Students learn the basic concepts and features of the GNU/Linux
operating system and utilities, the world’s most well-known Free/Libre
Open Source Software (FLOSS) project and the underlying technology
supporting Google, Facebook and Android smart phones. Students examine
the power of the GNU/Linux command line and the basics of shell scripting
and task automation are studied. Students perform file system searches,
full-text searches, and data-mine system log files to generate analyses
of network attacks and intrusion attempts. Students also customize
their shell programming environment to simplify repetitive tasks and
support system administration functions.
3 hours in classroom / 2 hours in laboratory / 4 hours homework (per week)
This is a Mobile Program Course – you must have with you in classes and
labs a portable (e.g. “laptop”) machine capable of connecting to the
Internet. Bring your machine to all your labs and classes so that you
can participate in exercises.
For first-term CST8207 alone your mobile device requirements are
minimal. You only need simple text-based Internet access for the course;
most any machine built in the last 20 years can do that. (Other courses
may require a more powerful machine.)
The Course Home Page is located off-campus, on the public Internet.
You can link to it indirectly via the Algonquin Brightspace system or
quickly and directly via either redundant link below:
The pages are indexed by search engines, but make sure you find the page
for this term, not previous terms! Bookmark both the .com and the
.org page locations for the current term.
Read the Course Home Page carefully and note the important dates.
Write down in your notebook on paper the location of the Alternate
Web Notes. (You won’t be able to load this page if the site is down!)
Brightspace will contain links to all online course materials, but
most materials are stored on the Internet, not on Brightspace itself.
Most links lead to content on public web servers, e.g. the Course Home
Page, and these public materials will remain available forever in
the Internet archives.
Material that is only available on Brightspace will become
inaccessible when the course ends (or when you leave the College).
Keep copies of anything on Brightspace that you need for future use.
(In this course, almost nothing is kept only on Brightspace.)
Warning: Using Internet search to find course notes on the
Internet will usually lead you to obsolete and outdated notes from
previous terms. To read the notes for the current year, start on
the Course Home Page, don’t use Internet search.
Internet search eventually indexes all public materials (which is almost
everything) but not anything on Brightspace (which, for this
course, is almost nothing). The indexing isn’t immediate.
There is no required textbook for this course.
Web-based class notes will be provided on-line.
We have selected some recommended (not required) textbooks for this
course; the titles and purchase information are given in the Course
Outline. The optional textbooks are a reliable, comprehensive sources of
accurate GNU/Linux information. Motivated students may choose instead to
discover and use free Internet resources instead of a purchased textbook.
Follow the course outline and keep up-to-date with the reading in the
web notes even when specific reading assignments are not provided in
class. Ideally, to optimize your understanding of the lecture material,
read the course material prior to the class in which it is covered.
Note that just printing the class notes on paper is no substitute for
actually reading and understanding them. Also, none of the web hyperlinks
work in the printed copy, and in many cases the printed copy is missing
text that is wider than the printed page. Print less and read more!
In general, in-class handouts are not common in this class since all
such material will normally be posted to the web; students are expected
to download and read such materials on their own.
Some course files with publisher-restricted distribution may be stored only
on the Algonquin Brightspace server. Make sure you get copies of these
files before the course ends, otherwise you will lose access to them.
Other than these restricted files, everything else is stored on a public
web server and will remain available forever in the Internet archives.
This Linux course requires no specialized hardware or software.
You only need simple text-based (command line) Internet access for
the course; most any machine built in the last 20 years can do that.
Most work is done by Remote Login to a central Course Linux Server;
almost nothing is stored on your own device, so your own device doesn’t
matter.
You can access the server using any device capable of running a text-only
SSH session, and that includes Macintosh, Android, Linux, Windows, etc.
For this Linux course, what you run on your mobile device doesn’t matter.
An assignment isn’t like a job. It’s a completely
artificial setup. But so is an elliptical trainer. No one criticizes
gym equipment because it doesn’t mirror real-world situations.
