Syllabus Last Modified on Nov. 6, 2009

Basic Facts

Description

CptS 121 is a first course ("CS 1") in computer science for students with prior programming experience. Students without prior programming course should take CptS 111 as a first course. If you're unsure whether CptS 121 is appropriate for you, please take the online placement exam.

In this course, we use the C programming language to explore the fundamental concepts, constructs, and techniques of modern computer programming, including variables, arrays, conditionals, iteration, pointers, data structures, debugging, and software engineering, test cases, and code review. The primary aim of this course is to give you a taste of the field of computer science, and to get you comfortable with computer programming.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this course, you should

• realize that the field of computer science is about more than just programming, and appreciate its foundations in algorithmic problem solving and machine organization;
• be able to write, understand, and debug programs that employ the basic constructs of modern computer languages, including variables, arrays, conditionals, iteration, and pointers;
• be able to take a specification of a problem of moderate complexity, and construct a structured, elegant C program that solves the problem; and
• be able to undertand, review, and provide constructive feedback on, computer code that is not your own.

Learning Activities

This course aims to help you learn through three distinct activities:

• Lectures. Three lectures per week explore the core material of the course. My teaching approach emphasizes interaction (I encourage questions throughout my lectures), learning-by-doing, and practical examples. For example, I like to engage students in group programming and problem-solving exercises at appropriate times in the lecture. In addition, since much of the course involves programming, I also like to hold "example sessions" in which I pose programming problems, and, with the help of the class, interactively derive solutions to those problems.

• Labs. A weekly lab session gives you the opportunity to put into practice the techniques and concepts covered in the week's lectures. In each lab, you will be required to work though a structured lab assignment. Because pair programming has been shown to be such a valuable learning activity, you are encouraged to work through all lab assignments with a partner, although each partner is required to hand in his/her own copy.

• Online Code Reviews and Interaction. This course is supported by Online Studio-Based Learning Environment (OSBLE), a novel environment be developed at Washington State University. Use OSBLE to

  • obtain course materials (all of which are actually hosted on your instructor's own website: http://eecs.wsu.edu/~hundhaus/teaching/cpts121/)
  • read announcements,
  • hand in all programming assignments,
  • perform required online peer code reviews,
  • assess the helpfulness of the peer code reviews you receive, and
  • participate in on-line discussions of programming assignments.
    
    

  Note: OSBLE is a prototype environment, and is under active development. As with any prototype computer system, there are likely to be bugs. We invite you to submit feedback through OSBLE's bug tracker. We will also give you the opportunity to share your experiences with using OSBLE in an online survey later in the semester.
  

Schedule

Grading

Your grade for the course will be based on the following (weights are in parentheses):

• Programming assignments (30%). You will be given eight individual programming assignments. This works out to about one programming assignment every two weeks. The the programming assignments will require you to implement C solutions that reinforce the programming techniques and concepts explored in the course. The weight of each assignment depends on its relative difficulty; see the individual assignment descriptions for the specifics. Note that all programming assignment code must adhere to the Recommended C Style and Coding Standards.
  

• Online Code Reviews (10%). One of the learning objectives of this course is to prepare you to critically read, review, and provide constructive feedback on, code that was not written by you. To that end, peer code reviews constitute a key course activity. In this course, such reviews will take place completely online using the Online Studio-Based Learning Environment (OSBLE). For these reviews, you will be assigned to a team of three to five people; the team is subject to change from assignment to assignment. You will be required to review the code solution of each of your team members by logging issues and, for some of the assignments, designing and running test cases. Your team members will rate the helpfulness of your reviews. Their ratings, coupled with those of your TAs, will form the basis of the online code review portion of your grade. You will receive further training on how to perform code reviews using OSBLE in class and/or lab. In addition, look for an online document with further instructions to appear soon.

• Quizzes (5%). At the end of lecture nearly every Friday, you will take a closed-book quiz to help you and and your instructor assess your understanding of the assigned lecture and reading material. Note that your two lowest quiz scores over the course of the semester will be discarded.

• Labs (15%). Weekly lab assignments give you the opportunity to put into practice the techniques and concepts covered in the lectures under the supervision of a knowledgeable teaching assistant. Because pair programming has been shown to be such a valuable learning activity, we strongly recommend that you work on your lab assignments with a partner. You will receive full credit for a given lab if (a) you show up for the lab on time (there is a 5 minute grace period, after which you will be docked 10 % per 15 minutes late, or fraction thereof. If you are more than 149 minutes late, you will not receive credit for the lab) and actively participate in the entire lab by making a sincere effort to complete all of the problems; and (b) you make a sincere effort to assist other students with the lab in the event that you finish before them. To encourage peer mentoring (another potentially effective learning activity) and a sense of teamwork, our policy states that students may not go on to later lab problems until everyone in the lab is done with the current problem. . Also note that all C code written in lab assignments must adhere to the Recommended C Style and Coding Standards; your TA will let you know if you are not adhering to these standards.
  
  

• Midterm exams (20%). Two midterm examinations, each worth 10% of your course grade, will be given in class on Friday, September 25 and Friday, November 6. Midterm #1 will cover the first five weeks of class, while midterm #2 will cover the second five weeks of class. A study guide will be posted to the course WebCT site one week prior to each exam.You will be allowed to use a "cheat sheet": one side of a page whose dimensions may not exceed 8-1/2" by 5-1/2".

