CS112: Introduction to Computer Programming (Spring 2015)

Section 001/004

1 Course Basics

Meeting Time and Location:

• Section 001: TR 12pm-1:15pm, Enterprise Hall 178
• Section 004: MW 3pm-4:15pm, ENGR Bldg 1101

Instructor: Dr. Yutao Zhong

• Email: yzhong (at) gmu (dot) edu
• Office: Engineering Building 5337
• Schedule (Tentative)

Course Outcomes:

• An ability to use procedural programming language concepts including expressions, decision statements, simple data types, Boolean logic, input/output, loop constructs, and procedures.
• An ability to combine programming techniques to solve problems of varying degrees of difficulty.
• An ability to refine computer programs through testing and debugging to ensure proper operation.
• An ability to find and understand programming language documentation to learn new information needed to solve programming problems.

Prerequisite:

C or better in MATH 104, 105, or 113 (or sufficient score on the math placement test). Corequisite: CS Majors must also be enrolled in CS 101 this semester.

Textbook:

• Required - CS112 class workbook: TBA first lecture.
• Optional - Zyante online textbook.
  
• Sign up at Zyante.
• Enter zyBook code: GMUCS112Spring2015
• Subscribe using any credit card
• Optional - The Practice of Computing Using Python by William Punch & Richard Enbody © 2011. An eText version is available.
  

Other Useful Resources:

• Piazza: Announcements, lecture slides, assignments, discussion. GTA/UTA contacts and office hours will be on Piazza too.
  
• Blackboard: Grades and assignments submitting.
• Marmoset instructions: Project submitting.
  

2 Grading

Assessment

• A+ (>= 98.0%) A (>= 92.0%) A– (>= 90.0%)
• B+ (>= 88.0%) B (>= 82.0%) B– (>= 80.0%)
• C+ (>= 78.0%) C (>= 72.0%) C– (>= 70.0%)
• D (>= 60.0%)
• F (< 60.0%)

Projects

Programming projects will be a primary focus of your grade - each one should take multiple sessions of coding, with questions asked in between. This is the practice you need to learn, master, and internalize various concepts of the course.

• Submission

• All programming project must run on Marmoset to be considered for credit. All projects will be automatically graded on Marmoset. See the Marmoset submission instructions. Under no circumstances will credit be given for a project, except through Marmoset.
• Note that Marmoset accepts multiple assignment submissions; we will grade the submission with the highest score. You can also download your previous submissions from Marmoset to verify that you turned in a working copy.

• Deadline

• All programming projects must be submitted by the deadline to be considered for full credit. Projects that are up to one day late will be tolerated, but are subject to a penalty of 20%. No assignment will be accepted for credit after last class meeting.
• Marmoset being unavailable is not an excuse for turning in a late assignment; in the rare situation that the website is somehow unavailable or giving the student an error, the student MUST email their submission to their GTA before the deadline, otherwise it will be considered late.
• Catastrophic computer failure will not be cause for an extension. Use a backup service such as DropBox (or any cloud service), emailing yourself, storing to a USB drive, whatever it takes. Every semester multiple students' computers die, are stolen, or otherwise 'lose' projects. Don't be the student who forgot to (frequently) back up your work!
• Note that Marmoset accepts multiple assignment submissions; we will grade the submission with the highest score. You can also download your previous submissions from Marmoset.
  

• Office hours

• For students seeking help with programming assignments during office hours, students must identify the line number, through debug print statements, where they believe an error to be before seeing the TA or instructor. This implies that you must have your own test cases, at least one of which that fails, to bring to office hours before the TAs or instructor can help you.
  
• For more general programming assignment questions, students must bring their own pseudocode to office hours before the TA or professor can help you.
  
• Under no circumstances will the professor or GTA reveal more than three lines of code at a time during office hours. Students must make significant, individual effort on all projects before coming to see a GTA/professor. Waiting until the last minute, in the expectations that the entire project will be explained in one office hours session, is not feasible.
• Office hours are often crowded - do not rely on them for last minute help, as we cannot guarantee that we will be able to spend significant time with every student. Use the discussion board instead for posting questions.
  

