 Hi. I hereby invite you to take part in our massive open online course, Linguistics 101 Fundamentals. The class for everyone who is interested in language studies or linguistics or both, and who would like to be introduced to the central questions and issues of these fields. With two steps, you can access your class. First, you have to log in with your personal data. Prior to that, you have to create your free VLC account and register via our registration office, which is of course free. And once you're logged in, you will see your class on your personal site. And a simple click on the class name leads you to the interactive class start site. Here it is. On the class start site, you have access to several class-related links. For example, to the class description video, this one I am now producing. Or to the class-related message board, the forum for our class, very important for a massive open online course where you can discuss problems with your classmates. Or to the class bibliography, a special link section, and even a chat. The core of the class are the 13 units where the first one, the class preliminaries, informs you on a few introductory pages that are all video supported about some general aspects of the class and discusses what it means to study online on the virtual linguistics campus. In addition to this, you will find helpful routines that find out whether your computer is configured correctly and whether the submission of worksheets is successful. For this reason, we recommend to go through the class preliminaries very carefully, especially if you are a first-time user of a class on the virtual linguistics campus. The remaining units exhibit the content of this class. And if you wish, you can retrieve an overview of each unit by means of a click on one of our information symbols. Here is the overview of the unit language and linguistics. Okay, let us now look at the content of the class traditionally referred to as syllabus. The class is organized as follows. After an introduction to the central goals of linguistics in the first unit, we will go through the core areas of linguistics in such a way that we always provide an overview of a sub-branch, let's say about morphology, and then discuss some selected research issues in a follow-up unit. The final unit is reserved for a brief discussion of various extensions such as psycholinguistics, historical linguistics, forensic linguistics, and so on. Well, and what does it mean to study online on the virtual linguistics campus? Well, it means you first go through each e-learning unit at your own pace, whenever you want, from wherever you want. You study the virtual session, you watch the corresponding e-lecture video, and optionally you can use our practical sheets with their model solutions and the tests in the interactive tutor to check your knowledge. And if you wish, you can discuss further problems by means of our integrated forum, which is open for all registered users of this class. Well, and this is what you have to do in order to get a class certificate. We provide you with two options. The simplest option is the statement of participation issued by the Virtual Linguistics Campus. You will receive such a certificate for regular and active participation and of course for free. If you want more, you have to invest more work and a very small amount of money before the class ends. If you choose that option, you will receive a qualified statement of accomplishment issued by Marburg University in conjunction with the Virtual Linguistics Campus. This certificate will include your precise grade and a complete list of the tasks you successfully submitted. To be given such a certificate, we not only want your regular participation, but we also want you to do the worksheets, one for each e-learning unit. And we want you to achieve an overall score of at least 60% of all the worksheets you're doing. So once you have reached the 60% or more, you will be given the choice. You can get a qualified statement of accomplishment by Marburg University for a very small fee. Or we will simply confirm your participation with a standard statement of participation for free. You have the choice. So, we invite you to join us in our Linguistics 101 Massive Open Online Course. Right after class activation, you will be contacted by the Virtual Linguistics Campus Team and you will receive your preliminary instructions. The rest is up to you. Thanks for your attention and enjoy your class.