General

Course Information

For up-to-date announcements, check the Blog

Other section of the course has a separate website - you can find additional information there.

You can ask tutors for the other section for help at any time they are having their office hours.

Lectures are held Mondays and Wednesdays at 2:50 pm 4:30 pm in 135 Shillman

Laptop policy: no laptops in class

People

Instructor: Viera K. Proulx

Instructor designs and implements this class, leads lectures, creates the assignments, and exams.

Tutors: Alex Jacks, Geoffrey Wong, Courtney Toder, Emil Abraham, Sean Moss.

Tutors have, in the past year or two, mastered the material of this course; they teach in labs, hold office hours, grade assignments, and can remember what it’s like to be lost. They are here to gain a deeper understanding by teaching what they know to others.

Office Hours

Viera K. Proulx	vkp	WVH322	..	Monday	..	12:00pm-1:00pm
				Wednesday	..	4:30pm-5:30pm
Alex Jacks	ajacks	WVH102	..	Friday	..	12:00 - 2:00pm
Geoffrey Wong	gwong	WVH102	..	Sunday	..	5:00 - 7:00pm
Courtney Toder	toder13	WVH102	..	Thursday	..	4:00pm - 6:00pm
Emil Abraham	eabraham	WVH102	..	Monday	..	6:00pm - 8:00pm
Sean Moss	sm0ss117	WVH102	..	Friday	..	2:00pm - 4:00pm

Communication

Use CCIS email (@ccs.neu.edu) to reach any of the course staff; usernames are given above.

Computing Environment

You will complete your assignments (other than the first one) using the Java 1.6 on the Linux machines in the labs. You may choose to use another IDE but your program must run in the designated environment without any changes. The staff may not be able to assist you with issues encountered in other environments.

The instructions for homework submission will be included with each assignment.

You will use Web-CAT to work on your homework sets, to keep track of revisions, and to submit your homework.

Assignments

There will be one problem set each week. Most of the assignments are designed to be worked on individually. That means that you may not copy any part of your classmates’ work at any time.

If you do not understand any part of the assignment, make sure you ask questions early on.

Due Date: Fridays at 11:59 pm, unless otherwise specified.

Late policy:

Homework assignments will be due by 11:59pm on the due date, unless otherwise specified. Unless otherwise noted, assignments may be submitted up to 24 hours late with a 20 percentage point penalty. Therefore, assignments submitted between 12:00am and 11:59pm the day after the due date will receive a 20 percentage point penalty on the assignment.

Students will be granted exceptions to the above policy for valid medical reasons, family emergencies, or for other reasons approved by the university. Documented proof is required. Please, request an extension as soon as your valid reason permits you to do so. You may initiate this request by an email to the instructor, but must follow up with an in-person meeting as soon as possible.

Academic intergrity:

All programs must be completed strictly by you alone. You are free to discuss the problem sets with others, so long as you acknowledge discussants. However, you may not share code in any way.

Someone may already have written a program that does part of what you’ll need to do for your assignments. For your assignments, however, you are expected to write all of the source code yourself, without copying source code from any other program, even if there are programs out there that would allow you to copy their source code. You also should not post your work for others to obtain.

You may discuss problems with other students, but you should not discuss the problem at the level of the code. You should not share or show code to anyone other than your assigned partner. As such, you should not share USB drives, etc.

You are responsible for keeping your code hidden from all other students.

Submitting code that is not your own will be considered a violation of the University’s Academic Integrity Policy (pages 38—40 of the 2011-2012 Underaduate Student Handbook). Violations of academic integrity will be reported to OSCCR and will have a negative impact on your grade.

Academic Honesty:

The academic honesty slides explain some situations you may encounter and what academic honesty means in those situations.

Exams

There will be an in-class midterm exam on October 16 and a regularly scheduled final exam during the exam week.

Grades

You will get a gpa for your homework and for your exams. You must have both a passing homework gpa and a passing gpa to pass the course. For the final grade, we will assign about half to the homework grade and half to the two exams, with about 10% to the instructors’ whim.