This is a science-oriented, introductory course that focuses on basic principles of human nutrition. Emphasis is placed on the nutrient requirements of healthy individuals, nutrient categories and their characteristics, physiological functions, metabolism, and food sources. The role of nutrition in health promotion and disease prevention will be discussed in relation to personal health choices and with applications for students contemplating careers in health professions.
Pre-requisites: One semester of college-level Biology: one semester of college-level General Chemistry.
Students should be able to:
The objectives of this course are designed to facilitate your construction of conceptual models to describe physical ideas that are the foundation of sciences that you may encounter in your professional studies.
By the end of the course, you will be able to:
On the course start date, students will have access to orientation. This must be completed to be able to gain access to the first module in the course. Students must complete the first module to gain access to the next one. We recommend that students spend about 15 hours per week to complete a course in 16 weeks. When trying to complete the course in less than 16 weeks, we typically see students do this successfully within 12-14 weeks. Instructors will be timely in grading and feedback, but it will not be instant.
Following the first 13 chapters of the textbook, Principles of Human Nutrition is a 16-week course, grouped within 5 topical units. Each unit contains:
Please note the course is designed where you must complete all learning activities in each unit before the next unit becomes available.
Successful comprehension of nutrition concepts requires practice, diligence, and motivation. The pre-assessments serve to help you assess your understanding. After reviewing the learning objectives in each week, take the pre-assessment quiz to assess what you already know and help guide your study of the learning materials.
After reading the text and engaging with the other learning materials, retake the pre-assessment. These ungraded self-assessments can be taken as many times as you want, letting you know what you need to work on and allowing you to revisit and review the materials to reassess. When you’re confident with the material, begin the weekly quiz.
There are 14 graded quizzes. The quiz questions will assess your understanding of the content covered in the week. You will have 30 minutes and one attempt to complete each quiz. The quizzes are automatically graded and closed for review.
The Diet Assessment project is divided into five parts. You will complete one part per unit based on the learning materials in the unit. The diet assessment project will ask you to analyze your food intake and physical activity. Each part of the Diet Assessment project will be graded by your instructor using rubrics. You can view the rubrics in My Grades in Blackboard.
In Units 1 and 3, you will be asked to watch certain videos and submit a reflection on it. These videos address important issues in the field of nutrition. This assignment is graded by your instructor using a rubric. You can view the rubric in My Grades in your course.
Discussion board assignments cover interesting current events or materials related to this course that contribute to a deeper understanding of key concepts and allow you to interact with your classmates and the instructor. Each assignment may require you to conduct internet research, read additional materials (a short journal or magazine article), visit a specific webpage, and/or view a short video prior to writing a response following the specific guidelines in the assignment.
To earn full credit: you will need to post a response to the discussion topic, respond to the original posts of at least two other students, and then contribute meaningfully to an ongoing discussion. You will need to post your initial response before you will see any posts from your classmates. Please keep in mind that only this initial response is included in your assignment grade, so make sure you have followed all of the guidelines and written a complete response prior to submitting the post. For special cases where one or two students are accelerating faster through the course, the instructor will participate in the discussion so that everyone has the opportunity to interact.
Please refer to Blackboard for a full description for each assignment prompt, along with reviewing the discussion question guidelines below. Discussion board assignments should be completed, along with all other assignments in the course, in the order that they appear. Due to the course design, you may be unable to take a proctored exam if you do not complete all assignments that appear prior to that exam. The discussion board posts are graded with rubrics by your instructor.
Please also refer to the Grading Policy/Grade Breakdown section of the syllabus to learn the percentage of your grade that each discussion board assignment is worth.
Discussion Question Guidelines
Mid-Term and Final Exams
There will be a one-hour proctored midterm exam and a one-hour proctored final exam. The University of New England has contracted with ProctorU to provide students with the most convenient online exam proctoring system. Upon enrollment into the course, you will register with ProctorU and establish a login name and password. This will give you access to all of ProctorU’s services. When you’re ready, you will schedule your exam time with ProctorU at least 72 hours prior to taking the exam.
