| BNF 102 Personal Finance & Money Management - Online |
Spring 2009 |
CONTACTING THE INSTRUCTOR
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Voice Mail |
201 447-7169 |
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Office |
400
Paramus Road |
Office hours:* |
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*I am often on campus or available for online chat or phone appointments aside from these scheduled office hours. Call or email to set up an appointment for other times.
| BNF-102, Personal Finance and Money Management, provides students with a basic understanding of personal finance so that they may properly manage their own financial affairs. Topics include: financial planning, budgeting and income taxes; managing savings plans, credit cards and debt problems; renting vs. buying a home; health, disability and life insurance; investing in stocks, bonds and mutual funds; and retirement planning, wills and estate planning. |
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| CREDITS/HOURS |
3credits; 3 hours |
| TEXTBOOK (required) |
Focus on Personal Finance 2nd Edition by Kapoor, Dlabay & Hughes,(c) 2008, published by McGraw-Hill / Irwin. |
| After successfully completing all course activities, students will be able to :
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Discussion Dates 9:00AM Monday-Monday * |
Quiz Availability Dates |
Chapter |
Topic |
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1/20 - 1/27* (Tues-Tues) |
1/20-1/27* (Tues -Tues) |
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Introduction to BNF 102 and WebCT |
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1/27 - 2/2* (Tues -Mon) |
1/31- 2/2 |
1 |
Personal Financial PLanning in Action |
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2/2 - 2/9 |
2/7 - 2/9 |
2 |
Money Management Skills |
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2/9 - 2/16 |
2/14 - 2/16 |
3 |
Taxes in Your Financial Plan |
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2/16 - 2/23 |
2/21 - 2/23 |
4 |
Savings and Payment Services |
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2/23 - 3/2 |
2/28 - 3/2 |
5 |
Consumer Credit |
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3/2 - 3/9 |
3/7 - 3/9 |
6 |
Consumer Purchasing Strategies | |||||
3/9 - 3/16 |
3/14 - 3/16 |
7 |
Selecting and Financing Housing | |||||
3/16 - 3/23 |
- |
- |
Spring Break |
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3/23 - 3/30 |
3/28 - 3/30 |
8 |
Home and Automobile Insurance | |||||
3/30 - 4/6 |
4/4 - 4/6 |
9 |
Health and Disability Insurance | |||||
4/6 - 4/13 |
4/11 - 4/13 |
10 |
Financial PLanning with Life Insurance | |||||
4/13 - 4/20 |
4/18 - 4/20 |
11 |
Investing Basics and Evaluation Bonds | |||||
4/20 - 4/27 |
4/25 - 4/27 |
12 |
Investing in Stocks | |||||
4/27 - 5/4 |
5/2 - 5/4 |
13 |
Investing in Mutual Funds | |||||
5/4 - 5/11 |
5/9 - 5/11 |
14 |
Retirement and Estate Planning |
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BE SURE TO PRINT OUT THE CALENDAR. YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR ALL DEADLINES!!!!
| The student is expected to:
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| All
quizzes are 25 multiple choice or true/false questions and cover one chapter. There is a quiz per week except for Spring Break. The questions
are drawn from the textbook, Quizzes must be completed between 9:00 AM Saturday and 9:00 AM Monday. Quizzes are graded automatically by the course software.
The deadline for each quiz is posted to the calendar. The lowest quiz grade will be dropped to compensate for no makeups. |
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| Quizzes
must be completed during the specified timer period. No make ups
are given unless there are extenuating circumstances such as serious illness, death in the family, etc.
Contact the instructor if a deadline is missed for such a reason. If you
anticipate being unable to take the quiz during the scheduled period contact
the instructor in advance. One quiz grade and one discussion grade is dropped to compensate for no makeups. |
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| There are three major projects for this course. Every student must complete them independently. The detailed requirements for each of the projects are posted under the Projects icon on the homepage and the due date is specified in the calendar. There is a brief description of each project below. Credit Report: Obtain a current copy of your credit report from one of the credit reporting agencies. Analyze your report and identify ways in which you can improve your credit score. Research the importance of credit scores and how they are used. Spending/Saving Journal: Record all your spending for one month in a daily journal and analyze how you can both control your spending and free up some money for savings. Investing: Develop a set of personal goals and given a sum of "play money" decide how to invest it to best meet your goals. |
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| During
this online course there are no proctored exams. All quizzes are done online.
