Course Overview:
Instructor: Dr. Serita Nelesen
Communication Protocol: E-mail is generally the best way to reach me. When sending a message, prepend your subject with the course number i.e. CS108: Use full sentences in your message, and if you are asking for help with a code issue include:
Office Hours:
Materials:
The course materials include text chapters and lecture slide notes. Please note that they often have the same name. When downloading, you may want to have separate folders/directories for each to help with organization.
Assignment Submission: In most cases, you will submit your assignments electronically. The first lab this will walk you through the process.
Grading: I will compute your final grade as follows:
You will often work in pairs during the labs and you may work in pairs for your weekly homeworks. When you work in a pair, one of the partners should submit one copy of your work with both of your names on it. Your partner must be someone else from this course.
For the final project, you must work on your own. Feel free to discuss ideas with me or with your classmates, but don't copy code. You may, on exceedingly rare occasions, reuse someone else’s code provided that you make it clear what code you’re reusing and what code you wrote yourself. You will be graded on the code you write.
Quiz dates for the semester have been set -- see Moodle. If you need to miss a quiz for a school sanctioned event (e.g. sporting competition) I require at least one week prior notice. In this case, you will take the quiz *before* you leave campus. For all students, I will throw out your lowest quiz score. If you fail to provide adequate notice for missing a quiz there will be no makeup opportunity -- that will simply be the quiz you drop.
Attendance: I will not grade you specifically on class attendance, but you must be present for in-class activities to receive those points. Regardless, try to be faithful in attendance. Because each topic builds on previous topics, it is very difficult to catch up once you fall behind. If you must miss a class for any reason, please let me know so that I can set you up with the appropriate material and activities for the session you miss.
Honors: There are no special honors sections of CS 108; however, any student (or team of students) can elect to take a normal section of CS 108 for honors by contract (see the bottom of the department's webpage on honors courses). Honors-by-contract involves putting together a significant project for you to work on throughout the semester in addition to the regular assignments for the course. If you are interested in the doing the course for honors, talk to me and prepare to put together a proposal and contract within the first two weeks of the semester. You will find a template for the contract on the department's webpage.
Disabilities: Calvin will make reasonable accommodations for you if you have documented disabilities. Notify the Coordinator of Services for Students with Disabilities located in the Student Academic Services, HH-455, and also notify me within the first two weeks of class.
Incompletes: I will give an incomplete grade (I) only in unusual circumstances, and only if those circumstances have been confirmed by the Student Life office.
Late Work: I will clearly indicate a due date for all assignments. Anything submitted after that date is late, unless you have made prior arrangements with me. For each late assignment, you will be charged 10% for each business-day that you are late (e.g., if an assignment is due on Friday, you may turn it in on Monday at 10% off, Tuesday at 20% off and so on). I will grant up to 50% of the points for assignments submitted more than one week late, but not more and I will also grant you 4 grace days with no penalty, no questions asked. Please note that grace days do not apply to the final project, and I do not accept any late work after the final project is due. Further, no assignment will be accepted more than 3 weeks late. Please come and talk to me if there are exceptional circumstances, and we'll work something out.
Academic Integrity in Computing: Code re-use can be a valuable practice in computing, but mindlessly copying code is not an effective way to learn programming and reusing code or algorithms without attribution is plagiarism. If you've copied code with attribution, I’ll grade you on the code you wrote not on the code you copied. If I detect copying without attribution, i.e., plagiarism, I'll be forced to give you a failing grade for the assignment and perhaps for the course. Additionally, I will report you to the office of Judicial Affairs, which may result in the incident being part of your student record.
Calvin’s General Statement on Academic Integrity: The student-faculty relationship is based on trust and mutual respect, which can be seriously undermined by the suspicion or reality of academic dishonesty. Academic Dishonesty includes, but is not limited to, plagiarism (students plagiarize when they do not credit the sources of their writing - the words, information, ideas, or opinions of others), improper group work, reuse of a paper from another course and/or cheating on a test. Students are encouraged to speak to their faculty member with specific questions related to academic dishonesty. For further clarification or information, please visit http://www.calvin.edu/academic/engl/writing/plagiarism.
Responsible Use of Technology: You are expected to abide by the guidelines expressed in the policies given in Calvin's Technology Policy Documents. Offensive material (e.g., pornography) is not filtered in the lab; however, all web accesses are logged. These logs are checked monthly, and violators are turned in to Student Life. Further, the lab is intended primarily for educational use. Use the lab in a manner that respects the desire of other students to complete their work.