General Information

This page provides general information pertaining to CS 401 Honors. Much of this information you might traditionally expect to find on a printed syllabus, along with the material to be covered.

Vital Stats

Instructor: Mike Gildersleeve

Office Location: 303 Pettee House (NOT Pettee Hall!)

E-mail Address: amgilder@cs.unh.edu

Phone: 862-2506 (Use the phone primarily to see if I’m in the office; otherwise use e-mail.)

Class Dates: Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, January 17th through May 8th

Class Times: 11:10 AM through 12:30 PM on Tuesdays and Thursdays and 4:10 PM through 5:00 PM on Wednesdays as announced

Office Hours: Mondays 1:00 - 3:00 PM, Wednesdays 1:00 - 3:30 PM

The Web Site: This Web presentation will be our center of electronic operations throughout the semester. Here, you will find all the essential information you need to make it through the course: what we’ll cover, what you need to read, what the assignments are, where to turn for more information, and a whole lot more. The pages of this presentation are subject to change throughout the semester, and it is your responsibility to check them often to ensure that you are acting on the most recent information available. A What’s New page has been provided to help you keep up-to-date with changes.

Contacting the Instructor

During the fall and spring semesters, I tend to be in my office several hours per week. However, my schedule tends to vary with my responsibilities each week. I welcome students to stop by my office any time they wish. The only time you can be sure to find me there, however, is during the posted office hours mentioned above. While students are welcome to stop by any other time as well, I encourage you to either make an appointment or call to make sure I’m in the office before you make the trip.

To contact me with questions or matters that do not warrant seeing me in person, I encourage my students to use e-mail rather than the phone. If I am in my office, I do answer my phone; and if I am not there, I do have voice mail. However, I check my e-mail much more frequently than I check my voice mail. If I am in my office, I typically monitor my e-mail just as I would the phone. In addition, I commonly check my e-mail from outside the office, including nights, weekends, and breaks. Therefore, it is quite often the case that you will get a quicker response from me by e-mail than you would if you were to leave me a voice mail message.

About the Course

As a course, CS401 Computer Applications has three main objectives:

• Introduce students to what computers can do,
• Introduce students to how computers work, and
• Make students aware of the broader social issues surrounding computer technology.

CS401 is intended to be a survey course, and students will therefore be exposed to a wide range of computer applications and concepts. However, students should not expect the course to make them experts in any particular computer application or concept. While students will be exposed to significant levels of detail, the primary emphasis will be upon developing the fundamental skills necessary to support further learning on an independent basis. That is, the primary goal is to prepare students to learn more about computers and their applications, either through independent study or future courses.

The course material will include exposure to three commonly used computer operating environments (Apple Macintosh, Microsoft Windows and UNIX) and several commonly used computer applications (including Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Access and Netscape Communicator). Students will also learn about the inner workings of computer systems and some of the most common uses of the Internet. Finally, students will examine various social perspectives relating to computers and associated technologies.

How the Honors Section Will Differ

The honors section will cover the same basic material as standard sections but often at a faster pace. This faster pace will be offset by supplementary readings when appropriate and reliance upon students’ ability to seek assistance when necessary. The additional class time gained as a result of this faster pace will be used to explore additional topics and discuss selected social issues in greater depth. The honors section may also meet during the regularly scheduled lab time (50 minutes per week) for additional group discussions. Students will often be expected to prepare for discussions by doing additional reading assignments.

The standard sections do 10 assignments in a semester, each of which generally entails following very detailed instructions in order to manipulate data supplied by the instructor in a specific way. They are graded strictly upon how accurately they followed the instructions. The honors section will do fewer assignments, but each assignment will typically require more creativity on the part of the student. Whenever practical, honors assignments will be presented as a series of minumum technical requirements which must be applied to data generated by the student, rather than as rigid guidelines using only instructor provided data. For example, a word processing assignment might require the student to write a short paper and format it utilizing certain features of the word processor. Students would then be graded on the quality of their writing, whether or not they utilized the required features, and how effectively they applied those features. The expectation is that the total amount of time spent on the assignments will be the same for the honors section as it is for the standard sections, but that the honors student will find the assignments more interesting and rewarding.

The exams taken by the honors section will also be different from those taken by standard sections to reflect the difference in approach and material covered.

The intent is to create an honors section of CS401 that provides the same foundational knowledge as standard sections of the course in an environment which students will find more intellectually stimulating and challenging without requiring a significantly greater time commitment.

Eligibility

The honors section of CS401 is open to all students in the University Honors Program through the normal Honors Program registration process. If the section is not filled to capacity with participants from the Honors Program as of the first class meeting, it may be possible for students outside the Honors Program to enroll in the honors section. If you are interested in permission to enroll in the honors section as a student outside the Honors Program, please contact me by e-mail at amgilder@cs.unh.edu. If you do not have access to e-mail, you may call me at 862-2506. I am open to enrolling any student who has the motivation and academic background sufficient to make their experience in the honors section educationally rewarding.