– Prabhakar Ragde, University of Waterloo
Labs and assignments are hands-on opportunities to experiment with the
theoretical material that you have learned through reading and lectures.
Laboratory assignments will be closely integrated with the theoretical
material.
Assignments typically require you to do things without telling you how
to do them. The “how” is covered in the class notes and reviewed in
the lectures. If you don’t know how to do something, check your notes.
Starting work on an assignment just before the due date limits your
ability to get help with the assignment. Start your assignments early
and use your in-class lab time to get the help you need.
(You can always try to get help by EMail just before an assignment is
due, but there are no guarantees that your instructor will be online to
help you at that time. You can always try…)
Your are expected to perform initial assignment reading before your
scheduled lab period, to take advantage of the limited lab time.
You will not have enough time to do all the reading and the lab work in
the same lab period. Most lab work will require additional time outside
of scheduled lab hours – check the number of homework hours assigned
to each of your courses.
Your ability to successfully complete the assigned exercises will directly
correlate with your level of success on tests and the final exam. Much of
the Test and Exam material will be based on the skills developed doing
the lab work.
Knowing the specific answers to assignment questions is not as important
as knowing how to generate the answers. You need to know how things work!
Generally, the use of mobile computing devices in the classroom is
limited to note taking, accessing course materials, and performing
a variety of independent or collaborative exercises assigned
by the professor. Unless approved by the professor before the
class starts, the use of mobile computing devices for personal
surfing of the web, downloading of non-course related material,
use of messaging software, or gaming is not to take place.
– Algonquin College Policy AA32
Tell your instructors if you find yourself being distracted by people
in front of you who are browsing the web or watching movies during
class time. They will be asked to move.
Your instructors may propose limiting the use of devices in lectures
due to unavoidable cognitive distraction problems for yourself and
other students.
I usually end up choosing to use my laptop – and I almost always
regret it. I sit through a whole class and realize I have taken two
notes and that I know nothing about what we just spent hours learning;
and as I look around, nearly every person is as lost as I am. It’s not
that we don’t want to listen or pay attention, it’s that we can’t.
Your cognitive capacity is significantly reduced when your
smartphone is within reach — even if it’s off. […] The
researchers found that participants with their phones in another
room significantly outperformed those with their phones on the
desk, and they also slightly outperformed those participants who
had kept their phones in a pocket or bag.
The findings suggest that the mere presence of one’s smartphone
reduces available cognitive capacity and impairs cognitive
functioning, even though people feel they’re giving their full
attention and focus to the task at hand.
Is your device furthering your education or hindering it?
Turn it off! Better still – don’t even bring it into the room.
9.2 Talking and/or watching videos during lecturesIndex
Talking in class or watching movies on your device while an instructor
is lecturing is disruptive to the lecture and to the students around you.
Your instructors are authorized by
Algonquin Policy SA07: Student Conduct
to ask that you leave the classroom if you are disrupting other students.
You don’t have to attend lectures.
Please don’t disrupt class for those who do.
Tests and exams will be based largely on modified assignment questions.
A majority of the material for each test will come from material covered
in the immediately preceding weeks, but material is cumulative and
many questions (especially on the Final Exam) will be based on material
covered earlier in the course.
Midterm and Exam dates will be posted on the Course Home Page.
Put these dates in your own personal calendar and agenda!
For full mark credit, read and understand the Test Instructions for
important directions on how to enter your answers on the mark-sense forms.
Your instructors will not answer questions about the test instructions
during the test; ask your questions before you arrive in the classroom.
The following marking scheme is from the Course Outline:
Assignments and Homework – 30%
Assignments are made available weekly. Each is available online
and you will submit your finished work electronically through
Brightspace. Assignments that are not submitted by their due dates
may not be marked. Bonus assignments may be available that can
increase your Assignments mark or replace missed assignments.
Two Mid-Term Tests – 10% + 15% = 25%
Each Mid-Term Test is cumulative, with some emphasis on material
covered after the previous Midterm Test. For full mark credit,
read the Test Instructions for important directions on how to
enter your answers on the mark-sense forms.
