------------------------- Week 01 Notes for CST8214 ------------------------- -Ian! D. Allen - idallen@idallen.ca - www.idallen.com Remember - knowing how to find out an answer is more important than memorizing the answer. Learn to fish! RTFM! (Read The Fine Manual) DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT this set of notes will be revised DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT Course Administration: Monday, February 18 2008 is a holiday (Week 7). There are no classes. Friday, March 21 2008 is a holiday (Week 10). There are no classes. Algonquin Winter Break is February 25 to 29 2008 (between Week 7 and 8). There are no classes. I will be available in the labs to help with any questions you have. Make sure your lab section number is clearly marked on anything that you hand in to me. CS Department News http://www.algonquincollege.com/sat/cs/news.htm Home Page and Course Outline Find the Winter 2008 CST8165 course home page via Blackboard or via: http://teaching.idallen.com/cst8214/08w/ http://teaching.idallen.org/cst8214/08w/ Make sure you find the page for this term, not last term! Bookmark it. I do not keep any course files on Blackboard. Read the course home page carefully, including the parts about plagiarism and course notes. Note the important dates. Write down *on paper* the location of the Alternate Web Notes. Read the Course Outline, including the parts about tests and lab attendance. Ensure that you are registered in both the lecture section of the course (010) and one Lab section (011 or 012). Find and look at my Timetable. Know how to set up an office appointment with me by email. Review the Course Outline: cst8214-08w.pdf Midterm test dates are posted on the Course Home Page. EMail and Web-based EMail archives EMail is a critical component of course delivery for this course. Forward your Algonquin email (see the link on the course home page). Test to make sure that your forwarded Algonquin email works! Send yourself a test message. You must have a working Algonquin EMail address for this course (that you can forward elsewhere). You must read your course email regularly, either in your mailbox or via the web archives. For class online discussion I'm considering using a Course Mailing List, available as a link on the top left of the Course Home Page. Please post questions related to course content to this mailing list. (Please answer the questions if you know the answer!) Do not send me private email questions about course content; post course questions to the mailing list so I can answer them there. Attendance and Attention Attendance is also critical to course success. If you know the material and don't need to come to classes, ask for a Prior Learning Assessment. If you paid to be here, please be here. If you are in class, shut your laptop and pay attention to your lecturer. The person at the front of the room cannot compete with the entire Internet for your attention - he doesn't have the budget. If you're bored or falling alseep, take notes. Attendance is recorded - make sure you're signed in each week. Taking Notes You will need to take notes in class. Not everything I say ends up in these online files. Passing the information through your body onto paper helps you remember it, even if you never read the notes later. 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! Textbook Purchase the course textbook now (see the course home page). I will assign exercises from this book. Workload The overall term workload sometimes 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. There aren't enough hours in a day to catch up in mid-term. Timeliness Late assignments are penalized, usually resulting in a mark of zero. The due date for an assignment is given in the assignment. Read each assignment to know the due date. Preparation Lab time is precious. Most lab exercises are time-limited and will require you to have done advance preparation. If you haven't read the material and done the preparation, you won't finish on time. Plagiarism You may not copy answers from anywhere else without clearing the copying with me, in writing or by email, first. If your assignment contains enough unique lines found in other assignments, I am required to inquire whether you are the author of this assignment. If I authorize copying, you must attribute the source of material you use that isn't yours. You earn marks for the new material that you write, not answers that come from other sources. Guidelines for lab work - Read the whole question before starting to answer any of it: - the hints on solutions are at the *end* of the question