ICS 211 Spring 2002 Syllabus
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For questions or comments please e-mail the instructor at blanca@hawaii.edu
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Office Address |
1680 East-West Rd. POST 314-D, Honolulu HI, 96822 |
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Office numbers |
Phone: 956-5690 |
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E-mail address | |
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Availability |
Office Hours
Phone Calls
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This course will introduce students to data structures. We will design and write programs that are more entertaining, fun and maybe also more complicated than those in ICS 111.
Here are some 
about this course:
We will learn how to build different kind of data structures using JAVA. We will learn previously made structures and we will learn how to create our custom-made data structures. We will learn to evaluate our software (and other people's software) and decide which algorithm is better to solve a particular problem.
JAVA Basics, or UNIX basics. The student is must have taken an introductory course in JAVA and must be familiar with the basics of the UNIX operating system. During the first week of laboratory lectures the TAs will give the students exercises to familiarize them with JAVA in UNIX.
JAVA is the language of the Internet. The Internet keeps on growing and Java is becoming more important every day. As a programmer, if you are proficient with JAVA, you are more likely to find a good paying job.$$$.
We will learn all our material from a practical point of view. Some theory will be necessary, but the main idea will be to implement the concepts learned in a way that we can see how they apply to the real world. If time permits we will have one or two team projects.
Since JAVA basics won't be covered, we will only summarize the concepts that the student should already know. It is up to the student to learn any concepts that he/she didn't learn in ICS111. For a study guide in these basic concepts click here.
A good understanding of Algebra will be helpful in this course, even when it is not a prerequisite. In UH terms, if you have taken Math27, it will be helpful. If you have gone beyond that, it will be even better. ICS141 is also helpful but not necessary.
What will be expected of you, the student?
In order to get the most out of this course, the student should be able to build JAVA classes and use JAVA libraries. The student should be able to program applets* as well as stand-alone applications. The student should have the basic concepts of HTML so he/she can build a web page and post applets.
By the end of the Spring 2002 you should be familiar with data structures. You will be able to compare different algorithms and to better implement the one that is the best for the application in mind. You will be able to create interactive applets in a professional way.
OUR ICS211 BOOK
Book: Data Abstraction and problem solving with JAVA Authors: Frank Carrano and Janet Prichard.
Editorial: Addison-Wesley ISBN: 0-201-70220-7
This book is available at the UH Bookstore, or you may look for it on-line. Amazon offers it new for $85 and used for $68. (As of Friday January 11th. there were only 3 used books left)This book was selected because it has good explanations in most of the subjects covered in this class. If JAVA is your first programming language and/or this is the first time that you will be learning about data structures you will find this book very helpful. Here are some amazon reviews for the book. Take into consideration that at the end of the semester you will have your very own opinion about it, however it has five out of five possible stars.
I instructed the book to be labeled as "required" but It is optional. I won't center the class in this book but in the classes that I will teach.
ASSIGNMENT POLICIES
How to submit your assignments:
Your assignments should be submitted by e-mail to the following address:
Your homework must be attached to the e-mail. If you are submitting a JAVA program, you MUST make sure that it compiles and runs properly in uhunix2. Failure to do so may result in point deduction. If your program runs in JBuilder, Visual Cafe or J++, that is no guarantee that it will run in uhunix2, so I recommend that you upload and test your program before you turn it in. Programs will be graded using uhunix2 unless otherwise stated.
Assignment due dates:
Deadlines for each assignment will be given in day and time. As an example: If your homework is due on Monday January the 10th of 2000 at 8:00 A.M. your program must have been received by that time in the above e-mail address. The time considered here is the uhunix2 time (not your personal computer's time, not the Greenwich time but uhunix2 time). Take into consideration that the time you send an e-mail and the time the e-mail is received may vary by seconds, perhaps minutes. The time taken into consideration here is the time at which we receive the e-mail. That will constitute our timestamp. Make sure that you allow enough time for the e-mail to be received before the deadline.
How will you know if we got your homework? But most important, at what time did we get it?
For this you will do the following:
After sending your homework, you should use your browser to go to
http://www2.hawaii.edu/~tp_200/ICS211Summer2001/m1-log.htmlor click in
here, it will take you there so you can verify if your homework is
there. I recommend you book mark it. PLEASE allow 5 minutes or so for the page to update itself. Use the
"Refresh" button in your browser to update your page.
What if you can't see your homework?
You may resend your homework. However the only homework that will be taken into consideration for grading will be the last one. So be careful because if you resend your homework a few minutes past the deadline because you didn't trust the web reload button the latest version is the one that will count and you will get points deducted for late work. So please take your time and try to send your homework at least one hour prior to the deadline.
How many points will a lose for late assignments?
Each homework is worth 100 points. Each day late will be 20 points deduction. After five days there is no point in turning in your homework because you won't be awarded any points. Since it is "unfair" to take 20 points off if you are late 1 second I have the following policy for the first day: In the first 23 hours and 59 seconds after the deadline, you will lose 0.83 points every hour. So if you are one hour late late (or one minute late) your homework is still worth 99.17 points, and if you are 60.00001 minutes late your homework will be worth 98.34, etc....At 23.9999 hours past the deadline your assignment has a maximum value of 80 points. Once you pass the first 24 hours your deduction will be 20 points per day, on other words: 24.000001 hours late is the same as 2 days late, and the assignment is worth 60% at this point. To figure out your maximum possible grade just do your math and count your time..
The following is the weight distribution for each one of the activities for ICS 211.
| Quizzes | 10 % |
| Homework | 40 % |
| Two Midterms | 15 % each |
| Final | 20 % |
I DO NOT grade on a curve. The grades will be awarded as follows:
| 92 to 100 | A |
| 77 to 91 | B |
| 65 to 76 | C |
| 55 to 64 | D |
| 0 to 54 | F |
There are gaps in between the letter grades. If a person gets 91.5, what grade should he/she receive? I reserve the right to make that decision myself based in observations about the person's performance.
Last modified on January 11th. 2002, 5:50 pm. HST
By Blanca J. Polo
by
Blanca