Quizzes – 5%
Some quizzes are based on previous lecture and assignment material.
Some are taken from the practice question pools for the tests and exams.
Final Exam – 40%
The Final Exam is cumulative, with some emphasis on material covered after
the last Midterm Test.
For full mark credit, read the Test Instructions for important
directions on how to enter your answers on the mark-sense forms.
For full mark credit, read and understand the Test Instructions for
important directions on how to enter your answers on the mark-sense forms.
Your instructors will not answer questions about the test instructions
during the test; ask your questions before you arrive in the classroom.
I am: Ian! D. Allen – idallen@idallen.ca – http://www.idallen.com/
Use EMail sent from your Algonquin College EMail account to
reach me. Do not use the facebook or other social media.
The Timetable page has Contact Information,
Office Hours, and my full Class Schedule. Know how to set up an office
appointment with me by EMail.
Make sure you add idallen@idallen.ca and
alleni@algonquincollege.com to your EMail white-list, or you may not
receive important EMail from me, especially EMail with your marks in it.
Whitelist idallen@idallen.ca now!
The fastest way to EMail me is via the idallen@idallen.ca address.
I forward my Algonquin alleni EMail to the above address, but the
forwarding doesn’t work well. EMail idallen@idallen.ca directly.
(Edit: After my 2019 retirement, the College deleted my College email
address. Don’t use it.)
Did you remember to whitelist my two EMail addresses?
11.1 Send EMail only from your Algonquin EMail accountIndex
Use your official Algonquin College EMail address to contact me, otherwise
your EMail may be thrown away or ignored as unsolicited EMail spam.
Do not send me EMail from personal Gmail, Yahoo, or Hotmail accounts.
I am not allowed to reply to a non-Algonquin email address with any
information that personally identifies a student. Student information
is confidential, and I cannot be sure that the non-Algonquin address
you are using is actually you. You must use your Algonquin email
address to send me email so that I can reply to you in confidence.
I have white-listed only your Algonquin official email address.
I have not white-listed any non-Algonquin addresses. Non-Algonquin
messages may never arrive in my email Inbox due to my spam filters.
I give priority to student email in my Inbox, but not to random email
from addresses I don’t know. I may ignore your non-Algonquin message
for weeks or months. Use your Algonquin email address in the “From”
line and I see it right away.
Please ensure that your EMail to me has your official Algonquin College
EMail address in the “From:” line. You can configure various EMail
providers (e.g. Gmail) to send outgoing EMail using a validated Algonquin
“From” address.
I will not be Facebook or Twitter or whatever personal social media
friends with you until after you graduate from Algonquin College, and even
then only if we are actually, you know, really friends in real life.
You can connect with me on LinkedIn at any time to stay in touch professionally.
12 Attendance, Attention, and Success FactorsIndex
As noted in the Course Outline, this course contributes to your CST
program by helping you achieve the following provincial Vocational
Learning Outcome (#10):
VLO 10 Conform to workplace expectations found in information
technology (IT) environments.
Workplace expectations include the ability to to keep commitments (hand
in assignments on time) and show up for work (attend classes and labs
on time).
Regular attendance is critical to course success (and to job success).
If you already know all the material and don’t need to come to classes,
ask for a Prior Learning Assessment course exemption. If you paid to
be here, please be here.
If you are in class, shut your laptop, turn off your phone, and pay
attention to your lecturer. The person at the front of the room cannot
compete with the entire Internet and your personal phonebook for your
attention – he doesn’t have the budget.
If you’re bored or falling asleep, take notes by hand. The whole point
of lectures is to help you learn and remember the course material so
that you don’t sound like an idiot at your job interview. Focus!
Lecture Attendance in this course is recommended but not
mandatory. Lecture attendance may be recorded. In a laptop/mobile
course, I often ask you to log in to the Course Linux Server as a way
of indicating your lecture attendance.
Not everything that happens in lecture is found in the course notes.
