Before you get started
This class requires you to do a LOT of work between homeworks (4), programming assignments (6) -- some of which are
quite difficult, reading assignments (a dozen or so), a class presentation, and two exams.
Grading is quite strict as well, in that failure to get a passing grade in, say, any of the programming assignments will earn
you a failing grade in this class. Put it another way, you cannot get around all the work by just skipping assignments.
I'm not trying to scare you into not taking this class, I just want you know full well what you're getting yourself into.
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Class participation will help settle borderline grades. While class attendance is not taken, your instructor believes
that regular class attendance is important and expects students to actively participate in class. Questions and comments are always welcome.
Academic Honesty
All the work you submit must be individual, including, but not limited to, those cases when your instructor has
approved pair-programming for you; in these cases the only thing that may be identical with somebody else's is code.
Academic dishonesty will not be tolerated. IIT has a strict academic honesty policy; here are the top points:
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The misrepresentation of any work submitted for credit as the product of a student’s sole
independent effort, such as using the ideas of others without attribution and other forms of plagiarism.
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The use of any unauthorized assistance in taking quizzes, tests or examinations.
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The acquisition, without permission, of tests, answer sheets, problem solutions or other
academic material when such material has been withheld from distribution by the instructor.
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Deliberate harmful obstruction of the studies, research or academic work of any member of
the IIT community.
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Making material misrepresentation in any submission to or through any office of the university to a
potential employer, professional society, meeting or organization.
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The intentional assistance of others in the violation of the standards for academic honest.
You can read the entire policy in the
Student Handbook (start at page 31). You should read it until you fully understand it.
A good way to test whether you understand it is to try to explain it to somebody else.
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Programming Assignments
Programming assignments are designed to improve your understanding of core concepts by implementing them.
Feel free to use your favorite programming language or use this as an opportunity
to learn new ones.
All programming work you do for this class will be tested on one of two environments
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Our computer running a fresh instalation of Ubuntu 8.10. This is the preferred environment.
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Our computer running Windows XP, SP3.
NOTE: the fact that your code runs on your computer and not on ours is not enough to earn you credit for your work.
We'd love to accomodate you with other test environments, however this is a big class and the TA is already overworked.
Let me repeat, we're not going to test under any other version of Windows, nor are we going to do it under and other
Unix variant other than the one described above.
If your application requires things (e.g. libraries, plug-ins, gems, etc.) that dont's come with the standard
distribution, then you should tell us, in the README file you provide with your other deliverables, how to install required dependencies.
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Class Presentations
The purpose of this section is for students to do some independent research work and present their findings to the
class.
No later than 9/21/09, each student must choose a topic for the class presentation. Your topic must be
approved by your instructor.
Submit your request via email to your class instructor. Topic requests will be honored on a FIFO basis.
As a general rule, the sooner you submit the request, the more time you'll have to prepare it.
A draft of the presentation is due on 10/26/09; a penalty of 10% will be assigned if you fail to submit your draft presentation
or if you submit it late. There are two purposes to this:
- Make sure you're on track with your work.
- Select the most promising presentations for live presentations; that's primarily of concern for your teacher.
Should you fail to deliver a draft of your presentation by the due date, you'll get penalized 10% in your final grade for the
presentation.
The draft presentation must be substantive, i.e. it should show you've spent enough time researching the presentation topic
in order to have a good idea about what needs to go in and what needs to stay out. If the draft presentation is deemed to not
be substantive by your instructor, then you'll get a 10% penalty on your presentation.
Your presentation must include notes for each slide, which notes include the detail related to each
slide; if you prefer, you can produce a separate document that includes the detail of your presentation.
If the notes you provide for your presentation are deemed to not be substantive by your instructor,
then you'll get a 10% penalty on your presentation.
Allocate significant time to survey the IS topic you have selected. Do not wait until a few days before the
presentation is due, chances are that if you do so, then you'll run out of time and will end up with a very
poor mark in this section.
Presentations will be limited to 20' and will be followed by Q&A up to a total of 30'.
Grading will consider both the content and the way the presentation is made to the class. Your class peers will
participate in the grading process and their opinion accounts for 40% of your mark, unless you are one of
the students who submits the topic late and/or you cannot be physically present in class for a live presentation.
If you are a student whose presentation hasn't been selected for one of the live presentations sessions or a
student who takes the class remotely and cannot attend a live presentation, then you will have to record your
presentation as if you were giving it in front of your peers and turn in a .mpeg movie together with all the
other deliverables for the class presentation. Your presentation is due on the first day of student
presentations as outlined in the Class Schedule.
In the movie we'll want to see:
- Your face, at least in the beginning and at the end of the presentation
- Slides
- Synchronized sound
The presentation must be very well rehearsed; failure to properly prepare for the presentation will
result in an extremely poor mark on the presentation.
The following grading sheets will be used for your class presentation.
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Communications
The first person you should contact for any questions related to assignments is your TA. Please note that we may have more
than one TA assigned for this class, each of them grading a subset of the assignments,
Please be descriptive in the subject line when you email your TA or instructor such that processing doesn't get delayed.
At the very minimum you should indicate the class and the term, followed by a brief description of what is it that
you want to communicate.
Examples of good subject lines for your email:
- cs458, Fall 2009 - Hw1, part (i)
- cs458, Fall 2009 - When will the grades be posted on the Blackboard?
- cs458, Fall 2009 - Question about PA2
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