• Final exam (20%). Both a final programming exam (worth 12%) and a written final exam (worth 8%) will be given. The final programming exam will be given in lab during the last week of labs (the last week of class), while the written final exam will be given during the regular final exam period (NOTE CHANGE: Tuesday, December 15 from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m.). For final programming exam, you will be given three hours to solve a programming problem using only your textbook, the MSDN, and teh Visual Studio environment. The written final exam will consist of mostly multiple choice, true-false, and fill-in-the-blank questions that emphasize the concepts covered in the course. Both exams will be comprehensive, with an emphasis on the final five weeks of the course. A study guide will be posted to the course website and WebCT one week prior to the exam; a review session dedicated to preparing for this exam will be held the last day of class. You will be allowed to use a "cheat sheet": one side of a page whose dimensions may not exceed 8-1/2" by 5-1/2".

• Research Participation (1% extra credit). You are invited to participate in a research study being conducted in conjunction with this course. Participating in the study chiefly involves releasing your coursework and grades for research purposes. For most people, participation will not require any extra effort beyond normal course activities. For a few randomly selected people, participation will require up to 30 extra minutes of time for an interview. For your efforts, you will be rewarded with 1% extra credit. You can think of this extra credit as an insurance policy: it is enough to raise your grade to the next level in the event that your grade lies on the border of two grades. The fine print can be found in this informed consent form, which we'll invite you to read and sign sometime near the beginning of the semester. Note that, if you choose not to participate in the research study, you may earn this extra credit through alternative means. Please discuss options with the instructor by the end of the fifth week of classes.

Grading Scale

Letter grades will be assigned according to the following grading scale. While I do not generally grade on a curve, I occasionally opt to establish a curve for an exam if the results indicate that the exam may not have been fair.

Documented Disabilities

Policies

Please familiarize yourself with the following course policies. By following them, you will get the most out of this course, and you will not encounter any unwelcome surprises down the road.

• Keeping up with the course in OSBLE. Participation in this course fundamentally entails logging into OSBLE on a regular basis. I expect you to log in three to four times per week, and to read the notices posted on the course home page. These notices provide essential, up-to-date information on the course—information that you absolutely need to know in order to succeed in the course.

• Corresponding with the instructor and TAs via e-mail. Please use "CptS 121: " as the prefix in the subject line of any e-mail sent to the instructor or your TA. This will ensure that your mail does not get lost in our inboxes, and that we will respond as quickly as possible. In general, you can expect an e-mail response from us within 24 hours of sending it.

• Submitting assignments. You will submit all of your course assignments through OSBLE. You can update your assignment submission as often as you'd like up until the due date, or you may choose to lock your assignment earlier. Once the due date has passed or you have locked your assignment, you may not change it any more. Note that when you submit an assignment through OSBLE, it receives a timestamp that tells us whether it is late and, if so, how late it is. (See "late policy" below.)

• Checking assignment due dates. Assignment due dates can be viewed through OSBLE; they are also integrated into the course schedule page. In general, programming assignments are due at 5 p.m. on the due date, while labs are always due at the beginning of the lab session. If a due date changes, the change will be noted in an announcement, and the deadline in OSBLE and on the schedule will be updated accordingly.

• Checking your grades. Your TA will maintain an online gradebook. Please check with your TA for the link. Roughly every week, your TA will update your grades, including your current overall percentage and letter grade. Your TA will do his/her best to record your grades accurately. Please check the on-line gradebook regularly to ensure that your grades have been entered properly, and please let your TA know as soon as possible if you detect an error.

• Challenging a grade. If you believe that your TA has made a mistake in grading an assignment, you have one week (from the time your grade is first posted to the gradebook) to e-mail your TA about the matter. Students have often attempted to bargain for points well after their grades have been posted—often near the end of the semester, when they realized that they needed more points to obtain a certain grade. Please do NOT attempt to do this!

• Exam make-up policy. In general, I will not allow you to make up an exam unless you (a) have a legitimate excuse (e.g., medical or family emergency) and (b) make other arrangements with me at least one week in advance of the exam. If a genuine emergency comes up and you cannot give me due notice of your need to make up an exam, I will accept make-up requests after the fact, provided that (a) they are in writing, with supporting, signed documents (e.g., a doctor's note), and (b) they are submitted to me no later than 24 hours after the starting time of the exam you missed. I will review each case on an individual basis, and I will let you know if your request is granted no later than 24 hours after it is submitted.
  
  

• Late policy for assignments. Assignments are due by the established due dates and times (see schedule). You may hand in a lab or programming assignment up to two days late (the weekend counts as one day), at a penalty of 10% per 24 hours late. Forty eight hours after the an assignment or lab is due, you may no longer hand in the assignment or lab for credit. At that time, the link to the solution key for the assignment, if available, will become "live" on the master "schedule" page.

• Academic Dishonesty. For the lab assignments, you are required to work with a partner. For the programming assignments, in contrast, you are required to work INDIVIDUALLY. In the case of lab assignments, you and your lab partner must hand in identical copies of a lab report that resulted from your collaborative work; you may not collaborate with other groups on lab assignemts. In the case of individual programming assignments, you must hand in your own work. These rules are strictly enforced, and violations will be treated harshly according to the following schedule:
  
  
  • first violation—A "0" on the assigment and verbal reprimand;

  • second violation—a grade of "F" for the course, and a referral to the dean of students;

It goes without saying that you may not cheat on the assignments and exam. This means that the work must be solely your own (or that of your group), and that all outside sources must be properly cited. If we catch you cheating, the minimum penalty will be a 0 on the assignment or exam. Repeat offenses will result in a grade of "F" in the course, and a referral to the Director of the School of EECS. Please see the EECS Academic Integrity Policy for further details.