CompSci 4, Fall 2009: Information

Professor: Susan Rodger

  • Office: LSRC D237
  • Office Hours:
    I'm usually in Mon-Fri til 2. Drop by or Send me
    email to setup a time to meet to make sure I am in. I am not in when I am teaching (tue and thur 8:30am-11:20am) or have a weekly meeting Tuesdays (1-2).
  • Email:

  • Phone: 660-6595

Graduate TA: Pablo Gainza

  • Office: LSRC D206
  • Office Hours: 11:20am-12:20pm on Tue, Wed and Thur
  • Email: pablo@cs.duke.edu
  • Phone: 660-6512

Undergraduate TAs

Consulting Hours

Follow this link for complete information.

Course Meeting Time

  • Section 1: Tue, Thur: LSRC Room D106, 10:05am-11:20am

    • UTAs:
      • Maggie Bashford
      • Megan Heysham
      • Chris Reich
      • Amy Xie
      • Catherine Moon

Text

Reading

In general you should read the text in order to be prepared to ask and answer questions in class. If you've looked at material before it's discussed in class you'll get much more out of the class discussion. This is especially true once class has been going for a while.

There will be reading quizes on blackboard due before many classes! They must be completed before class time, there will not be second chances.

Web page

Many of the materials for this course (including this page) are available on
http://www.cs.duke.edu/courses/fall09/cps004/

Bulletin Board

You should regularly read the bulletin board as it may contain announcements, hints, and information relevant to this class.

Computing projects

All computing projects will use the tool Alice for most of the semester and use Java at the end of the semester.

LATE POLICY on Assignments: Assignments turned in up to 2 days late are 10% off (Sunday does not count as a late day). Projects turned in after 2 days are 20% off. Projects must be turned in within one week late. See Prof. Rodger immediately if you are having difficulty with this.

LATE POLICY on Classwork: Classwork turned in late or not checked off by the due date is 10% off. Classwork must be turned in within one week of the due date.

Collaboration

Most assignments will be individual projects unless stated. On individual projects you may consult with one or two other students (and as many times as you want with TA's and Prof. Rodger). Consult means you can discuss the project before writing it, and get help with debugging your project, but you should write your own code. Writing one world and making multiple copies of it is not acceptable! For each assignment you are expected to include a list of the people with whom you have consulted (including students, TA's, tutors, professors). Finally, you may not consult with the same CompSci 4 students on two consecutive assignments.

All Classwork will be done in pairs, mostly assigned pairs.

Exams, Reading Quizes and inclass quiz must be your own work.

Class Participation

This is a working class, almost every class is a lab in which you will program. As a result, class participation is required. Please let me know in advance if you can not attend class and the reason why. Missing too many classes will result in a 0 for class participation.

Grading

class participation 10%
classwork 20%
readingquizzes 5%
assignments/homework 15%
two exams 30%
Final Exam 20%

There will be two exams on October 1 and November 10. The final exam is on Wednesday, Dec. 9 from 2pm-5pm. DO NOT PLAN TO LEAVE TOWN before then.

Grading is done on an absolute, but adjustable scale. This means that there is no curve. Anyone earning 90% or more of the total number of points available will receive a grade in the A range (A+,A,A-); 80% = B, 70% = C, 60% = D. This scale may go down, but it will not go up.

The tests and final exam will be closed-book.

Last modified: Sun Aug 22 16:50:56 EDT 2010