ICS/CSE 22 Spring 2011<br> Syllabus

Course Information

ICS/CSE 22

Spring 2011

Instructor

Prof. Sandy Irani
Office: DBH 4042
Office Hours: M 1-1:50, W 11-11:50, F 9-9:50
Email: last name at ics dot uci dot edu

Teaching Assistant

Kaiser Md. Nahiduzzaman
Office: DBH 4243
Office Hours: Thu 5:00 - 6:00 PM
Email: kaisernahid@gmail.com

Meeting Places and Times

Lecture will be held MWF 10:00-10:50 in SSL 228. You are responsible for anything said in class, including class announcements. If you have to miss lecture for any reason, please ask one of your classmates to fill you in on what you missed.

There are two lab sections for this class. Each lab section has four scheduled hours in the lab. During these times, you have a guaranteed seat in the lab. Note, however, you only have priority over other students if you are working on class work (i.e. not playing games). Kaiser will be available in the lab during these times to answer questions. This is an ideal opportunity to get some help with your lab homework in front of a computer.

There are several department labs which you can use for working on your lab assignments. Information about the locations and hours of the labs can be found at http://www.ics.uci.edu/~lab . Keep in mind that some of these labs may be reserved for other classes during the day, so you may not have first priority to these machines at all times. It is possible that the labs will be very crowded on the day an assignment is due. It is your responsibility to take this into account as I can not accept crowded labs as an excuse for late lab assigments.

Obtaining Assistance

The best way to get your questions answered is by coming to lecture, office hours or lab and asking them there. In general, if I'm not busy with something else, I am happy to answer short questions while I am in my office, so feel free to stop by during other times in the week.

All email with questions about course material should be sent to the following email address: ics22-questions@ics.uci.edu. This is an alias for the instructor and the TA. It ensures that we both see your message and the response. It also gives you better turnaround time.

Please also include the following information:

The string "ICS 22:" at the beginning of the subject line
Your name
Your student number

If you are experiencing difficulties in the lab with the equipment, let the lab attendant know. If they can not solve the problem, they will contact support.

Course Announcements

Course announcements will be sent via email to all students enrolled in the class, at their official UCI email address.
Click here for the archive of these messages.

Assignments

Lab assignments will be due approximately every two weeks at Friday 7PM. Please see the Introduction to the Projects for instructions on handing in assignments and policies on late assignments.

Weekly quizes: I will give a very short weekly quiz at the beginning of class every Monday. Since May 30 is a holiday, we will have a quiz the following Wednesday, June 1, instead. The quizes will last approximately 10 minutes and will be given out at the beginning of lecture. They will cover material from the preceding week. In determining your course score, I will drop the lowest two quiz scores. However, these dropped scores are intended to cover any missed quizes for whatever reason you need to miss a quiz. This includes any medical problems, personal issues or school-related events.

I will grade the quizes and Kaiser will grade the lab assignments. If you have questions regarding grading, please see the person who graded that particular item.

Text

We have one required text for this course.

Data Structures and Algorithms in Java, 4th. edition., by Michael Goodrich and Roberto Tamassia.

You may also find it useful to purchase a Java reference book if you do not already have one. Different styles suit different people, so I will leave it up to you to select your own.

Course Structure

The grading criteria for the course is:

Note that there is a tiny bit of credit given for completing the course evaluation towards the end of the quarter. It is available through EEE and is usually released a couple weeks from the end of the quarter. If enough students complete the evaluation then I have access to the list of students who completed the evaluation. However, I do not see any evaluation results until the quarter is over and grades have been turned in. Even after the quarter when I do see the evaluation results, they are completely anonymous. Thus, there is no risk to you in being completely honest in your evaluation. I take these evaluations very seriously and use them to improve my teaching.

Missed Final Exam Policy

If you miss the final exam and do not have a valid reason, you will receive a score of 0 on the exam.
The following policy applies if you miss the final exam for a valid reason.
- There are only two classes of valid reasons for missing the final exam:
  1. An unforeseeable emergency, such as a medical emergency. In such cases I will ask for documentation.
  2. An absence from an exam due to a foreseeable circumstance that I have approved in advance.
- A work conflict is NOT a valid reason for missing the final exam. The examination times are announced at the beginning of the quarter, so there is plenty of time to plan your work schedule.
- If you wait until after the exam to get a foreseeable excuse approved, and it is not approved, you will receive a grade of zero (0) on the exam.
- If I accept your reason for missing the final exam, at my option I may either (1) give you a makeup exam or (2) assign your grade on the basis of the remaining course work that you did not miss.
- If I give a makeup exam, I may give it less weight than announced on the course web page.

Academic Honesty

The Bren School of ICS and the University have already established an academic honesty policy. Read it.

Violators of academic honesty policies are subject to the penalties described in the Bren School of ICS policy. They are also subject to an immediate course grade of F, and you will not be allowed to drop the course to avoid the grade. Also be aware that a single documented case of academic dishonesty may preclude you from switching into computing majors, registering for computing minors, joining the ICS Honors Program, and graduating from a computing major with honors.

Guidelines to avoid plagarism:

Do not look at another person's code. Instead you should prefer to discuss the problem in plain English. This helps you to communicate clearly, practice technical jargon as it applies to your problem, and to identify how your solution exhibits behavior different from what you expect.
Do not write down the solution in your notes. It is perfectly fine (and encouraged) to collborate on work. Working in a group is a rewarding experience, and definitely a necessary skill in any professional career. The collaboration can include drawing diagrams and perhaps solving the problem on a whiteboard. However, you should avoid writing the solution in your notes. It is very useful to rethink the problem and go through the details and logic when you solve it again on your own.

We expect that:

You can monitor each other and enforce these rules among yourselves. Making sure that others follow these guidelines will help to ensure that they don't pass off your work as their own.
Your work honestly represents your efforts. The entire purpose of obtaining an education is so that you can accumulate a body of skills and experience that will help you later on. If you do not perform the work yourself, then you have cheated yourself out of the education. Employers in our field can (and do) screen applicants for skills and knowledge. You will perform poorly (and discredit UCI) if you do not practice now by doing your own work.

Trust, but Verify

We also recognize that trust is a two-way street. We trust that you will follow these guidelines, and we can verify that trust by using sophisticated plagarism detection software. Not only does this software contain a knowledge base of all current assignments, but it also remembers all past assignments. It can pattern-match over code structure as well as code text. The effort required to cheat this system is less than the effort to do the assignment yourself, so don't try it!

If you are repeating this course, you are also not allowed to use past work. Do not deprive a coding partner of the learning experience by providing answers without thought. Do not deprive yourself of the opportunity to reinforce concepts you may not have fully gotten the first time. Turning in past work will be detectable, and considered plagarism as it defeats the purpose of the assignments. Start yourself completely afresh.

As I will be verifying your work, so can you verify my work. Attend lectures, read ahead in the book, and watch me like a hawk so that I don't broadcast inconsistent information.