Syllabus 

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• Course Name, Number and Prerequisite
• Contact Information
• Course Description
• Course Goals
• Required Course Materials
• Assignment Policies
• Grading.

For questions or comments please e-mail the instructor at blanca@hawaii.edu

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CONTACT INFORMATION

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 This course will introduce students to JAVA programming as well as to computer science in general. This course is intended for beginning programmers. It starts from the very basic concepts of object-oriented programming. If you have previously taken programming classes please be patient. 

Here are some  about this course:  

• What will you cover in this course?

You will learn:

* To write JAVA stand-alone applications.
* Arithmetic operations and precedence.
* To build and use classes.
* String manipulation
* Loop and control structures
* Arrays

You will also learn about general concepts of computer science.

• Why is it worthwhile to study this subject? 

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. -$$$$-

• What is the approach to teaching this content?

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. You will learn how the different areas of computer science converge to help us live better.

• How will this relate to the material that was covered in the prerequisite course(s)? 

After taking ICS101 (or equivalent) you should be familiar with UNIX and computer editors.

• Is there any other body of content that it will draw on? 

A good understanding of algebra and logic 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.

• What will be expected of you, the student? 
  • Aside from the class time the student will need to dedicate from 8 to 10 hours per week to this class. The reason for this, is that assignments will be given and due about every 10 days all throughout the course. Lab assignments will be given as well.
  • Lectures are very important. The material covered in the exam is based on lectures not in any of the books. Please keep in mind that participation is part of your grade, if you do not participate you will not score any of the points given in that category.
  • What about the labs?
    • You should attend the lab lectures, timed quizzes will take place at this time.
    • Lab assignments will be due sometime within 48 hours of the end of the lab session. Some of these activities may be due within the lab time. The exact deadline time will be specified on every lab assignment.
    • If labs are not due during lab time you will be required to e-mail them to ics111-lab@hawaii.edu. Exact details will be given on each lab assignment.
    • The TA.s office hours will take place during lab time, so you will always have direct access to them.

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  COURSE GOALS

  By the end of the Spring of 2004 you will:

  • Have basic knowledge of several computer science disciplines. 
  • Be able to write JAVA applications. 
  • Be able to combine several JAVA classes into one programming project. 

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       OUR ICS111 BOOK.

  Required Book:    Java Software Solutions: Foundations of Program Design
  

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  COURSE SCHEDULE
  • Important dates for ICS 111 Spring 2004.
  • Homework assignments. for the spring semester.
  • Planned sequence of topics that will be covered in ICS111 this semester. Note that this is only a plan. I reserve the right to change it as needed.  The changes may or not be reflected in the web page. The main purpose of this sequence of topics is to give you an idea of what will be covered during the spring.

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   ASSIGNMENT POLICIES

  How to submit your assignments:  

  Your assignments should be submitted by e-mail to the following address:

  ics111-homework@hawaii.edu

  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 UNIX. 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 you should upload and test your program before you turn it in. Programs will be graded using UHUNIX2.

  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 1st 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/bmf/ics111-homework.html so you can verify if your homework is there. I recommend you book mark this site. 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 I 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.
  
  Once the grades have been posted by your TA you will have one week from the date of the posting to talk to your TA in case that you are not satisfied with the grade you received.

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  GRADING The following is the weight distribution for each one of the activities for ICS 111. Lab Assignment/Activities 20% Quizzes 10 % Homework 20 % In-class participation 5 % Midterm 1 10  % Midterm 2 15 % Final 20 %

  I DO NOT  grade on a curve.  The grades will be awarded as follows: 90 to 100 A 80 to 89 B 70 to 79 C 55 to 70 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? That is up to the instructor and it will be based on attendance and in-class performance.