Message from Christopher Mole, Professor of Philosophy and Chair in the Programme of Cognitive Systems, regarding COGS 402 in the summer terms of 2020:
Although COGS 402 will be offered in the coming Summer term, we expect that measures to contain the COVID-19 virus will affect it in some ways.
The university is not currently closed. Although teaching has been moved online, research continues to take place. It should therefore be possible to complete a 402 research project over the course of the summer. We are nonetheless aware that the virus containment measures are likely to impair research involving human participants. We’ll endeavour to prevent these impairments from having a detrimental effect on grades, and are expecting that Summer 2020 COGS 402 projects will be somewhat unlike the projects that we typically see, with a much greater emphasis on research of the literature; on research that uses online tools, such as Amazon’s Mechanical Turk; and on the development of theoretical, philosophical and methodological proposals, rather than on the gathering and analysis of data from in-person interactions with human subjects.
The course’s first and last presentations will not take place in person. Instead, some form of online presentation — such as Zoom — will be used. (For these purposes, you should plan for a presentation that includes slides, so that these can be submitted.)
The university’s response to this epidemic is a rapidly changing one. If it is necessary for us to change these plans, we’ll post an announcement here, and update the COGS 402 course page.
Please see the latest updates regarding COVID-19 at the UBC home page at ubc.ca.