CS 1410 - Fall 2008

Section 1 (Watson)

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Course Syllabus

CS1720 - Computer Science II

Text: Starting Out with C++ (3rd Edition) by Tony Gaddis, published by Delmar Learning
ISBN: 1576760634
Meets: MWF 9:30-10:20, BIS216.
Prerequisites: CS1 
Credits: 3 

Instructor: Prof. Dan Watson 
Email: dan.watson@usu.edu  
Office: Old Main 402b 
Office Hours: MWF 1-3.
Course Website: http://www.cs.usu.edu/~watson/cs1410 

Catalog Description: Introduction to science of problem solving, programming, program development, algorithm analysis, and data structures.  Students will learn to develop correct software in a current programming language environment.  Prerequisite: CS1 (3cr)

Translation:  This is where you will learn to program.  You will pull your hair out, bang your head on the monitor, consider changing your major, and learn to work into the wee hours of the morning.  Stick with it; this is one of the most important courses you will take as an undergraduate, and I want to help each and every one of you through this process.  I'll show you how to write programs quickly and successfully.  By the end of the semester, you will understand the zen of computer  programming.

How to contact me: Please come to my office hours if you have any question or need to talk to me. My office hours are posted outside my door for your convenience. You may contact me by email to arrange an appointment outside of office hours. Feel free to ask short questions via email, but I may not respond if I am swamped. Please do not telephone me in my office unless absolutely necessary. Do NOT, under any circumstances, telephone me at my home for anything related to the course. 

Attendance: I think it is important to attend all lectures; you never know what is going to happen there.  You might learn something.  You might daydream and come up with an alternative to world dependence on fossil fuels.  But ... I am not your grandma.  I don't record attendance, and by itself does it not have an impact on grades.  You are responsible for any material presented or announcements made in class. If you miss a class, please talk to someone else to find out what you missed; I already went over it once.

Course Handouts: Syllabus, class schedule, chapter notes, program assignments, and special announcements will be made available on the course website and via email.  I will do my part to reduce the wanton destruction of our forests by limiting the use of paper to exams and quizzes.

Did Someone Say 'Quizzes'?:  We'll have short, 5-point quizzes on Fridays during the semester.

Course Account: You will need to sign up for an "eagle" account to be able to submit homework and see your grades.  Eagle is the USU Computer Science course management system.   To set up your account, go to the course website at http://eagle.cs.usu.edu  and select Sign up Here! To sign up for an account you will need to have a USU student email account. If you do not yet have one, the website to set that up is http://www.usu.edu/ncs/ . Please get one ASAP. You will not be able to sign up for an eagle account without it. 

When you sign up for an eagle account, you will be assigned a personal identification number (PIN). This PIN will be sent to you via email. Please keep track of this PIN. It will be used to login to your course account, on homework, and on the exams. 

After you have signed up for an account, you can change your email address and other personal information by logging on and selecting account from the top menu. The information that is on your account is how we will contact you. Please make sure it is accurate.

Exams: There are three one-hour exams. Each exam emphasizes material covered in class since the previous exam; however, because the material for each exam builds on previous material, each exam can be considered comprehensive. Even for exams, students are responsible for material covered in prerequisite courses.  The last exam is given during the time period set aside for the final exam, but emphasizes material covered since the previous exam. Please do not ask to take exams early or late; if you can't be here for an exam, you should DROP THE COURSE.

The dates for the exams are:

October 1
November 5
December 12 from 9:30 – 11:20 a.m.

I do not give makeup exams so plan your schedule accordingly.

Submitting Homework: Because electrons are easy to recycle, all homework will be submitted via email. See the course website for details on how to submit your homework, under the section entitled Homework.

Re-grading: Your grades will be available through the course website. You will enter your PIN and will be shown each individual score, your percent to date, and any comments. You will be notified via email whenever you receive a score or when a change is made to a score. If you want to dispute a score, please contact me quickly. The most effective way to contact me for scoring disputes is by email. This contact must be made within one calendar week of when the score is sent to you. I will not consider changes if I am not contacted during that first week.

Tutors: There are CS tutors available for your use at no charge. They are available in the tutor labs, Main 425 and Main 435, and you are encouraged to use them.

Subject Outline:   
    Pointers
    Structs
    File I/O
    Classes and Data Abstraction
    Advanced Class Topics
    Operator Overloading
    Inheritance
    Virtual Functions and Polymorphism
    Exceptions, Templates, and the Standard Template Library
    Recursion
    Linked Lists
    Stacks
    Queues
    Trees
   

Class Calendar: Please visit the course website for an up-to-date class calendar.

Points: 
exam 1 - 100 points 
exam 2 - 100 points 
exam 3 - 100 points 
hmwrk - 140 points 
quizzes -  60 points
total:      500 points 

Grading: 
450-500 points - A 
400-449 points - B 
350-399 points - C 
250-349 points - D 
000-250 points - F 

Each student determines her or his own grade by their performance on assignments and exams. A final grade of 90% or better guarantees a final grade of A. A final grade of 80%-90% guarantees a final grade of B, etc. 

Academic Dishonesty: This course adheres to the cheating policy for courses in the Department of Computer Science posted on the bulletin board outside the CS office on the 4th floor of Old Main. Cheating on assignments or exams in any form will not be tolerated. Negative point values, failure in the course, and academic expulsion are possible consequences of academic dishonesty.  Did you know that students caught cheating can NEVER be hired by the department as a TA or grader or tutor or consultant?  In the case of copied work, I will make no distinction between the one who copies and the one who is copied from. 

All of the homework for this class will be done on a computer. The computer labs on campus are available for your use and you are encouraged to use them. There may be times when you want to temporarily save your work on a lab computer. If you save any work on a public access computer you need to delete it quickly and carefully. Many people can retrieve your files from the computer. When you are finished working on a public computer, save all the files you want to keep by copying them to a removable disk, emailing them to yourself, etc. Then, before you leave the computer, delete all your files. If you send them to the recycle bin, they are still available so empty the recycle bin. If you highlight the file from a menu and use the shift key and the delete key together, it will delete it without putting it into the recycle bin. You are responsible and required to see that no one has access to your work.

Extra Credit: No extra credit is available. Don't ask. 

Incompletes: I don't like them. Incompletes are given only in the most extenuating of circumstances. Your story would have to be incredibly good for me to even consider the remote possibility of assigning an incomplete. Poor academic performance is not considered justification for an incomplete.   Besides, incompletes almost never work out.  Most of the time, it just turns into an F.

ADA statement: Students with ADA-documented physical, sensory, emotional or medical impairments may be eligible for reasonable accommodations. Veterans may also be eligible for services. All accommodations are coordinated through the Disability Resource Center (DRC) in Room 101 of the University Inn, (435)797-2444 voice, (435)797-0740 TTY, or toll free at 1-800-259-2966. Please contact the DRC as early in the semester as possible. Alternate format materials (Braille, large print or digital) are available with advance notice.

Class Fees: Associated with this class is a class fee of $25.00. The monies from this fee are used to maintain lab facilities for the class, purchase software and licenses, and supervise the lab. In some cases, students may have their own computing equipment, and thus feel that they do not need to use the lab. However, the lab must be maintained regardless of any individual's use of it, and thus the fee is charged to all registered for the class. If you have questions or concerns about the fee, please see the department head.

Late Adds: The last day to add this class is September 17^th. Attending this class beyond that date without being officially registered will not be approved by the Dean's Office.  Students must be officially registered for this class.  No assignments or tests of any kind will be graded for students whose names do not appear on the class list.

Drop Dates: The last day to drop classes is

Last updated: August 12, 2008.