For all exams, you must review the Proctored Examinations information and requirements in the Policies section of this syllabus.
Exams begin and end promptly with scheduled times. Be prepared to stay in the exam room for the entire time. You will be required to follow all the proctor’s requests. The exams are closed book and also closed for review. While you will see your proctored exam scores, you will not have access to your exams once you have submitted them for a grade. You may contact your instructor regarding specific feedback; however, no exams will be released to the students.
The mid-term exam assesses the content from Units 1-3 and should be taken after you have completed all the assessments through Week 8. The final exam assesses the content from Units 4-5 and should not be taken until all the other assignments are completed. Exams taken online with ProctorU will be graded immediately.
You must purchase the Official UNE External Webcam to take your proctored examinations. Remember to order your webcam at least three weeks prior to scheduling your first proctored exam.
Your grade in this course will be determined by the following criteria:
Assessment Type | Percentage of Final Grade |
---|---|
Unit Discussions | 10% |
Weekly Quizzes | 20% |
Reflection Activities | 5% |
Midterm | 20% |
Final | 20% |
Diet Assessment | 25% |
Grade | Points Grade | Point Average (GPA) |
A | 94 – 100% | 4.00 |
A- | 90 – 93% | 3.75 |
B+ | 87 – 89% | 3.50 |
B | 84 – 86% | 3.00 |
B- | 80 – 83% | 2.75 |
C+ | 77 – 79% | 2.50 |
C | 74 – 76% | 2.00 |
C- | 70 – 73% | 1.75 |
D | 64 – 69% | 1.00 |
F | 00 – 63% | 0.00 |
This course is designed to be completed in a 16-week period, just like an on-campus course. One week in this online course is equivalent to three 50-minute lectures in a traditional classroom setting. The general rule of studying for science courses is to spend 3 hours studying for every one hour that you are in class. Therefore, the suggested study time for each module is 9 hours above and beyond the time it takes to listen to the lecture. Please refer to the schedule below for the suggested schedule of lectures and the accompanying laboratory exercises. Students may complete the course in less than 16 weeks.
Unit | Week |
Title |
Textbook Chapter |
Assignments |
One | 1 | Nutrition: Food for Health | 1 |
Weekly Pre-assessments & Quizzes Discussion Board Topic 1 Reflection Activity 1 Unit 1 Diet Assessment Project |
2 | Nutrition Guidelines: Applying the Science of Nutrition | 2 | ||
Two | 3 | Carbohydrates: Sugars, Starches, and Fiber | 4 |
Weekly Pre-assessments & Quizzes Discussion Board Topic 2 Unit 2 Diet Assessment Project Part 2 |
4 | Lipids: Triglycerides, Phospholipids, and Cholesterol | 5 | ||
5 | Proteins and Amino Acids | 6 | ||
Three | 6 | Energy Balance and Weight Management | 7 |
Weekly Pre-assessments & Quizzes Discussion Board Topic 3 Reflection Activity 2 Unit 3 Diet Assessment Project Part 3 |
7 | Nutrition and Physical Activity | 13 | ||
8 | Alcohol | Focus 1: Alcohol | ||
9 | Midterm Exam | |||
Four | 10 | The Water-Soluble Vitamins | 8 |
Weekly Pre-assessments & Quizzes Discussion Board Topic 4 Unit 4 Diet Assessment Project Part 4 |
11 | The Fat-Soluble Vitamins | 9 | ||
12 | Dietary Supplements | Focus 4: Dietary Supplements | ||
Five | 13 | Water and the Electrolytes | 10 |
Weekly Pre-assessments & Quizzes Discussion Board Topic 5 Unit 5 Diet Assessment Project Part 5 |
14 | Major Minerals and Bone Health | 11 | ||
15 | The Trace Minerals | 12 | ||
16 | Final Exam |
Any student who would like to request, or ask any questions regarding, academic adjustments or accommodations must contact the Student Access Center at (207) 221-4438 or pcstudentaccess@une.edu. Student Access Center staff will evaluate the student's documentation and determine eligibility of accommodation(s) through the Student Access Center registration procedure.