You do need to contact fellow students to find out what content you
missed when you miss a lecture. Your instructor will not have time to
give you a personal make-up lecture after missing a class; talk to your
fellow students.
You don’t need to notify your instructor if you miss a lecture; please
don’t send email about missed lectures.
This applies to this course only; other courses have different policies.
As long as there is room for you, you may attend another lab period if
you have to miss your scheduled lab period in a week.
Send email to the instructor of your scheduled lab period, letting
him/her know that you are attending a different lab period.
Lab Attendance in this course is always recorded but not
mandatory. If you fail to show up for a lab period, your lab instructor
will record you as “Absent” and we will then have to EMail you to ask you
why you missed your lab period and whether you are still in the course.
If you don’t respond to the email, we will then have to give your name
to the Department Chair as a “missing student” and they will have to
track you down to find out what is happening.
Always EMail your lab instructor first, before your lab period, to tell
them you won’t be in the lab (or to tell them you will be attending some
other lab period), so that you won’t be listed as “Absent”. You don’t
need to give a reason why; you don’t need any documentation or note; just
let your lab instructor know ahead of time that you won’t be in the lab.
You must notify the lab instructor before the lab period starts.
Do not notify your lecture instructor, if different from your lab
instructor. Notify only your lab instructor before the lab period
starts.
You don’t have to attend lab periods, but you do have to tell your lab
instructor ahead of time if you are missing a lab period (or if you
are attending a lab period other than the one that you usually attend).
Always EMail your lab instructor before missing a lab.
If an employer calls us up and asks us about your reliability,
your unexplained lab absences will count against us giving you a job
recommendation as a reliable person. If you want a recommendation from
your instructor, keep us informed by EMail ahead of missing a lab period.
To avoid being marked absent, send us email before you miss a lab period.
(Do not send email about missed theory/lecture classes.)
This applies to this course only; other courses have different policies.
12.4 Missed Lectures in this course – Catching UpIndex
Material is cumulative. Missing one lecture may mean you don’t
understand the content of the next lecture, which now means you are
two lectures behind. This can cascade into an ever-growing pile of
not-understood material.
If you miss a lecture, get the lecture notes from another student right
away and get caught up before the next lecture or you’ll fall even
farther behind.
You can’t ask your instructor to re-do the missed lecture just for you.
You can use some of your lab period time to ask questions, but your
instructor doesn’t have two hours to give you a private lecture.
Missing a week or more of classes requires you to be an exceptional
student, able to work independently and double-time on the course to
catch up. You may find getting a tutor helpful!
Not everything I say ends up in these online files. Passing the
information through your brain onto paper helps you remember it, even
if you never read the notes later. The whole point of lectures is to
help you learn and remember the course material so that you don’t
sound like an idiot at your job interview.
If you have a question about course content, the first thing I will
ask is to see your notes, to see what you wrote down about the topic.
Often the answer is there!
The overall term workload usually overwhelms students who try to leave
everything to the last minute. You need to put in approximately an extra
hour per day, per course, to keep up (about five extra hours per week,
per course). There aren’t enough hours in a day to catch up in mid-term.
Assignments are made available approximately weekly, but many assignments
may have the same due dates. Start working on the assignment when it
is released, not the day before the due date!
15.1 Fifteen minute rule: don’t waste your timeIndex
Your time as a student is valuable. If you come up against a tough
problem and make no progress in fifteen minutes despite best efforts,
don’t keep going. Change things up:
Get help from a professor or lab instructor.
Get help from classmates.
Take a break.
Put it on hold and work on something else.
Often, the solution to the problem is a small thing you overlooked.
Spending three hours working on a problem only to discover that you
typed a comma instead of a period is not good use of your time.
Spending too much time on a problem happens to all of us, and we need
to watch out for it when it happens.
But what about when it’s midnight before the assignment is due?
Remember the “Don’t Leave Things to the Last Minute” rule!