They are open book/open note. You may consult your textbook, the material
on the course website, or any notes you have made. This is perfectly acceptable
in this course. (Note: other online courses may not allow this.)
You are on your honor not to consult another person. Sharing quiz answers
or asking someone else for assistance in taking the quiz is academic dishonesty.
If I suspect academic dishonesty in quiz taking I reserve the right to require
in person proctored testing and, as required by BCC policy, all incidents
will be reported to the Vice President for Student Affairs.
A much more difficult issue of academic dishonesty arises in the submission of written work. It has been my experience that many students do not understand what is acceptable and what constitutes academic dishonesty. The following list is not meant to be a complete itemization of all the ways in which you can be dishonest but to point out the major problems. (1)You cannot purchase, borrow, or commission someone else’s written work and submit it as your own. Some examples. Your friend went to another school and had to write a marketing report; you cannot “borrow” it and submit it as yours. You do a search on the Internet and you find a marketing plan report that is similar to your idea. You can’t copy it, even if you pay for it, and submit it as your own. (2)You cannot copy any part, as little as a piece of a sentence, of someone else’s work and incorporate it into your own without giving the citation. This includes information from books, newspapers, magazines, unpublished work written by someone other than yourself, and from the web. Some examples. When researching your credit report project you find a good description of how a credit score is calculated in Investopedia. . You cannot copy and paste it into your report as if you wrote it yourself. What can you do? You can say something like this. According to Investopedia, “blah, blah”. The “ ” signal that you have taken it verbatim (exactly word for word) from your source. You then give an in text citation or footnote and list the full citation in your bibliography. Or, you can paraphrase it, that is, take the main idea and put it completely in your own words, and say something like this. As I discovered when reading about blah in Investopedia, blah, blah. The absence of “ ” means you have not used any of the author’s words. You still give the citation in the text or footnote and the full citation in your bibliography. It is very tempting to think that you are free to use information from the web and incorporate it into your own work without using quotes or giving the proper citation. Don’t fall into that trap. BCC uses plagiarism software and I personally check all written work against the software and other resources What happens if you submit
work that is not your own? You get a zero for that project and, as required
by BCC policy, you are reported to the Vice President for Student Affairs. |
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| Much of the class will be oriented toward discussion, via the discussion forum (bulletin board), of the course topics. You are expected to participate in the discussions regularly. This means that you should have read the scheduled chapter(s) and any outside articles assigned and thought through the questions posted for discussion. Each lesson has a different discussion; some require using materials from the book or websites. Discussion postings are graded based on the thought and insight demonstrated in the comments, the value of the comment to the discussion, the timeliness of participation, and the frequency of participation. Other than the first week, each discussion will begin on Monday and close at 9:00 AM the following Monday. The minimum per lesson is two substantive postings on two different days; the first posting must be no later than Thursday night of the discussion week. There is a detailed explanation of how I grade the discussions under the Introduction in the Start Here Section. You should be aware that the course software allows me to check how many postings you have read. There is no makeup for missed discussions regardless of the reason. Once a discussion is over; it's over. One discussion grade is dropped to compensate for lack of make-ups. You are expected
to stay current with business news that relates in some way to course
content through newspapers, the Internet, TV, or radio. There may be discussion
of the news and the assignment and discussion grades
will take into account how familiar a student is with current business
events. |
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| While
the notion of attendance in an online class may seem unusual, regular
participation in class discussion is expected. You are responsible for
staying current with weekly discussion topics. A good rule of thumb is
to expect to sign on to the course at least 3 times a week to stay current
with discussion postings. |
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| Don't even think about asking! There is none. The course is designed so that there are a variety of ways in which you may demonstrate what you are learning. It is also designed so that work is evenly distributed over the semester. Keep up with the weekly quizzes and discussions and plan your schedule to allow for timely submission of the projects. |
| Weekly Quizzes | 50 points | |
| Projects | 25 points | |
| Discussions | 25 points | |
| TOTAL | 100 points | |
| A | 90+ | |
| B+ | 88-89 | |
| B | 80-87 | |
| C+ | 78-79 | |
| C | 70-77 | |
| D | 65-69 | |
| F | below 65 Back to the top |
rev
1/13/09