• Discussion board

• The discussion board on Piazza is required reading for all projects. Although every effort is made to post complete and consistent project specifications, because projects are designed from scratch every semester, it is inevitable that specs will change slightly throughout the semester. You MUST read the discussion board daily for clarifications and project updates, and you MUST be prepared to implement these small potential changes.
• Students are encouraged to use the discussion board, Piazza, to ask and answer questions. Responses to questions can be expected within 24 hours, and often times much sooner (within two hours or less during the day).
  
• Under no circumstances should code be posted publicly to the discussion board. Students can post questions and code privately, although the instructor reserves the right to make any post public, so that other students can see the responses.
  
• For students wishing to post their code privately to Piazza, the same rules apply as when coming to office hours; if you have code written, you must produce at least one failing test case where you have identified what line number is giving you problems.

• Honor code

• Programming projects are considered individual efforts, therefore no sharing of code and/or discussion of problem solutions are allowed with anyone except the lab GTA, UTA or the professor. Test cases must also not be shared. Student projects will be manually and automatically assessed for cheating. You may not look at or otherwise view any other individual's code, pseudocode, or test cases.
  
• You may not use any Internet resources to create code or algorithms, besides the textbooks, the slides, and Piazza, unless otherwise specified. However, you are free to look up the syntax errors your encounter online, to gain an understanding of what the syntax error means. The projects we're doing this semester can be directly solved using techniques discussed in class, and no outside material is needed unless otherwise noted.
• It is your responsibility to lock your computers with a password, to not post your code to websites like Pastebin that are publicly accessible, to guard your USB drives and computers, to not upload your files to someone else's computer, etc. You will be liable for any access gained to your code. Stating that "I don't know how he/she got access to my code", or "I left the room and they stole my code" are not an acceptable excuses in an honor code violation.

Lab assessment

• Weekly lab assessment may include quzzies and/or coding assignments.
• We will drop your lowest lab grade.
• Any missed lab assessment is simply missed, regardless of the reason why (travel, illness, work, traffic, receiving a major award, getting married, saving the universe, etc.)
  

Exams

• Exams are closed book/notes unless specified otherwise by instructor.
  
• They will be entirely paper and pencil - no computers.
• All students must have their GMU identification available on testing days
  
• If you know in advance that you are unable to make an exam for a valid and unavoidable reason (such as a scheduled surgery, etc), you must notify the professor at least one week before the scheduled exam date to make arrangements for a make-up, and bring documentation with you when you take the make-up.
  
• If you miss an exam due to a university-accepted excused absence (such as an illness or car accident the day and time of the exam), you must notify your professor within 24 hours of your absence to make arrangements for a makeup, and bring approved documentation with you when you take the make-up exam. Failure to follow either of these policies will result in a zero. We may also elect to allow the final exam to count the extra amount to give you a sort of do-over.
• The final will not be given early. You are starting the course with knowledge of the schedule (see GMU's Final Exam Calendar for the latest schedule, updated as weather events require).
  
• Per departmental policy, a failing grade on the final exam (<60.0%) will result in a failing grade (F) for the entire course, regardless of performance on other assignments. You must pass the final exam to pass the course.
  

Other

• There will be no make-up or extra-credit assignments at the end of the semester; your grade should be a measure of your semester-long progress.
  
• Contesting of grades on any/all submissions must be requested within one week of the item's return. No grade changes will be considered subsequent to that deadline, or after the final exam meeting.

3 Honor Code

All students are expected to abide by the GMU Honor Code. This policy is rigorously enforced. All class-related assignments are considered individual efforts unless explicitly expressed otherwise (in writing). Cheating on any assignment will be prosecuted and result in a notification of the Honor Committee as outlined in the GMU Honor Code. Sharing, collaboration, or looking at any code or algorithm related to programming assignments that is not your own is considered cheating.

The computer science department has an additional, more restrictive CS Honor Code that you are also subject to. Make sure you read and familiarize yourself with these rules. We use automated software to flag suspicious cases, and then review them by hand to find the cases that must be submitted to the Office of Academic Integrity. The penalty for cheating will always be far worse than a zero grade, to ensure it's not worth taking the chance. Confirmed cases of cheating almost always translate into course failure.

4 Learning Disabilities

Students with a learning disability or other condition (documented with GMU's Office of Disability Services) that may impact academic performance should speak with the professor ASAP to discuss appropriate accommodations.