PROFESSOR DE BOER's VISITOR's GUIDE
Welcome to Professor De Boer's class at Dordt University!
Illustration by Mohamed Hassen, Public domain, Pixabay
The course you have been invited to visit was taught at Dordt University, a small private university, "in the cornfields of Iowa." The most distinctive aspect of this university is it's dedication to Christianity. This offer to visit is not an explicit attempt at evangelism. The course is on-target for the engineering topic you expect. You do not need to be a Christian to visit. All we ask is that you be respectful of our freedom to believe and we will do our utmost to return our respect for you, whatever you believe (or don't believe). Professor De Boer's courses, being engineering courses, do not tread heavily into theology (or at least so he thinks), but be prepared for some times of prayer in class and some discussion as we relate our course to our faith.
If you really want to get into the nitty gritty of Dordt University, read their "Task" and "Framework" documents. Those are probably TMI for this context, but anyway, there you could go.
HOW TO GET STARTED
To find this page you have already found a URL link to grant you access to the course. That same link will be your main access to the course. It will lead you to a page that looks something like the course shown below.
A typical "Public Portal" for one of Professor De Boer's courses.
All links in the above illustration are dead. Use the URL
that got you to this page to get live links.
YOUR FIRST DAY AT CLASS
You might like to dive right into the first lecture of
the semester. Then the link similar to, "Slides and videos for
each class period" is for you. That link will get you to an
index page with one line for each class period. Each line
in the index will have a "VIDEO" or "V" link which will get
you to the video of that lecture. The videos were uploaded
directly after class with no editing. The slides used in
the lecture can also be separately downloaded as PDF
files by clicking on the dates of the lectures.
Feel free to explore all the other links to the extent of
your interest. If you would like to do homework, for copyright
reasons you will need access to a textbook to get the problem
statements. Professor De Boer cannot grade your homework
because he is retired now. Depending on his schedule, Professor
De Boer might be willing to offer helpful tips on some of
the homework. He tries to respond to all e-mails within a day,
but due to retirement it sometimes takes longer.
In some textbooks there are some homework answers available
at the end of the Chapters, in the back of the book, or at the
publisher's Web site. Read the notes at the bottom of the
course's homework page for details about the availability of
any such answers. If no answer is available for a homework
problem, you might consider looking for ways to prove to
yourself that your answer is correct. This can sometimes be
done by pursuing a different solution technique or by pairing
up with a friend and seeing if your answers match.
SAFETY and SECURITY
There are no guarantees in this world. Visitors should do
their part to protect their access to the course they are
visiting. Professor De Boer will not be using university
resources in service of visitors. This means that to keep
access for visitors free he will be using public servers
like YouTube, InfinityFree, and Github that offer free
hosting services. It is not possible to maintain high
security with these servers at this price-point ($0).
Denial-of-service attacks and such, if they happen, could
unfortunately result in the loss of visitor access to his
courses. (Students enrolled for credit have access
to these files and courses via the university servers and
course management system, all of which are much more secure
and behind a paywall.)
Trust is the foundation of truth and fulfillment in life.
Please do your part.
This page was last updated on 5/03/2023.