INST462 | PlanetTerp

Information	Review
Scott Jackson INST462 Expecting an A Anonymous 09/19/2024	First: expected grade not A+ because I could mess some things up (busy semester)! This is my first 400-level INST class and I'm taking MATH401 (Justin's Notes) this semester, too! I had Dr. Jackson for INST314 Statistics for Information Science, and I loved it! He is so passionate about what he teaches that he has a hard time fitting all of the content into a 15 week course. Fortunately, he is vigilant of this and provides ample time to complete assignments as long as you start them when they're released. Additionally, he moves deadlines back when necessary and before anyone can get a chance to complain. This is all part of a grading philosophy that he has, described below. What's important is that he gives more than enough time on graded assignments. I have accommodations provided by the ADS. While they aren't needed, it is good conduct to let him know. He has an unusual method of grading. I know a few counties in Maryland are/were testing a new way of grading in public school called "Standards-Based Grading." If you know what that is, this is what he does. All graded assignments are a set of objectives rather than a rubric. The grading is binary: either the objective was met or it was not (the policy is usually "point awareded if effort shown"). The top-down approach he takes to the class means that there is a "point pool" that contains all assignments for the semester. Rather than screwy math to figure out your grade prospects in his courses, you just need to check the remaining assignments and compare that to a letter-grade table on the syllabus. INST314 and INST462 require R, the statistical computing language. He has a few weeks of onboarding before he gets started with the appilcations. During this time he uses lecture to introduce both contemporary and historical theory and context. The discussions are for monitoring the onboarding progress and ensure a practical R tutorial. Hope I helped!
Jesse Klein INST462 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/17/2024	Not a hard course, but instructions are often vague
Jesse Klein INST462 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 04/20/2024	This is by far one of my favourite courses at UMD. I took this course asynchronously, but Dr. Klein is extremely present and engaging regardless, to the point where I feel like I have met her in person. She responds to emails extremely fast, is always willing to provide help and guidance, and gives us a plethora of resources to do our assignments. The class content is very easy to learn and understand, and I have a lot of fun doing it as well.
Jesse Klein INST462 Expecting an A GamerPotatoMan 01/01/2024	Good teacher, she defiantly cares about her students and makes things enjoyable. The workload for INST462 is nothing to worry about. The class content was also easy to understand and the final project / final exam were also fairly decent.
Jennifer Golbeck INST462 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/14/2023	Professor Golbeck is a good professor, she posts weekly lecture videos each week pertaining to the module topic that also comes with a weekly quiz. Most of the homework will either be a Analysis or Visualization so get ready for that. The class overall wasn't that hard but I feel like the TAs graded assignments very harshly for someone that is just learning visualization. Also some assignments you will have to figure out on your own due to no instructions or clear guidance. The final is fairly easy though it just a final portfolio of all your work throughout the class.
Jesse Klein INST462 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/25/2023	Such an easy class. Most weekly assignments take like 2 minutes and she responds quite quicky.
Jesse Klein INST462 Expecting an A+ Naruto 01/02/2023	Work is extremely easy if you know what you're doing. Go to her zoom meetings if you're confused. I literally got a 99 doing an hour of work a week.
Jesse Klein INST462 Anonymous 12/07/2022	Often found myself unaware of what was going on in this course. She gives extensions when the class pesters for them but doesn't respond to emails in a timely manner, if at all. The assignments either took me 2 hours or 2 minutes. She seems nice but it got very frustrating by the end.
Naghmeh Momeni INST462 Anonymous 11/16/2021	I was excited to take this class because it promised to teach different valuable programs for data visualization, but I am severely disappointed. The class is ridiculously easy and her teaching consists of reading PowerPoint slides, reading code templates, and/or tutorial videos. The first half of the semester consisted solely of visualization "theory" with no practical assignments and the second half was solely following tutorials - no integration. We have only worked with an abstract network and no other type of data. We have used the seaborn package in Python, R, Tableau, and Illustrator all with the same context-lacking dataset. The material we have gone through in this class just isn't enough to justify a standalone class and the school does not deserve the tuition I spent on it.
Naghmeh Momeni INST462 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/11/2021	She sucks. You won't learn anything in her class. Her recordings are poor quality, you can't understand what she is saying. For a class on Data Visualization, we only learned how to use Gephi and Adobe. The syllabus listed Power BI, Tableau, and actual valuable programs in the workforce. Weekly quizzes that are hard, that is all the class consists of and a final project I learned nothing on.
Eric Newburger INST462 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/21/2020	Easily the most passionate professor I have ever had. Very knowledgable about his material and always willing to provide additional help to students.
Eric Newburger INST462 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/18/2019	Eric is a really good instructor that is passionate about what he teaches. Obviously since he teaches a class on data visualization, he lectures almost strictly through visuals and examples. These lectures are very beneficial because he is full of energy and keeps your interest and attention. The only real problem I had was that he didn't adequately explain the software tools necessarily for completing assignments (Excel, Tableau, D3, etc.). However, overall he is receptive to these concerns and is willing to address them as they arise. He will also likely do more to combat this issue in future semesters. Ultimately, if you are willing to go to his lectures and ask questions when you are confused, he will do his best to make sure you understand and succeed.
Jennifer Golbeck INST462 Expecting an A- jgold8610 12/06/2019	I think the main problem is that there are so many assignments and only 1 TA. My class had around 93 people and only one TA. This means our assignments took forever to get graded. Another issue is that some of the assignments had very unclear grading criteria. The class was hard per se but the overworked TA and unclear grading criteria were the class much harder than it needed to be. I did, however, learn a lot of new visualization tools from her class that I have used in my other classes so I'm very thankful for that.

