-University of Maryland
Professor Mark Zajac
E-mail: markzajac79@gmail.com
Summer 2014
Online Office Hrs:
Mondays 4:00 – 5:00 PM EST
Primate Social Behavior – ANTH 428 W
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This syllabus is designed to assist you in navigating your way through an online course.
I have also included many other helpful documents in the Files section of the course’s
ELMS site, located at https://elms.umd.edu. This syllabus is also located in the Files
section on ELMS. If you have difficulties logging into ELMS please contact me
immediately, as this is our online “classroom” and all the course materials will be
accessed through this site.
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Course Overview:
The social behavior of primates can assist us in understanding our own behavior and the
behavior of our ancestors. This course focuses on the social behavior of non-human
primates. The focal point of this course will be the closest relatives to human beings, the
other great apes: chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and orangutans. We will also discuss
the behavior of lesser apes, old world monkeys, new world monkeys, and prosimians.
The course will begin by reviewing taxonomy of living and extinct primates. We will then
learn about primate social behavior in a variety of settings. These social interactions are
examined by looking at behavior during different social settings, such as mating, eating
and traveling.
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Required Readings:
1. Primate Behavioral Ecology. 4th ed. Karen B. Strier (2011) Prentice Hall, San
Francisco.
2. Scientific journal articles related to each class. These articles will be from journals
such as The International Journal of Primatology.
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3. Lecture notes posted on ELMS.
Course Requirements:
1. Readings and videos
- Every week you are required to read the textbook, lecture
slides and articles, and also watch any videos that are
provided in the lecture slides.
- All of this information will be tested upon in the weekly
quizzes and the final exam.
- All aspects of this online course are equally important, so
feel free to comment on any readings or videos in your
discussion board postings.
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2. Online weekly quizzes
- Multiple choice quizzes have to be completed online on
Wednesday or Thursday of every week, except for the first
and last weeks of the course.
- You will have 20 minutes to complete each quiz.
- Read the required material and watch the videos from the
week before taking each quiz.
- Quizzes will be available on the ELMS website in the
Quizzes section on Wednesday and Thursday. Click on the
quiz for the week and it should begin automatically.
- If you do not complete the quiz on Wednesday or Thursday,
you will receive a zero for that week’s quiz.
3. Online discussions – Each student will lead an online discussion every week
based on the lectures, videos, text readings and journal articles. Students
are required to participate in weekly discussion sessions.
- Based on the readings and videos for each week, students
are required to submit one original post and also respond to
all posts that were submitted by your classmates and your
professor
- These posts can be in the form of a question you had about
the material, a comment on something you find interesting,
something you disagreed with, etc.
- The lectures slides often include questions that are meant to
spur discussion, so feel free to address these topics in your
posts.
- Your first entry must be your original post and must be made
by the end of the day on Wednesday every week. This
original post must be at least three sentences in length.
- Thereafter, you are required to respond to your fellow
students’ and professor’s entries. You must respond to all of
the entries from your classmates and professor on Thursday
or Friday of the same week. These postings must be
completed by Friday at midnight, Eastern Standard Time.
These responses can be made in response to an original
post or another response post
- Response posts must also be three sentences in length.
Discussion board grading criteria
- All posts must be thoughtful and relevant to the topic at hand
to receive the maximum points.
- Therefore, in order to receive the maximum points for the
discussion portion of the course you must submit your
original post on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday and your
response posts to your classmates and professor on
Thursday or Friday.
- Specific details on how to structure questions and make
postings are located in the Files section of the ELMS
website.
- If you write three short sentences that do not provide much
information or thought, you will not receive the maximum
points. I will provide weekly grades on your posts and
feedback regarding how to improve your performance.
4. Final exam
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The final examination is in the form of a take-home exam.
The exam will be posted on Wednesday, August 20, and is
due by NOON EASTERN STANDARD TIME on Friday,
August 22.
You must download the exam, answer the essay questions
and email them to me in Microsoft Word format.
