ICS 211 organization, Fall 2017

Instructor: Edo Biagioni, esb@hawaii.edu. See here for office hours.

This class meets Tuesdays and Thursdays 9am-10:15am on Zoom. Zoom and other connection information is avaiable in the resources on Laulima.

The lab for this class meets Tuesdays and Thursdays 10:30am-11:45am on Zoom. The first lab is on Tuesday January 12th.

Generally speaking, the instructor is responsible for the lectures and the exams, and the TA is responsible for the labs. The instructor assigns the homeworks and the TA grades them. Homeworks are posted on the web site no later than Tuesday each week and are due by Wednesday the following week (8 days later). All assignments must be turned in on time, or up to one day late with a 10% penalty. Homeworks this semester will likely be the same for all three sections of ICS 211.

Attendance to the lectures and labs is required. In lectures, the instructor takes attendance by giving a quiz at the beginning of each lecture. Attendance in the lab is recorded by the TA.


Goals

In this course, students will: Learning to program in Java is only one of the goals for this course, but may be the most important: fluency in Java is needed to apply many of the other tools and information presented in this course as well as in subsequent ICS courses. The homeworks and exams assume students are comfortable programming in Java at the level required for this course. Students who are not comfortable with programming, as determined either by individual difficulty or by lack of overall success on homework assignments, should consult with the TAs or instructor for additional (optional) assignments to help them come up to speed.

Textbook

The following textbook is required: Data Structures: Abstraction and Design Using Java, Third Edition, by Elliot B. Koffman and Paul A. T. Wolfgang, Wiley 2017. The book is accessible online from Laulima, in the left-hand menu bar as "Vital Source for UH Manoa IDAP".

This course will be participating in the bookstore’s Interactive Digital Access Program (IDAP). Through this program, you will access your course material digitally, and it will be available to you by the first day of class.

A charge for the digital course material through IDAP will be added to your MyUH account. You have the option to opt-out of receiving your course material through IDAP. By opting-out, you will lose access to the course material and the charge will be refunded on your MyUH account. If you do not opt-out, the charge will stay on your MyUH account. Any unpaid charges on your MyUH account will turn into a hold. Holds on your account will prevent you from accessing various services within the University.

You may opt-out by visiting your unique Inclusive Access Student Portal, which can be found in your IDAP welcome email (Subject Line: “IMPORTANT: You have enrolled in an IDAP Course”).

For more information regarding IDAP, please contact your campus bookstore.

(from: http://courses.ics.hawaii.edu/ics211s21/morea/010.introduction/reading-syllabus.html)

Students may also wish to consider looking at the book The Java Language Specification, which is accessible at no charge.

Organization and Grading

This course has three exams (including the final exam) and a number of homework assignments.

Grades are assigned based on your performance on:

Grading will use the standard cutoffs of 97% (A+), 93% (A), 90% (A-), 87% (B+), 83% (B), 80% (B-), 77% (C+), 73% (C), 70% (C-), 67% (D+), 63% (D), 60% (D-). Note that you need a B or better in ICS 211 (83% or more) to take ICS 311.

The homeworks are graded by the Teaching Assistant (TA), the exams by the instructor. Any questions should be directed accordingly.

Unless stated otherwise, homeworks will be due on Fridays by 11:55pm. All homeworks must be turned in on time, that is, by 11:55pm Friday if the due date is Friday (you are more than welcome to turn in your assignment ahead of time). A delay of up to 24 hours is allowed, but with a 10% grade penalty. Assignments are submitted through Laulima.

Your grade on an assignment may be affected if you fail to follow the instructions for completing and submitting the assignment (So, follow the instructions!).

It is to every student's advantage to turn in assignments by the due date, even if the assignment is not complete. This gives the possibility of obtaining at least partial credit for the work done. Assignments turned in after the due date will get no credit.

Exams are in-class, closed book, closed notes, with no calculators or any other tools (electronic or otherwise) allowed. Exams include programming problems.

Exams may be taken early, if requested at least one week before the scheduled time. Under no circumstances may an exam be taken late. If an exam is missed for a very good, well documented reason, the next exam will count twice as much, except for the final, in which case an incomplete will be given.

Class attendance is taken at the scheduled start time of the class.

Class participation is encouraged. Comments and questions are particularly helpful to the instructor and generally to the class. If needed to encourage class participation, the instructor may call on students to answer specific questions or contribute opinions. Participation in class should be friendly, relaxed, and mutually respectful.

Any questions about assignments should be directed to the TAs or the instructor rather than fellow students. As a student, you should decline to answer questions about assignments for which the deadline is not yet over. You are, of course, welcome to collaborately review assignments for which the deadline has passed, or collaboratively prepare for exams. Also, this course may include some team assignments, in which case the entire team must contribute evenly, and may not collaborate with anyone in another team.

Bringing food or drinks to the labs is prohibited, and may result in your losing your lab account, which may make it difficult for you to complete the assignments. It may also result in damage to the equipment, which may not be replaced.


Cheating

In this course, students may use material from other sources, but only if it is properly credited. Legitimate other sources include the textbook (you must give the page number) or web resources (you must give the URL). Any copying without credit is considered cheating. The TA may check homeworks using a specialized tool designed to detect cheating.

In the past, TAs have detected cheating on homeworks, and student grades have been affected. Don't do it!!!

In this course, it is also OK for students currently enrolled in this section to work in groups (of up to five), as long as all the students working together give credit to each other. Any contribution from anyone outside this section will be considered cheating.

There is to be no collaboration whatsoever on exams or quizzes.

In general, cheating includes presenting the work of somebody else as one's own, or providing one's work to somebody else to help them cheat.

No Cheating Policy: any cheating will result in a grade of 0 for the assignment, exam, or quiz the first time it is detected, and a grade of F for the course for any subsequent instance. Any instance of cheating will also be recorded at Judicial Affairs.

The Student Conduct Code has more details on both impermissible behavior (see for example section IV.B.1 of the policies, Acts of dishonesty) and possible disciplinary sanctions.

If you have any questions, please contact the instructor or the TAs.


Disabilities

If you feel you need reasonable accomodations because of the impact of a disability, please (1) contact the Kokua (Disability Access) Program at 956-7511 or in room 013 of the Queen Lili'uokalani Center for Student Services, and/or (2) speak privately with the instructor to discuss your specific needs. I will be happy to work with you and the Kokua program to meet your access needs related to your documented disability.

Acknowledgement

Much of the material in this course was adapted, with consent, from material developed by William Albritton and Carleton Moore.