When you are given an assignment, read all the words. Read all
the words of a question, including the hints, before you answer a
question. Read all the words before you ask anyone for help. Years of
students have passed before you; the answers to most of the questions you
might ask are already written in the assignment. Read all the words.
Please do not ask your instructor to respond to questions whose answers
are obviously given in the course materials, e.g. “When is this assignment
due?” or “When is the midterm test?” or “How many marks is this
assignment?”, etc.
EMail is a critical part of course delivery for this course. You must
have a working Algonquin EMail address for this course. You must
read EMail sent to your Algonquin EMail regularly (at least daily)
during the school term.
Your instructors will only send email to your Algonquin EMail address.
Add both idallen@idallen.ca and
alleni@algonquincollege.com to your EMail address book and
White Lists, or you may not receive important EMail from me,
especially EMail with your marks in it.
Whitelist idallen@idallen.ca now! See
How to White List EMail A
or How to White List EMail B
Please ensure that EMail messages from you to your instructors always
originate
from your Algonquin EMail address or else a spam blocker may
throw away your unknown mail address as junk. Your “From:”
address must be your Algonquin EMail address, not a GMail, Hotmail,
Yahoo, Carleton, or other off-campus address.
If you don’t read your Algonquin College EMail account daily, make sure
that your forward your College EMail to an account
that you do read. To enable forwarding, go to the
ITS link on the Course Home Page and search for
“forward email” or try this direct link:
Can I forward my Algonquin email to another account?.
Test to make sure that your forwarded Algonquin EMail works! Send
yourself a test message.
You are responsible for keeping your own forwarding address accurate
during the term. During the term, I will only send your marks to
your (possibly forwarded) Algonquin EMail address.
You may wish to set your “alternate” EMail using Algonquin ACSIS
while on campus. I may use your alternate EMail to inform you that
your main Algonquin EMail account has a forwarding error; no
personal data will ever be sent to the alternate EMail address.
Your use of EMail demonstrates your skill as a communicator and aligns
with Vocational Learning Outcome (#10):
VLO 10 Conform to workplace expectations found in information
technology (IT) environments.
In this course, use EMail correctly, as if you were in a work environment:
Send using the correct From: address – your College email address.
Do not use GMail, Hotmail, Yahoo or other personal accounts.
I have only white-listed your Algonquin email address to pass
through my spam filters.
I am not allowed to reply to a non-Algonquin email address with
any information that personally identifies a student.
I give priority to student email in my Inbox, but not to random
email from addresses I don’t know.
If you use your correct College email address, you do NOT need
to include your name or student number in your message; my
email client automatically adds all that.
(Other teachers have different requirements.)
Make the Subject: of each message match the message body.
Don’t hijack one subject to reply about some other subject.
Don’t leave the Subject blank.
Don’t quote material that is not relevant to the message body.
Edit your quoted message text down to the minimum needed to communicate.
The due date for each assignment is given in the assignment.
Due dates are also posted on Brightspace.
Not every assignment is due on the same weekday or at the same time;
pay attention and record each due date in your weekly calendars.
18.2 Two assignments may be due on the same dateIndex
Assignments are made available approximately weekly, but many assignments
may have the same due dates. Start working on the assignment when it
is released, not the day before the due date!
Almost all assignments will allow you to submit the assignment as many
times as you like. Only the most recent submission submitted before
the due date is marked. Previous submissions are not marked (and you
can’t delete them).
If you’re short on time, you can submit a partially-completed assignment
now and complete and re-submit it later if you have time. A partial
assignment with part marks is better than no assignment and no marks.
Assignments are downloaded from Brightspace and marked shortly after their
due dates. Late assignments may or may not be downloaded and marked:
If your boss asks you to deliver a document before a client meeting,
having the document ready after the meeting is over is not useful.
Assignments submitted after the due date are given the same
consideration; they aren’t useful. Being on time is part of VLO
10: Conform to workplace expectations found in information technology
environments.
You may usually submit an assignment late; however, it may or may not
be downloaded and evaluated for partial marks.
