simple approach is merely to give the most important criterion a weight of 10 and then assign weights to the rest against this standard.

· Section 4:
Developing alternatives:
Develop viable alternatives that could resolve the problem/issue. This section should include at least four alternatives and/or options available for your objective / problem. Review these alternatives with your site supervisor prior to proceeding.

· Section 5:
Analyze alternatives:
Once alternatives have been identified, you must critically analyze each one. The strengths and weaknesses of each alternative should become evident. You should also take into consideration the criteria and weights you established in step 3.
This step needs to be reviewed, verified and approved by your site supervisor.

· Section 6:
Select the best alternative:
This is the crucial act of choosing the best alternative from among those listed and assessed. You need to choose the alternative that generated the highest score and fits best for the objective/problem.
You also need to justify and support your selection in detail.
This section needs to be reviewed, verified and approved by your site supervisor.

· Section 7:
Implementing the alternative:
Explain your implementation strategy, in details, include conveying the decision to those affected and getting their commitment to it. Describe the time, cost, and methods in detail.
This step needs to be reviewed, verified and approved by your site supervisor.

· Section 8:
Evaluating the decision effectiveness:
This section should appraise the result of the decision to see whether the problem has been resolved and/or the objective has been achieved. This step needs to be reviewed, verified and approved by your site supervisor.

NOTE: Please have your site supervisor "sign-off" on the Section 1-8 report after all sections are completed!

· Final Report:
The final report should contain all sections with a cover page indicating your name, the name of the host organization, date of submission, and any other pertinent information. This report should be submitted no later than Thursday, July 28th, 2005. (Note: Extension requests and justification for approval must be submitted to me via e-mail)

Each student is responsible for maintaining an accurate and current internship time log – refer to homepage for template document. Each student is required to submit this document as an e-mail attachment when requested by the faculty coordinator. Due dates will be identified via class e-mail announcements. Each student is responsible for monitoring class e-mail to ensure complete and timely responses to the faculty coordinator. A final hard copy time log signed by both the student and site supervisor is required to be submitted NLT Thursday, July 28th, 2005.

Students are expected to obtain a mature level of mastery of job search skills and in

developing a meaningful information technology (IT) project in cooperation with local

industry and working with business partners. Students will demonstrate a refined level of

comprehension in one of the information technology disciplines and should be able to

technology project, students will exhibit communication, reasoning, critical thinking and

Students who stop attending class without doing the necessary withdrawal paperwork will receive an automatic grade of “F”. Students who withdraw after midterm (June 14th, 2005) will receive an automatic grade of "WF”. Withdrawal policy and procedures are published in the Academic Catalog and in the Schedule of Classes each semester.

Please seek individual assistance from me or my Instructional Assistant (IA) should you need extra help in understanding any course material.

All students at CCSU are required to state that they have on-demand access to a notebook computer that meets the recommended hardware/software specifications that have been established by Clayton State faculty. Academic penalties may be incurred for not meeting this requirement. Refer to the ITP Choice website for specifications and FAQ’s: http://itpchoice.clayton.edu/.

* Host Organization Evaluation: During November the Office of Experiential Learning will mail a “Site Supervisor Evaluation” form to the host organization’s site supervisor (address provided by student on the Experiential Learning Agreement) for completion and timely return to the Office of Experiential Learning. The student is assigned and has a “coordinating responsibility” to ensure that this form is received by his/her site supervisor; completed (site supervisor comments and/or review of evaluation form with student is optional, but recommended); and mailed back to the Office of Experiential Learning in sufficient time for academic review and grade posting by the Information Technology Department.

Since this course is based on a project basis with the host organization, there will be no tests. Rather, the grade for this course

will be based on the performance criteria given here. Students who demonstrate excellence in all the phases of the project can

Letter Grade	Average
A	>= 90%
B	80% - 90%
C	70% - 80%
D	60% - 70%
F	< 60%

** Completeness, neatness and punctuality are considered during grading of written assignments. Students are expected to complete, and turn in on the due date (e-mail and/or hard copy) all required assignments. Use a word processor and spell checker.

*** I may conduct an exit interview at the end of the semester. This interview will focus on all the materials, subjects, issues, practices you have learned, and will also evaluate your transition and adjustment from an academic to a practical environment. If no exit interview is performed, individual reports, assignments, meetings and other possible events will constitute 50 vs. 25 percent of the final grade.

Course Changes: This course syllabus provides a general guideline for the course. I reserve the right to make periodic / necessary changes to the syllabus; including: assignments, timetables, examinations and projects, quizzes, etc., in order to accommodate the needs of the class as a whole and fulfill the goals of the course.

Academic Standards: Clayton College and State University does not condone cheating or other forms of academic dishonesty. Students must abide by policies in the University Catalog, Student Handbook, and, if applicable, the Program Handbook.