Scott Jackson
INST462

Expecting an A
Anonymous
09/19/2024

First: expected grade not A+ because *I* could mess some things up (busy semester)! This is my first 400-level INST class and I'm taking MATH401 (Justin's Notes) this semester, too! I had Dr. Jackson for INST314 Statistics for Information Science, and I loved it! He is so passionate about what he teaches that he has a hard time fitting all of the content into a 15 week course. Fortunately, he is vigilant of this and provides ample time to complete assignments as long as you start them when they're released. Additionally, he moves deadlines back when necessary and before anyone can get a chance to complain. This is all part of a grading philosophy that he has, described below. What's important is that he gives more than enough time on graded assignments. I have accommodations provided by the ADS. While they aren't needed, it is good conduct to let him know. He has an unusual method of grading. I know a few counties in Maryland are/were testing a new way of grading in public school called "Standards-Based Grading." If you know what that is, this is what he does. All graded assignments are a set of objectives rather than a rubric. The grading is binary: either the objective was met or it was not (the policy is usually "point awareded if effort shown"). The top-down approach he takes to the class means that there is a "point pool" that contains all assignments for the semester. Rather than screwy math to figure out your grade prospects in his courses, you just need to check the remaining assignments and compare that to a letter-grade table on the syllabus. INST314 and INST462 require R, the statistical computing language. He has a few weeks of onboarding before he gets started with the appilcations. During this time he uses lecture to introduce both contemporary and historical theory and context. The discussions are for monitoring the onboarding progress and ensure a practical R tutorial. Hope I helped!

Jesse Klein
INST462

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/17/2024

Not a hard course, but instructions are often vague

Jesse Klein
INST462

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
04/20/2024

This is by far one of my favourite courses at UMD. I took this course asynchronously, but Dr. Klein is extremely present and engaging regardless, to the point where I feel like I have met her in person. She responds to emails extremely fast, is always willing to provide help and guidance, and gives us a plethora of resources to do our assignments. The class content is very easy to learn and understand, and I have a lot of fun doing it as well.

Jesse Klein
INST462

Expecting an A
GamerPotatoMan
01/01/2024

Good teacher, she defiantly cares about her students and makes things enjoyable. The workload for INST462 is nothing to worry about. The class content was also easy to understand and the final project / final exam were also fairly decent.

Jennifer Golbeck
INST462

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
12/14/2023

Professor Golbeck is a good professor, she posts weekly lecture videos each week pertaining to the module topic that also comes with a weekly quiz. Most of the homework will either be a Analysis or Visualization so get ready for that. The class overall wasn't that hard but I feel like the TAs graded assignments very harshly for someone that is just learning visualization. Also some assignments you will have to figure out on your own due to no instructions or clear guidance. The final is fairly easy though it just a final portfolio of all your work throughout the class.

Jesse Klein
INST462

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/25/2023

Such an easy class. Most weekly assignments take like 2 minutes and she responds quite quicky.

Jesse Klein
INST462

Expecting an A+
Naruto
01/02/2023

Work is extremely easy if you know what you're doing. Go to her zoom meetings if you're confused. I literally got a 99 doing an hour of work a week.

Jesse Klein
INST462

Anonymous
12/07/2022

Often found myself unaware of what was going on in this course. She gives extensions when the class pesters for them but doesn't respond to emails in a timely manner, if at all. The assignments either took me 2 hours or 2 minutes. She seems nice but it got very frustrating by the end.

Naghmeh Momeni
INST462

Anonymous
11/16/2021

I was excited to take this class because it promised to teach different valuable programs for data visualization, but I am severely disappointed. The class is ridiculously easy and her teaching consists of reading PowerPoint slides, reading code templates, and/or tutorial videos. The first half of the semester consisted solely of visualization "theory" with no practical assignments and the second half was solely following tutorials - no integration. We have only worked with an abstract network and no other type of data. We have used the seaborn package in Python, R, Tableau, and Illustrator all with the same context-lacking dataset. The material we have gone through in this class just isn't enough to justify a standalone class and the school does not deserve the tuition I spent on it.

Naghmeh Momeni
INST462

Expecting an A
Anonymous
11/11/2021

She sucks. You won't learn anything in her class. Her recordings are poor quality, you can't understand what she is saying. For a class on Data Visualization, we only learned how to use Gephi and Adobe. The syllabus listed Power BI, Tableau, and actual valuable programs in the workforce. Weekly quizzes that are hard, that is all the class consists of and a final project I learned nothing on.

Eric Newburger
INST462

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/21/2020

Easily the most passionate professor I have ever had. Very knowledgable about his material and always willing to provide additional help to students.

Eric Newburger
INST462

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/18/2019

Eric is a really good instructor that is passionate about what he teaches. Obviously since he teaches a class on data visualization, he lectures almost strictly through visuals and examples. These lectures are very beneficial because he is full of energy and keeps your interest and attention. The only real problem I had was that he didn't adequately explain the software tools necessarily for completing assignments (Excel, Tableau, D3, etc.). However, overall he is receptive to these concerns and is willing to address them as they arise. He will also likely do more to combat this issue in future semesters. Ultimately, if you are willing to go to his lectures and ask questions when you are confused, he will do his best to make sure you understand and succeed.

Jennifer Golbeck
INST462

Expecting an A-
jgold8610
12/06/2019

I think the main problem is that there are so many assignments and only 1 TA. My class had around 93 people and only one TA. This means our assignments took forever to get graded. Another issue is that some of the assignments had very unclear grading criteria. The class was hard per se but the overworked TA and unclear grading criteria were the class much harder than it needed to be. I did, however, learn a lot of new visualization tools from her class that I have used in my other classes so I'm very thankful for that.

Reviews for INST462