In the real world, if you don’t get things done on time, your business
(or your employer’s business) suffers. You try not to make the same
mistakes again, but you can’t take back the fact that you made them
in the first place. Submit on time.
One bonus assignment is given during the term that let you make up for
having missed an assignment deadline.
In accordance with Policy AA21, I give students extensions for
assignments or tests delayed due to illness or accidents. Contact me
before the due date to get an extension. It is usually too late to
ask for an extension after the due date has passed.
18.5.2 No extensions due to your part-time job
“There is no provision for granting extra time for assignments due
to work commitments.” – Andrew Pridham, Academic Chair, ICT
If your work interferes with your schooling, either reduce your course
load or reduce your work load.
In this course (but not other courses) missed assignments and/or tests do
not need to be completed; they are simply worth zero and do not need
to be submitted. (Other courses treat missed assignments differently;
pay attention.)
Bonus assignments may be available that can increase your Assignments mark
or your Midterm test mark. You may optionally use a Bonus Assignment
to improve poor marks. Bonus assignment marks add to the numerator,
not the denominator, of the mark. There is no penalty for failing to
do a bonus assignment.
Your overall Assignment score cannot exceed the course maximum score.
“Extra” marks from doing bonus assignments do not carry over into other
areas of the course, e.g. into Tests. Your Assignments score cannot
improve your Tests score.
This memo is from Claude Brulé, Vice-President Academic, October 21,
2013, re-issued January 15, 2018:
With the flu and cold season upon us, it is unavoidable that some
students will miss classes due to illness. In order to avoid the
unnecessary spreading of diseases, the College has adopted in
consultation with faculty and academic staff, since the H1N1 crisis of
2009, the practice that faculty not ask in every instance of student
illness for a Doctor’s note.
The purpose of this memo is to remind you that the College continues to
support that faculty not request a doctor’s note when a student misses
a class, lab or other learning activity.
College Academic Council has endorsed the following policy statement
on student absences and this is supported by Deans and Directors
Council:
Addressing student absence from class requires a common sense approach,
assumes honesty, and allows faculty to exercise judgment while keeping
student success foremost in mind.
The student is asked to contact the course professor before the class
takes place to indicate that he/she is ill. If the student does not
make the attempt, then they may be subject to whatever penalty is
outlined in the course outline.
For prolonged illness, or where more than one assessment is missed,
the course professor can request the student to provide a doctor’s
note in order to help accommodate the situation.
Frivolous cases of abuse are to be avoided, yet not make the environment
such that students who are clearly not well feel the need to still come
to class for assessments for fear of negative consequences on their
academic progress.
As always, faculty retain the responsibility and right to manage their
classes in a way that ensures students demonstrate the learning outcomes
of each respective course.
It is usually too late to arrange a deferral after the due date.
Contact me before you are going to miss a test or lab period due to
accident or illness.
You must develop your own answers to assignments. You go into your job
interview alone, not with your study group.
No unauthorized copying! Restricted group work! Restricted working together!
You may not sit down as a group of students, work together an assignment,
then each submit that group assignment as if you were the only author.
Group work and Working together is not permitted except
in assignments specifically labelled by the instructor as group
assignments. Share your ideas, never your answers.
Do not help other students do their assignments by giving them answers.
When you do the work for another student, your mark goes up (because
you practice the commands twice) and their mark goes down (because
they did nothing and can’t remember anything on the tests and exams).
Make sure you are not helping another student to fail the course!
To really help other students, tell them where in the course notes they
can find out how to do something. Don’t give them the answer so that
they never read the course notes.
Copying-and-pasting an answer from someone else is not solving
a problem. Do your own thinking and type your own answers. No
copying-and-pasting. Assignments containing group work or cut-and-paste
answers from other people will be subject to plagiarism charges.
No unauthorized copying! Restricted group work! Restricted working together!
Even where using another person’s material is permitted (from other
students, books, the Internet, or even from the blackboard or posted
course notes), copying material from other sources and submitting it
without proper credit to the author is an academic offence called
plagiarism. You must credit the source of
material that you did not write yourself, no matter from where it comes!
