Quiz typo corrected August 23, 1999

Michael J. O'Hara Office Hours

CBA 502 UNO Omaha NE 68182 Monday & Wednesday 11:30 am - 12:30 pm

(402) 554-2823 (with voice mail) Wednesday: 5:30 - 6:00 p.m.

mohara@unomaha.edu and by appointment

fax (402) 554-2680

web http://cba.unomaha.edu/faculty/mohara/web/ohara.htm

LAWS 3920-001 # 01772 Monday & Wednesday 10:00 - 11:15 a.m. CBA 118

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

3 credit hours. "LAWS 3920 focuses on commercial law, employment law, business organizations, and the regulation of business. Ethical and international issues are addressed. Intended primarily as a required course for business administration students, may be an elective for students outside CBA, especially students in the College of Information Sciences and Technology. Prerequisites: LAWS 3910, its equivalent, or approval of the department Chair."

GRADED EVENTS:

An "A" is earned with a total course percentage of 90.0% or more; a "B+" is earned with 85.0% or more; a "B" is earned with 80.0% or more; etc. Assignment grades and course grades will be posted on the O'Hara's web page.

100% EXAMS

10% EXAM #1

20% EXAM #2

20% EXAM #3

30% SOLO FINAL EXAM

20% GROUP FINAL EXAM

EXTRA CREDIT

up to 10% POP QUIZZES

+1% or 0% Class Participation

A student may reasonably expect a class mean of between 70 and 80 on Exams #1, #2, #3, and the Solo Final; as well as reasonably expect a class mean of between 80 and 90 on the Group Final. Reflecting differences in study effort, a student may reasonably expect a large variance around the class mean. Thus, without extra credit, the low end of the expected class mean for the course is a 72% while the high end of the expected class mean for the course is an 82%. A wise student will plan on attempting to earn all of the extra credit points if the student plans on earning a course grade of "B" or better.

TEXTS:

1. Clarkson, Kenneth W., Miller, Roger LeRoy, Jentz, Gaylord A., and Cross, Frank B. West's Business Law: Text, Cases, Legal, Ethical, Regulatory, and International Environment, 7th edition. West Educational Pub. Co., USA, 1998.

INTRODUCTION

As you progress through college you will move increasingly away from the high school pupil-teacher roles and move increasingly towards university student-professor roles. Pupils typically are passive recipients of information, while students are active gathers and active synthesizers of knowledge. Students do far more studying than do pupils. Teachers typically are dispensers of information, while professors act as guides in the pursuit of knowledge. In this course, many of you will make a major change in your customary roles.

Professors reasonably expect students to: [1] give assigned readings a close reading prior to lecture and [2] learn what can be learned from the text. Professors explore issues in depth rather than providing learners with their initial exposure to the material.

Jargon is necessary for precise and efficient communication. Translating legal jargon "into your own words" is a laudable goal and an excellent learning technique. Successful translation is measured by learning of the jargon. Mastery of legal jargon will be one of your main tasks in this course.

It is not the object of this course to make you a lawyer. Rather, the course objective is to develop your abilities to think and to talk like a lawyer. Why? The prime objective of this course is to prepare you to be an efficient and knowledgeable consumer of legal services during your business career.

EXAMS:

There are five exams: four completed working alone (i.e., Exam #1, Exam #2, Exam #3, and the Solo Final) and one completed by the Study Group (i.e., Group Final). All final exams are comprehensive.

Questions on Exam #1, Exam #2, Exam #3, and the Solo Final will reflect the text and the lectures. Note particularly the Major Topics list distributed in class and on O'Hara's web page.

On Exam #1 there will be thirty-five True/False statements, graded as if there are thirty-three. On Exam #2 and Exam #3 there will be fifty-two True/False statements, graded as if there are fifty. On the Solo Final Exam there will be one hundred and five True/False statements, graded as if there are one hundred. The surplus questions on each exam will be the only curve any exam receives. Also note, the existence of surplus questions will render an ambiguous question as a non-harmless error unless a student wishing to claim injury can identify more ambiguous questions than the number of surplus questions.

All of the 105 questions on the Solo Final Exam will be developed from the 139 questions on Exam #1, Exam #2, and Exam #3. "Developed from" means that the topics [note plural] within each prior exam question will be fair game for the final exams. Keep your exams and use them as study aids.

The Group Final Exam will have twenty (20) "no guess" multiple choice questions with the option to answer a, b, c, all, none, a+b, a+c, or b+c. The questions for the Group Final Exam will be directly transplanted from the Solo Final Exam (e.g., Solo Final Exam questions 1, 3, and 5 may together become Group Final Exam question 1: a, b, and c). For the Group Final Exam, each group may repeatedly submit their exam for grading. As time allows, this may be done up to four (4) times. A sample of a group final exam appears on O'Hara's web page.

