Landscape Ecology Lab

The only other thing is that we have to use a different site to actually be able to do the lab its called virtual sinc site and i can give you my username and password to access it.

please follow the link to download the requirements https://mab.to/7MtbIGRSd

BIO 319 / BEE 574 • Landscape Ecology Laboratory

Guidelines for Lab Reports
How they will be graded

Because this is a laboratory course, most of your grade will be based on the reports you write for each lab. Your report will be graded for accuracy and completeness of answers to questions (see “What to Include” below). Poor grammar, excessive typos and spelling errors will lower your grade.

For other details of grading lab reports, see the Course Information and Syllabus document.

All lab reports are to be strictly each student’s individual work. Credit will not be given for any collaborative work. Academic dishonesty will not be tolerated. All suspected cases will be referred to the Academic Judiciary without further warning. See also the section on Citing and Quoting below.

How to turn them in

Whenever possible, we will attempt to reduce the paper waste in this course. Therefore lab reports will be turned in electronically through Blackboard. To submit a lab report, save your report as a Word document, with the following filename format:

Section#_FirstInitialLastName_Lab# (e.g., Section2_HAkcakaya_Lab1)

Then, go to the “Lab assignments” area of Blackboard. Click View/Complete. You don’t need to add comments. Attach your file, and click Submit.

Your lab reports will be graded and returned to you through the e-mail function on Blackboard. Therefore, you should log-in to Blackboard and confirm your e-mail address as soon as possible.

In the event that Blackboard or SafeAssign is not available when an assignment is due, you may send your assignment via e-mail to your TA (to avoid late penalties) until the system is back up.

SafeAssign is a tool within Blackboard to manage student assignments and grading. SafeAssign compares all text within a document against various sources for signs of plagiarism (see Academic Integrity Statement in the course information document). SafeAssign only accepts a single file, which must be the Word document. Occasionally, we may ask for files in formats (such as Excel files) as part of your lab reports. In those instances, send the additional files to your TA by email. Word documents that are emailed to be will not be graded – they must be submitted through SafeAssign.

If you get an error when uploading your lab report to Blackboard, Cancel the Safe Assign file upload you are attempting. Copy and paste the file to the local hard drive of the computer you are using (either the desktop or User folder on the C drive). Reopen the SafeAssign dialog and try to upload the file from the location where you just pasted it.

Make sure you keep a saved copy of the file before you log off. Delete the file from the local computer’s hard drive before you log off. You are responsible for keeping track of your work; this includes backing up your files AND minimizing the chances of someone copying your work from a computer you were using.

What to include in the lab reports

Do not include a cover page. Do include your name, date, and the lab report number at the top of the first page. Name the file as described above.

Because many of the lab exercises in this course are procedural (how to do something) rather than based on hypothesis testing, your lab reports will not follow the standard Introduction- Methods-Results- Discussion format of many laboratory courses. Rather, your reports will be based on the laboratory exercises and will consist of tables, figures, images, as well as written answers to specific questions.

The expected elements to be included in each lab report will be outlined in the lab exercises. Look for the symbol within the instructions for the lab exercises. This indicates short questions you should answer or a table, figure, or image you should include in your lab report. In your answer, do not repeat the question. Only give the question number.

All figures and tables need a detailed title or caption that includes the region, the date(s), the organisms, and the analysis being presented (for example, a hard prediction of transition to disturbance). Also, if additional layers are overlaid on the map, you need to explain what they represent (like the map composition where ACTUAL_CHANGE9400 was overlaid in Lab 10). Legends with confusing descriptions (like in the cross-classification image from Lab 10) should be explained. Basically, it should be clear what you did to make the image and what the image represents.

Always use complete sentences. Answers should be brief, but they should not be a single sentence that only restates the question. For example, answering, “Yes, this classification seems reasonable,” to the question, “Does this classification seem reasonable?” is not enough. Answer in just two or three sentences, but be sure to support this response with details.

At the end of each set of lab exercises there will be additional questions that will relate the lab activities to material covered in the lectures or readings. Each of these questions is given more weight than the questions in the main body of the instructions text. These questions should be answered more in depth than those in the exercises, but should not be longer than a paragraph or two each.

Citing and Quoting in Lab Reports and Other Assignments

In most lab reports, there will be no reason to quote other sources. If you do want to quote a source (including class material such as the textbook and the assigned readings), you must follow the rules below (of course, as junior/senior students, you should already know these).

There must be a reason for quoting from a source instead of writing your own words. When we ask a question, we are expecting your own answer. Reasons for quoting may include comparison of different opinions or viewpoints, and discussion of a particular example (e.g., an experiment or other study) that illustrates your point. Even in these cases, it is preferable to restate the source using your own words (and of course provide the full citation information).
You may only quote legitimate sources, which include scientific papers and books, including their on-line versions, or web sites of governmental agencies. You may not quote other Internet sources, such as Wikipedia.
It is not sufficient to put quotation marks or state that something is a quote. You must provide full citation of the source. You also have to provide a full citation when you restate the source in your own words.