Activity Logs

Log Delivery

All report logs are cumulative; they report time from the beginning of the course to the date of the report.

Logging and Categorizing Your Course Activities

Most courses will require that you log the time you work on various parts of the course. These logs are very important. Please be careful to log your times and activities correctly.

It is essential that you record your time correctly, distinguishing correctly between Direct and Non-Direct Activities. Please carefully read and make sure that you understand Direct and Non-Direct Activities and use these distinctions correctly.

Log Structure

Your log should be structured per the following example. In real life, many more rows will be needed.

Duration

Enter a precise number of minutes. You have to add them up at the end, so you need an exact number. Come as close to the actual time you worked on this task as you can.

If this activity was partially in the Direct category and partially in the Non-Direct category, estimate the amount of time spent on the Direct activity, and the amount spent on the Non-Direct activity, and record them on the respective (Direct and Non-Direct) logs.

Please plan your time well. It is much easier and more practical to spread your work out over the term than to try to fit everything in at the end. These logs can help you keep your studies/learning on track.

Duration Sums

The sample log above shows a total at the end of the term of 2250+ minutes of Direct activity. 2250 minutes is the nearly universally-accepted minimum for a three credit university course in the United States. For Non-Direct activity, the American minimum is 4500 minutes for a three credit university course.

These minima (2250 minutes and 4500 minutes for a three credit course) are required by: Mercer University, SACSCOC (which accredits Mercer University), and the United States Department of Education, (which provide support for MU students, and acceptance of SACSCOC as regional accrediting body). We must meet these standards.

750 minutes per one third of the course would meet the minimum expectation for Direct activities.

Direct and Non-Direct Activities

All direct activities are collaborative; someone else (other than you) is involved. In the Direct activities log, please identify with whom you collaborated.

One example would be that you collaborated with all students in the course, via Canvas. In the sample log above, you could take Direct activity credit for the 87 minutes you spent on researching Java sprite motion if you communicate the results with the course via Canvas. (General Canvas discussions of topics outside your course but relevant to software engineering count, too.)

Or, if you communicated your results (e.g., a particular web site is good on this subject) to one or two classmates, you could include their names in the Activity Type column.

If you did not communicate the results of your research into sprite motion to anyone (other than yourself), you should list the research time on your Non-Direct log, rather than on your Direct log. If you do this all the time, you may have nothing to include in your Direct log, indicating that you did not do anything in the Direct classwork category. Please collaborate on Direct coursework, and avoid this problem!

Collaboration on the projects assigned via the syllabus is, by definition, Non-Direct, and should be reported only on the Non-Direct log.

The Direct Activity Logs should not be difficult or time-consuming to write, once you understand the categories.