Your professor will use the Major Topics list when constructing your exams and pop quizzes. When you are preparing to read the text and when you are preparing to attend a lecture you should consult this list of Major Topics. The Major Topics List is a list of questions to guide your legal analysis, not a list of statements. Also, this is a list of your major memorization tasks.

Exam #1 is scheduled for Monday September 8 and is worth 10% of the course grade.

Exam #2 is scheduled for Wednesday October 13 (before the fall break) and is worth 20% of the course grade.

Exam #3 is scheduled for Wednesday December 1 and is worth 20% of the course grade.

The final exam has two parts worth a total of 50% of the total course grade. Part one is a Solo Final Exam, which will be completed working alone on an in-class exam and is worth 30%. Part two is a Group Final Exam, which will be completed by your Study Group and is worth 20%. All final exam parts are due at the Regent's scheduled final exam time
(i.e., on December 15 from 10:00 am to noon). Since this is a Monday & Wednesday class, and since that does not fit neatly into the University's ordinary schedule for final exams, our regular classroom may or may not be available. The room for the final exam will be announced on your copy of Exam #3 and posted on O'Hara's web page.

During in-class exams students shall not wear or use any clothing, hats, glasses, or any other object which obscures the exam proctor's clear view of the student's eyes.

Exams from prior semesters appear on O'Hara's web page. Typically, answer keys are not provided so as to improve your learning by discouraging mere rote memorization instead of attentive reading and analysis.

STUDY GROUPS:

The class shall divide into Study Groups of three (3) or four (4) members each. The Study Groups will complete the Group Final for a total of 20% of the course grade.

Any time before the start of class on Monday November 15 the class may inform the instructor that the class as a whole has formed into voluntary Study Groups. If any student is not in a voluntary Study Group by that deadline, then the instructor will randomly assign all students to Study Groups without any regard to any voluntary groups that purportedly had been formed.

Membership in any particular group is voluntary (unless random assignment by the instructor is required). This means you do not have to join any specific group, and nor does any specific group have to accept you. NO voluntary group officially exists until ALL students are in voluntary Study Groups. It is your personal responsibility to see to it that ALL students are in voluntary Study Groups.

After the formation of Study Groups has occurred, the withdrawal from the class by one or more members of a Study Groups will empower the Study Groups to
DISBAND ONLY IF the group size is reduced to less than three (3). An additional prerequisite to disbanding is that all of the remaining members are able to voluntarily join other voluntary Study Groups. A Study Group that receives a disbanded person(s) may swell to five (5) members.

POP QUIZZES, extra credit:

Pop Quizzes are worth up to +10% extra credit towards your course grade. There is
no Make-Up Work for Pop Quizzes. Pop Quizzes are unannounced; however, there will be between 10 and 15 Pop Quizzes distributed over the 30 class meetings.

Pop Quizzes will be in the fill-in-the-blank form and may be given at either the start of the end of the class. Pop Quizzes will focus on items you already should have memorized. Each Pop Quiz will have four, multipart questions. Each Pop Quiz will be graded as
either +1% or 0% extra credit. If you score either a 100% or a 75% on a Pop Quiz, then you will earn +1% extra credit. There will be no partial credit for Pop Quiz questions. (If, when you dial a phone, you only know six of the seven numbers, then you will get . . . ) If there are more than ten Pop Quizzes, then your top ten Pop Quiz grades will be counted.

CLASS PARTICIPATION, extra credit:

Class participation is worth either +1% or 0% extra credit. There is no Make-Up Work for Class Participation.

The skill of listening is the most important skill students develop during class participation, this is your principle task when you are not personally answering questions. Listening is critical to effective management. During class participation, most of YOUR TIME will be spent LISTENING to other students solve problems. YOU will waste a huge amount of YOUR class time if YOU do not specifically work on developing YOUR listening skills. Also, your listening skills will be reflected in your grade for the Group Final Exam.

MAKE-UP WORK: Recall that the professor's office phone (402) 554-2823 has voice mail and the professor's email address is mohara@unomaha.edu.

"Is this absence beyond the control of the student?" will be the central question your professor will explore with you prior to permitting any Make-Up Work. There is no Make-Up Work for Pop Quizzes or for Class Participation.

Make-up work is strongly discouraged (and not really possible for group work). There are two prerequisites for make-up work.

1. 24 hour prior notice of your intended absence,
unless for sufficient reason (e.g., death of an immediate family member);

AND

2. written verification by an impartial third party
(e.g., letter from mortician on letterhead).

ACADEMIC DISHONESTY:

Any form of academic dishonesty (e.g., a student taking a Pop Quiz looking

DATE MATERIAL TASKS and DEADLINES