Winter 2007 - University of Toronto

Lecturer:

Faye Baron
faye [ @] cs [dot] toronto [dot] edu
Bahen BA4261

Lectures:

Tuesdays and Thursdays, 9:10 - 10 a.m. in Sidney Smith SS2117

Lecturer office hours (during the term):

Tuesdays: 10:10-11:00, or by appointment.

Tutorials:

Fridays 9:10 - 10:00 a.m. starting in the second week. Rooms to be announced.

Topics to be discussed:

Computer components and their interconnection: software, hardware, and data; history of computing; basic concepts in problem-solving with computers; data representation; a computer application area: timekeeping and time calculations; a gentle introduction to computer programming; social issues in computing.

A more detailed schedule breakdown is available on the course web page and will be updated during the term.

Schedule:

First lecture January 8; first tutorial January 18th.
Last lecture April 10th, and last tutorial Friday April 11th.

Grading scheme:

Bulletin board contributions:	6%	by January 25, February 15, March 28
Assignment 1:	5%	due Friday February 1(midnight)
Test 1:	12%	at tutorial time, *different rooms* (TBA),February 29
Assignment 2:	10%	due Thursday March 6
Assignment 3:	10%	due Thursday March 20
Test 2:	12%	at tutorial time, *different rooms* (TBA),March 28
Assignment 4:	10%	due Friday April 11
Final exam:	35%	as scheduled during the December exam period

To pass the course you must receive at least 30% (out of a hundred that is) on the final exam.
Most assignments are submitted on the computer itself; you don't hand in any paper. Submission instructions are included on the assignment handouts. Paper assignment submissions should be turned in by depositing them in the drop-box labelled "CSC 104" in BA 2220. They can be deposited in the drop-box any time up to the due time. No envelopes, please.

Late assignments will only be accepted under exceptional circumstances and with a written explanation. To submit an assignment late, submit it in the usual way and then send the lecturer an e-mail message or bring him a note. Without that note, we will not even notice the additional submission in the submission directory because we will already have extracted the files.

If you feel that a mistake was made on your assignment or test mark, you must fill out a remark request form , attach it to your assignment, and submit it to your instructor. Remember that the entire assignment will be remarked, so it is possible that your mark will actually go down.

Remark requests will only be accepted up to one week from the date that the assignment is handed back to the class. Requests submitted later than one week will not be considered.

Work submitted for remarking during the last two weeks of classes will not be returned until after the final exam. (You may wish to photocopy it first.)

Bulletin board contributions

There is a bulletin board at http://www.cs.toronto.edu/~faye/104/bb/ which you are expected to participate in. Specifically, 6% of your grade will be derived from three bulletin board postings you make by January 25, February 15, March 28. To get the mark, each posting must be non-trivial, on-topic, in an area specifically marked “for credit”, and distinct from your other for-credit postings. (You are also encouraged to post as much additional useful and on-topic material as you like.) You must follow all rules and guidelines outlined on the webpage: http://www.cs.toronto.edu/~faye/104/bbFAQ.shtml

Please note that the bulletin-board postings are publicly-readable (although you need not post any personally-identifiable data). If this is a problem, please contact the course instructor.

Collaboration and plagiarism

You are encouraged to work on the course material with others, but you must take care that it does not turn into plagiarism.

Plagiarism is the representation of someone else's creative work as your own. If you submit an assignment containing someone else's work, this constitutes the academic offence of plagiarism and will be taken very seriously! I suggest limiting your collaboration with others to non-assignment material. Students have been prosecuted and convicted for handing in work written for hire, written by personal tutors, copied from the web, or just a bit too much text borrowed from a friend.

With course work, in which you are expected to submit something on your own and thus cannot put a collaborator's name on it, the line between collaboration and plagiarism becomes more difficult to draw. Thus we will set the following guidelines:

You may discuss general approaches to assignments with others, but you may not bring your own actual solutions (complete or partial) to such discussions, and you must not take away any written notes from such discussions. In particular, the final composition of your assignment must be done in isolation from others, and you may not type assignment code, formulas, or other text into a computer together.

It is not difficult for graders to detect excessive collaboration. Note that it is also an offence to assist others in committing plagiarism.