Do not download the exam one hour before it is due and
expect to be able to complete it on time.
No late examinations will be accepted, except under
extraordinary documented medical or emergency situations.
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5. Research paper
- This assignment will be posted in the Assignments section
on ELMS.
- This paper is due during the fifth week of class.
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Online Etiquette:
Your posts are made via the course’s ELMS site and are being read
carefully by your classmates. Please proofread your posts thoroughly
before submitting them. You will lose points if you have grammatical
errors in your posts.
Also, be respectful of your classmates when posting and responding to
other posts. Rude, obnoxious and disrespectful communications will
not be tolerated. Students who do not comply may be dropped from the
course.
Finally, if you want to post a link to a video, website, or an article that
may contain questionable content, please contact me in advance for
approval.
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Academic Dishonesty: Academic dishonesty including plagiarism, cheating on exam
and submitting similar work to that of another classmate will result in an automatic 0/F
for the assignment. Due to the fact that you will be submitting everything electronically,
it will be very easy for me to catch instances of plagiarism on both the exams and
research papers. I do not tolerate academic dishonesty and will catch you if you cheat.
The University of Maryland, College Park has a nationally recognized Code of Academic
Integrity, administered by the Student Honor Council. This Code sets standards for
academic integrity at Maryland for all undergraduate and graduate students. As a
student you are responsible for upholding these standards for this course. It is very
important for you to be aware of the consequences of cheating, fabrication, facilitation,
and plagiarism. For more information on the Code of Academic Integrity or the Student
Honor Council, please visit http://www.shc.umd.edu
Online lectures: Every Monday throughout the summer session, I will post the lectures
for the week in the Files section on ELMS. You will need Microsoft PowerPoint to view
the lecture slides. These lectures are designed to guide you through the readings as
well as introduce topics and information not covered in the required readings. Reading
the lectures is not a substitute for reading the other course materials as much of the
material in the textbook and articles is not mentioned in the class slides.
Grading Breakdown:
- Online quizzes – 80 points – 20 points each with one quiz per week for every
week except the first and last weeks of the course. There will be a quiz to
complete in week 2, week 3, week 4 and week 5.
- Final Exam – 100 points
- Research paper – 50 points
- Discussion participation - 100 points – 20 points per week. This is obviously
a large portion of your grade. Be sure to participate every week. There are
no discussion board postings due the last week of class due to the final
exam.
- TOTAL POINTS – 330 points
Final grades will be based on the following standard grading scale:
Course
Grade Percentage
A
90-100%
B
80-89%
C
70-79%
D
60-69%
F
below 60%
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Summer II 2014 Online Assignment Schedule
Reading and Video Assignments
Dates
Articles posted in the files section for this week and any videos provided in the lecture
slides
Primate evolution, characteristics, habitats, feeding
Reading – Strier, pages 30-40, 55-70, Chapters 6 and 10
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Week 1
(Week of 7/14)
Primate classification, Research methods
Reading – Strier, Chapters 1 and pages 40-56
Articles posted in the files section for this week and any videos provided in the lecture
slides
Communication and Reproduction and Development
Reading - Strier, Chapters 5, 7, 9 and 10
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Week 2
(Week of 7/21)
Week 3
(Week of 7/28)
Week 4
(Week of 8/4)
Articles posted in the files section for this week and any videos provided in the lecture
slides
Primate societies and Social Behavior, Prosimians
Reading – Strier, Chapters 4 and 8, pages 269 - 277
Articles posted in the files section for this week and any videos provided in the lecture
slides
Week 5
(Week of 8/11)
RESEARCH PAPER
DUE THIS WEEK
Articles posted in the files section for this week and any videos provided in the lecture
slides
Primate Culture, Conservation, FINAL EXAM
Reading – Strier, pages 70-79, Chapters 11 and 12
Articles posted in the files section for this week and any videos provided in the lecture
slides
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Week 6
(Week of 8/18)
FINAL EXAM
New World Monkeys, Old World Monkeys and Apes
No readings from Strier for this week