When my new course, "Computer-Assisted Reporting and Research," met for its final session, my students were in full panic mode, frantically scheduling interviews they should have done two weeks before and double-checking spreadsheets that should have been finished a month earlier.

What happened? How did all those weeks go by so fast? And why didn't my students do more of the reporting work earlier in the semester? Easy. I didn't require them to.

Staggered deadlines - having a rough draft due one week, requiring that all primary source interviews be done the - would have saved my students a lot of stress and made my grading life a lot easier. It was one of several important lessons learned by this first-time CAR instructor, who will be fine-tuning his syllabus in the coming months.

Here are the major lessons I learned this semester, in no particular order:

Sparking enthusiasm

Get your data at least six months in advance.

Undergraduate students at most institutions don't know what don't share your evangelical glee about doing CAR.

Upon my arrival at Southern Methodist University, I was approached by my departmental chair, a forward-thinking type who saw the obvious need for a computer-assisted reporting course. I'd done a bit of CAR dabbling in my previous life as a financial reporter, so I eagerly volunteered. A grant sent me to NICAR's CAR Boot Camp, where I saw the light.

I spent the summer honing lectures, developing spreadsheet and database exercises and lining up guest instructors from newspapers and television stations. I even invited a private investigator who uses the Internet to track people and assets for a visit. I was pumped. I was ready.

My students were not.

The first week, barely half of them showed up. My speaker was uninspired, and I was mad. But then it hit me: in my glee, I had neglected to give my students context. I had scarcely defined CAR, its importance to the reporter, its ability to break great stories. I forgot to start at the beginning, simple as it sounds.

So I made some changes on the fly.

I made the second week of class a sort of CAR "show-and-tell." Using a CAR videotape of award-winning IRE stories (a bargain at $20), I showed examples of CAR stories. I passed newspaper stories out, and had the students identify the CAR technique used and explain why the stories were newsworthy. This led to a great discussion of story ideas, and before I knew it, my students were fired up and ready to go tell stories.

And, just to make sure the enthusiasm lingered, I also came up with some type of homework or in-class assignment for every week the rest of the semester to keep them in the classroom.

Math lesson

Students don't know math. I will now devote a lecture early in the semester to mathematics. My students had to be reminded how to average! I was stunned, until I thought about my own liberal arts education, when I deftly avoided all math courses.

Early bird data

As a media law instructor who conducts research on freedom of information issues, I knew that the struggle for government information would be time-consuming and frustrating. I often made public records requests as a reporter, so I started early in the summer seeking data for my exercises and for student projects I had in mind.

Fortunately, I made one wise decision before starting the data hunt: I came up with twice as many data requests as I had students. That way, I could fail half the time and still have plenty of data.

As predicted, it was a long, frustrating process that left me at times wondering whether I was a participant in a democratic government or a meddling outsider. But I got enough data for the semester, and it became critical to several course assignments.

Student-led teaching

I have always been a vocal proponent of letting students voice their opinions. My students in CAR were all senior journalism majors. They were eager enough to report, but didn't know what they wanted to report on yet. So the first few assignments were directed toward story origination. I wanted them to find quality story ideas utilizing Internet research and/or government data. They found dozens of great ideas, many self-generated. Some ideas were rejected, others were traded among students, but in the end everyone had a couple of great stories to chase.

Professional context

Lean heavily on the professional community. When I began planning my inaugural CAR course, I knew I had allies. I spent the summer as a visiting professor at The Dallas Morning News, where I learned some data analysis first-hand with Shawn McIntosh. Shawn helped me with the course plan, with my student's projects, and with actually convincing me that I could pull it off. She was my first guest lecturer, wowing my students with a day-by-day account of how reporters used the Internet, dial-up databases and other techniques to chase the McVeigh story in the days after the Oklahoma City bombing.

Sheryl Rubinett, WFAA-TV's news researcher, came to class bearing dozens of great examples of how CAR has transformed broadcast reporting.

Not every journalism professor has such a rich media market to lean on, and some instructors will have to look as far as a neighboring state to find an expert. But don't hesitate to call upon the professional community. In fact, the unwavering support of the pros has been one of the most rewarding parts of teaching the class. NICAR, CAR-L, IRE and FACSNET all provide a great deal of support. I recommend them all to aspiring CAR instructors as a source of expert advice and good classroom exercises.

Don't be scared away

CAR is important. So important, in fact, that if no course exists in your program, step right up and volunteer. It appears daunting, but if you don't teach it, who will? Am I a CAR expert? No. Not even close. But neither are my students. We're getting better at spreadsheets and databases every day, with the students often teaching me. It's been an incredible learning experience for me, and it's rekindled my love for reporting. Charles Davis can be reached at (214) 768-2775 or send e-mail to cndavis@post.cis.smu.edu