Students working together without authorization or submitting work
containing cut-and-paste or plagiarized material will be charged with
academic fraud under Algonquin Academic Regulations. Read the
plagiarism document for details.
You may not copy material from any other person without clearing the
copying with your instructor and identifying the source, in writing or
by EMail, first. If your submission resembles that of another person,
anywhere in the class or anywhere on the Internet, I am required to
inquire whether you are the actual author. Copying-and-pasting from
someone else is not solving a problem. Do your own thinking and write
your own answers. No copying-and-pasting.
If I authorize copying, and only if, you must attribute the source
of copied material that you use that isn’t yours. Most coursework does
not permit copying, group work, or working together on a
common answer. Do your own work unless the assignment permits group work.
You earn marks for the new material that you write, not material that
comes from other people and other sources (e.g. from me, your friends,
or from the Internet). Copying-and-pasting from an existing answer is
not solving a problem. Do your own thinking and write your own answers.
No copying-and-pasting.
An average of 15% of students in this course are charged with plagiarism
or academic fraud each term.
A warning not to give your your answers, from a previous student:
From: xxxxxxxx@algonquinlive.com
Subject: RE: CST8207 lab plagiarism
We were talking on facebook and he was having trouble with lab 7 and
8. I tried explaining them to him but was unsuccessful. I offered to
put lab 8 on Dropbox as a reference, which I completely forgot about
as it’s not something I normally do. When I confronted him he said he
didn’t have time to complete the work himself and handed in my answers.
Both students received zero and were charged with academic fraud (plagiarism).
Share your ideas, not your answers!
Don’t help other students fail the course!
20.3 Plagiarism references: Policies AA18 and AA20Index
For the modern student, plagiarism isn’t all it used to be. In fact,
many don’t see it as an issue in the least. According to the New York
Times, technology has fostered a laissez-faire attitude towards the
practice. Many students plagiarize – and many don’t think they’re
doing anything wrong.More Students Misunderstand The Fundamentals
Of
Plagiarism
21 Install LibreOffice or OpenOffice into WindowsIndex
When you have your Windows base system Installed (in your Desktop
Operating Systems course), go to the private Algonquin URL
http://cstech/ on campus (it only works on campus) and find and
download LibreOffice (or OpenOffice) for Windows and install
it on your base Windows system, so that Windows can read and print the
few Open Office documents (e.g. Worksheets) used in this course.
To find the office software on the local Algonquin http://cstech/
web site, click on any room in the left side-bar and look under Drivers
and Downloads.
(If you are at home, you can download LibreOffice from the Internet.)
To avoid quote-character errors when coping from Microsoft Word to other
programs you need to disable Microsoft “smart quotes” in Word.
Enter Microsoft Word > File > Options > Proofing > AutoCorrect Options >
AutoFormat and uncheck “Straight quotes with smart quotes”.
Now you should be able to write and copy over or submit plain text documents
without having non-ASCII characters in them.
For full marks, do not submit files with non-ASCII (non-English)
characters in them. Make sure your computer is set to use English
letters and don’t copy text from word processors into your text files.
Not all non-ASCII characters are obvious!
USERS ARE ADVISED THAT SOME OF THE COLLEGE NETWORK’S RESOURCES ARE PROVIDED BY THIRD PARTIES, WHO MAY BE LOCATED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA OR OTHER JURISDICTIONS. BY USING THE COLLEGE NETWORK, USERS ACKNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTAND THAT, ANY CONTENT OR INFORMATION POSTED OR SENT THROUGH THE COLLEGE NETWORK MAY BE HOUSED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA OR OTHER JURISDICTIONS AND THEREFORE SUBJECT TO THE USA PATRIOT ACT AND OTHER APPLICABLE LEGISLATION AND THAT THERE MAY BE REQUIREMENTS TO DISCLOSE SUCH CONTENT.