Students should notify their Student Support Specialist and instructor in the event of a problem relating to a course. This notification should occur promptly and proactively to support timely resolution.
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Your instructor will monitor this forum. However, if you are seeking specific and timely answers to questions about course content or your personal grades, please contact your instructor via course messages. For questions about course materials, program policy, and how to navigate and proceed through the course, please contact your Student Service Advisor through the Student Portal.
The University of New England has contracted with ProctorU to provide students with the most convenient online exam proctoring system. This system provides a simple, no cost to the student, secure, online proctor for exams and allows the student to take all the exams at home and on their own schedule.
Upon enrollment into the course, each student will register with ProctorU and establish a login name and password. This will give the student access to all of ProctorU's services. When ready, students will schedule each of their proctored exams with ProctorU. Exams must be scheduled at least 72 hours in advance to avoid fees. Prior to taking their exams, students must be sure that they have downloaded the ProctorU Chrome or Firefox extension and are using the most current version of Chrome or Firefox. They must also be sure their testing site's connection meets the minimum requirements by using ProctorU's "Test It Out" utility.
Upon the exam day and hour, students will log in to ProctorU and click on "exams". After following the procedures outlined at ProctorU's web site, the student will log in to Brightspace and locate their correct exam. The proctor will then allow student access to that exam.
Students must use ProctorU and must follow all proctoring requirements for their exams to be credited.
Proctored exams are not available for review at any time. You will not be able to see the questions, nor the answers you've given, after completing the exams. Please contact your instructor for specific feedback.
Discussion board assignments cover interesting current events or materials related to this course that contribute to a deeper understanding of key concepts and allow you to interact with your classmates and the instructor. Each assignment may require you to conduct internet research, read additional materials (a short journal or magazine article), visit a specific webpage, AND/OR view a short video prior to writing a response following the specific guidelines in the assignment.
To earn full credit: you will need to post a response to the discussion topic, respond to the original posts of at least two other students, and then contribute meaningfully to an ongoing discussion. You will need to post your initial response before you will see any posts from your classmates. Please keep in mind that only this initial response is included in your assignment grade, so make sure you have followed all of the guidelines and written a complete response prior to submitting the post. For special cases where one or two students are accelerating faster through the course, the instructor will participate in the discussion so that everyone has the opportunity to interact.
Please see Brightspace for a full description, along with specific guidelines, for each assignment. Discussion board assignments should be completed, along with all other assignments in the course, in the order that they appear. Due to the course design, you may be unable to take a proctored exam if you do not complete all assignments that appear prior to that exam.
Please also refer to the Grading Policy/Grade Breakdown section of the syllabus to learn the percentage of your grade that each discussion board assignment is worth.
Please review the technical requirements for UNE Online Programs: Technical Requirements
A schedule of lectures and assignments is included in this syllabus. This is, however a self-paced course and you can complete the course in less time.
Please visit the enrollment page to review the withdrawal and refund policies.
Students are expected to attempt and complete all graded assignments and proctored exams by the end date of the course. View the incomplete grade policy..
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To view your unofficial UNE student transcript:
To request your official UNE student transcript:
Please review your Unofficial Transcript prior to requesting an Official Transcript.
After you click Submit Request, your official transcript will be put into the queue to be printed in the Registrar's Office.
The University of New England values academic integrity in all aspects of the educational experience. Academic dishonesty in any form undermines this standard and devalues the original contributions of others. It is the responsibility of all members of the University community to actively uphold the integrity of the academy; failure to act, for any reason, is not acceptable.
Academic dishonesty includes, but is not limited to the following:
Charges of academic dishonesty will be reviewed by the Program Director. Penalties for students found responsible for violations may depend upon the seriousness and circumstances of the violation, the degree of premeditation involved, and/or the student’s previous record of violations. Appeal of a decision may be made to the Dean whose decision will be final. Student appeals will take place through the grievance process outlined in the student handbook.
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