Computer Requirements

Please note that this is a lecture course. Lectures are given in a classroom with a computer for me to use in order to demonstrate concepts and a projection system so that you can see what I am demonstrating. As students, you will not have access to computers during lecture. However, you will be spending a great deal of time working with computers outside of lecture in order to fulfill the course requirements.

While it is helpful to have your own personal computer on which to do the course work, it is not required. If you wish, you are entitled to use the public computer clusters on campus. If you do have your own computer, it is your responsibility to ensure that you have the proper software installed, and in some cases a working Internet connection, to complete the assignments. As some of the software we will be using is quite expensive, you may find it preferable to use the public computer clusters even if you have your own computer.

No matter where you choose to do your assignments, you should plan on getting started on them as soon as possible. All computers are governed by Murphy's Law (some more so than others), and you should plan on them deciding not to work just when you need them the most (that is, in the last hour before an assignment is due). Late assignments will be accepted under penalty. For complete details, see the Late Submission Policy on the Assignments page.

Grading

Your grade in this course will depend to varying degrees upon several aspects of the work you are asked to do. The specific breakdown is as follows:

• Written Exams (40%) There will be two written exams given: a midterm and a final. Any material covered in lectures or the required readings is fair game. The exams will be cumulative, but the emphasis within each exam will be on new material.
• SAM Exams (15%) In addition to the written exams, you will be given three computerized skills assessment tests (called SAM tests). These will be open-book, open-notes exams given on the computer in a supervised setting. One will test your knowledge of Word 2000, one of Excel 2000, and one of Access 2000. Additional information and scheduling of these exams will be announced as the semester progresses.
• Homework (35%) You will be expected to complete five homework assignments over the course of the semester.
• Participation (10%) You will be expected to attend and actively participate in lectures and discussions.

When appropriate, grades in this course will be posted (anonymously) online so that you can track your relative standing in the class. Final letter grades will not be posted. To see the latest posted grades, visit the Posted Grades page.

Textbooks

There are three required textbooks for CS401 Honors:

• Understanding Computers Today and Tomorrow: 2000 Edition by Charles S. Parker (The Dryden Press, Fort Worth, TX, 2000) will be our primary text. Readings from this text will be used to provide technical background material to supplement our lectures.
• Computers in Society, 8th Edition, edited by Kathryn Schellenberg (Dushkin/McGraw-Hill, Guilford, CT, 2000) is a collection of articles and essays. Readings from this text will be used to provide background material for our class discussions.
• Microsoft Office 2000 Professional (New Perspectives Series) (Course Technology, Cambridge, MA 2000) is an illustrated guide to Microsoft Office 2000 Professional, Microsoft Windows, and Microsoft Internet Explorer. This text covers the how-to aspects of Microsoft Word 2000, Microsoft Excel 2000, and Microsoft Access 2000 running under Windows. Along with this text you should also receive (or purchase separately) a SAM booklet which will contain a code number that gives you the access to the system on which you will be taking your SAM exams. This SAM code is both valuable and necessary! Make sure that you obtain one of your own even if you intend to share a single copy of the book with a friend (or perhaps bought a copy of the book from a friend). SAM codes cannot be reused, so don’t buy one from a friend. And they cannot be replaced (without buying another), so don’t lose it.

In addition, reading may be assigned from various online resources deemed appropriate to the course content.

Academic Integrity

In this course (as with most courses, and indeed life in general) you will be expected to do your own work. All work which you submit and/or display as your own original work must in fact be your own original work. If any portion of the work which you do for this course is an exact replica or derivation of the original work of another, it is your responsibility to obtain the creator’s permission to utilize his or her work and indicate the extent of the creator’s contribution to your work. Note that this applies only to material derived from published works. Use of material obtained or derived from fellow students is absolutely prohibited.

The obvious standards of conduct will be applied during exams. That is, any student discovered to be using unauthorized notes, viewing the exam paper of another student, or performing any other activity which might be construed as cheating will be punished. Consider this your warning. Do not expect leniency for a first offense. Activity of this nature will be dealt with swiftly and severely.

It is your responsibility to familiarize yourself with the University’s code of ethics regarding the use of campus computing facilities and adhere to it. Likewise, you will be expected to act as a good citizen within the networked society we will be exploring this semester. Use your common sense and good taste and remember that you will be held accountable for all network activity originating from your account.

Potential penalties for failing to abide by these rules can range from zero scores on individual assignments, to failure of the course, to loss of University computing privileges, to (in extreme cases) legal action.