CS 112 Syllabus - Summer 2021

Our schedule can be found on BlackBoard.

1. An ability to use procedural programming language concepts including expressions, decision statements, simple data types, Boolean logic, input/output, loop constructs, and procedures.
2. An ability to combine programming techniques to solve problems of varying degrees of difficulty.
3. An ability to refine computer programs through testing and debugging to ensure proper operation.
4. An ability to read, understand, and evaluate a program specification in order to independently implement the desired behavior.
5. An ability to understand issues and ethics related to obtaining and using code from unknown, unreliable, or unethical sources, as a precursor to best professional practices.

C or better in MATH 104, 105, or 113, or sufficient score on the math placement test.

• Required - Zybooks online text.
  1. Sign up at zybooks.com.
  2. Enter zyBook code: GMUCS112ZhiSummer2021
  3. Subscribe (indicate your lecture section when prompted)

• sign up: http://www.piazza.com/gmu/summer2021/cs112/home
• All correspondence will go through Piazza. You can send private messages to the instructors (professors, GTAs) as well as post public questions visible to all students, collaborate on responses, and tag everything by topic.
  • Unless you have a confidential matter to discuss directly with an individual professor, please do not email us directly, use a private piazza post. Project help questions sent via email are extremely low priority, as they were sent to the wrong place.
• Course discussions will take place on Piazza. Go sign up now so you don't miss discussions.

• Grades will be posted to Blackboard: https://mymason.gmu.edu
• All assignments will be submitted (per published deadlines) via Blackboard.

• Quite Optional - The Practice of Computing Using Python, second edition. William Punch and Richard Enbody. This is for students who want extra reading resources. You might be able to view a copy for free at Fenwick Library.

• Given the percentages above and the allowed dropped lowest grades, you should always be able to calculate your semester grade at any point in the semester.
• 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.
• note that generally, project/lab scores are higher, and test scores lower, than many students' overall semester score.

Grades will be assessed on the following scale:

Each programming assignment is an individual effort; no collaboration allowed on projects.

Programming projects will be a primary focus of your experience, progress, and 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. Don't be surprised if you're spending 5-20 hours on each one.

• SUMMER: Note that no part of the course is omitted for our accelerated summer schedule; we operate at twice the pace, and still get the entire course experience!

• All lab assessment grades will be averaged together evenly after the drops.
• Lab quizzes and tasks require attendance at your designated lab time to get the credit.
• 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.). This is the reason you get lab drops!
• We will drop the lowest two grades from this category.
• If you choose to miss some early on, and later on have to miss for some understandable reason, that is too bad. Try to save the drops so you can actually throw out a bad grade, and not just hide a lazy zero. Pretending you don't have them is your best approach.

• Exams are closed book/notes unless specified otherwise by instructor.
• All students must have a working webcam and be able to use the remote proctoring software (Respondus).
• These tests will focus on performing programming.
• The final exam is cumulative. If you perform better on the final exam than your midterm exam, we will replace the midterm grade with the final grade.
• If you miss the final, there is nothing we can do for you. Don't miss the final!
• If you know in advance that you are unable to make an exam for a valid and unavoidable reason (such as a scheduled surgery, naturalization ceremony, court date, 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.
• The final will not be given early. You are starting the course with knowledge of the schedule.
  • SUMMER: we will have our exam on the last day of class.
• You must pass the final exam to pass the course. This is a departmental policy for CS 112. You also need to have a passing percentage grade, of course, but failure on the final exam indicates a systemic lack of true progress. Generally, students who fail the final exam do not have a passing grade in the course anyways. ("passing" the final exam means scoring 60% or better.)
• there will only be a curve if specific questions end up being too ambiguous or otherwise obviously unfair - I don't target some mythical bell curve; everyone can do very well!

• If you feel points have been incorrectly deducted, contact the grader. For all projects and lab work, that is either your GTA who leads the lab section, or another GTA who signed their name on the grading comments under rare circumstances. For the midterm and final exam, that is your professor.
• If you have not initiated contact within a week of a grade being posted to BlackBoard, it is too late. We cannot entertain a swarm of contested grades at the eleventh hour to try to maximize end-of-semester grades. Keep up with your grades throughout the semester.
• We strive to grade each student's work fairly and uniformly, often through specific test cases, which are often automated as part of the grading process. All GTAs coordinate together with a shared scoring breakdown and regularly communicate with each other before, during, and after the grading process to keep it fair.

• 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 syntax errors or at least one test case 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.
• If you have any questions about what you are/aren't permitted to do on a project/lab and you and the TA cannot find a the answer written somewhere, you should ask your professor. "So-and-so said" will not be an accepted as a reason for grade re-evaluations (unless "so-and-so" is your professor).

• Students are encouraged to use the Piazza discussion board to ask and answer questions about assignments, labs, course material, etc.
• No sharing answers or code solutions to assignments on the discussion board. See Honor code section below for more details.
• 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.
• GTA will be assigned to moderate the student discussion, help review student answers, answer private questions, and address questions which have not received a student answer. Therefore, responses to questions can be expected within 24 hours, though often times much sooner.
• Statements made on the discussion boards, even by TAs and especially by other students, should NOT be considered the definitive word on the subject unless it is verified by your professor (in the assignment description, in class, posted on Piazza, etc.). The GTAs can flag professors if/when clarifications are needed.
• If you have any questions about what you are/aren't permitted to do on a project/exam and you/others cannot find a the answer written somewhere, you should ask your professor. "So-and-so said" will not be an accepted as a reason for grade re-evaluations (unless "so-and-so" is your professor).