In other words, anything you disclose to the College – before, during,
or after registration – may be sent to the Government of the United
States. This includes all your College EMail, which is hosted by USA
corporation Microsoft.
Students often leave behind in classrooms laptops, power cables, and
hard drives.
Put your name and contact information on all your books and
hardware, including your external hard disks and power supplies.
The name has to be clear enough that the office can contact you to
give you back your hardware when you leave it behind somewhere.
Put your Name and contact information on your laptop.
Put your Name and contact information on your power cable.
Put your Name and contact information on your external drive.
Put your Name and contact information on your USB thumb drives.
Put your Name and contact information on everything.
Your instructor may have some masking tape that you can use to write on.
Professors may make a general announcement at the beginning of each
semester to:
inform students that Algonquin College provides services to students with
disabilities who require individual academic accommodations.
direct them to contact the Centre for Students with Disabilities
(CSD) if they require this assistance.
Students with College-documented disabilities and
Individual Student Plans should arrange private office
appointments with their instructor
in this course to present and discuss their individual accommodation plans.
Most specific accommodation arrangements require at least one week
advance notice, sometimes more.
25.1 Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC) Directives on Student Academic AccommodationIndex
February 6, 2018
Algonquin College always welcomes the opportunity to continuously improve
and enhance support to our students and their success. The Ontario Human
Rights Code provides further opportunities to accommodate the needs of
students with disabilities to ensure equal access to educational services.
In accordance with the direction provided by the Ontario Human Rights
Commission (OHRC) in March 2016, Algonquin College has implemented
guidelines to remove potential barriers that may be experienced by
students with disabilities, including mental health disabilities. These
revisions apply to medical documentation guidelines, medical documentation
forms, and procedures currently in place and are being addressed
by the Centre for Accessible Learning (CAL) and the Academic Area.
A brief summary of the major changes in practice that were implemented
at the College last academic year to comply with the OHRC directive are
outlined below:
“For a deferral request related to religious observance, a minimum of
10 working days prior notification must be provided to the
professor.” – Policy AA21: Deferred Evaluation
Extensions to due dates for religious observance must be be arranged
well before the affected dates. You can read the details in
Policy AA21: Deferred Evaluation.
As the policy says, religious extensions are not granted after the
notification dates have passed.
To date, in our limited experience, Brightspace has never lost a
submitted assignment. With the previous LMS (Blackboard), many students
have failed to complete the submission process and have tried to claim
that they submitted the assignment but the LMS lost it.
Nobody has ever proved that Brightspace has lost an assignment.
Follow all the directions when you submit an assignment and keep a screen
capture of the submitted assignment page as proof that you submitted it.
Without the screen capture as proof of submission, missing
assignments are presumed not submitted and are worth zero.
You must find the answers to these questions if you don’t know them yet:
Are you registered in exactly one lecture and one lab section?
You should have three hours of theory lectures, spread over two classes.
You should have exactly one lab period.
Do you know how to read your Algonquin EMail daily, or
Have you forwarded your Algonquin EMail address to your personal account?
Do you know how to log in to ACSIS and find your timetable?
Do you know how to log in to Brightspace?
Can you find the CST8207 Brightspace Page?
Can you find the EXTERNAL (public Internet) Home Page for CST8207?
Record two web URLs for this EXTERNAL Home Page, so you can find it.
Have you turned onShow File Extensions in Windows?
Failure to do this may make your Brightspace assignment uploads invalid.
Do you know where and how to submit your assignments on Brightspace?
Do you know what a Plain Text file is, and how to create one?
What program(s) create plain text files in Windows? in Mac OSX?
Do you have a regular backup plan for your mobile device?
What happens if the disk fails in the middle of term?
Will you lose all your assignments and have to start over?
11.2 Social Media and UsIndex
I will not be Facebook or Twitter or whatever personal social media friends with you until after you graduate from Algonquin College, and even then only if we are actually, you know, really friends in real life.
You can connect with me on LinkedIn at any time to stay in touch professionally.