UCR CS 12: Introduction to Computer Science II

Winter 2004

Overview

Basic information

Schedule

Lab schedule

General course features and policies (please read these carefully)

• Material covered: You'll be responsible for learning material covered in lecture, in the textbook, and in lab. We expect you to read the textbook; lecture only emphasizes key material, but does not cover all required material alone.
• Collaboration policy (TA/instructor may override for particular assignment):
  • Midterm, final, quizzes, lab practical -- Obviously no collaboration
  • In-lecture exercises -- Dependent on instructor instructions for particular exercise.
  • Homeworks -- Collaboration strongly ENCOURAGED. Study groups are great. You should still do your own solution, and should not turn in *identical* solutions as others, but similar solutions are O.K. Remember though -- these are designed to help you on the assesment items, so relying too heavily on others will hurt you during assessment. Also, we may give homework problems whose answers are in the book. That's so you get quick feedback; you should submit your own answers, not merely copies of the book's answers.
  • In-lab exercises -- Collaboration strongly ENCOURAGED. If you complete an exercise, feel free to help others -- teaching enhances your own learning.
  • At-home programming assignments -- Limited collaboration may be acceptable, but programs must represent YOUR OWN original work. Sharing code or team-coding are not allowed. Copying code from ANY source (any book, current or past students, past solutions, etc.) is not allowed. Collaboration may consist of discussing the general approach to solving the problem, but should not involve communicating in code or even pseudo-code. Students may help others find bugs. Your code must be unique -- the odds of randomly obtained highly-similar code is very low. Computing, like surgery or driving a car or playing golf, can only be learned by doing it yourself!
• Academic dishonesty: cheating is strongly punished. Report cheating (anonymously if you wish) at: https://www.cs.ucr.edu/cheating/. Note: we use a powerful commercial tool that automatically compares all programs (this quarter and from past quarters too), neglecting changes in variable names, spacing, etc., and detects copied code. If you are smart enough to outsmart the tool, you are smart enough to write the program yourself. We regularly catch several cases of copying in the course EVERY QUARTER, with severe penalties given. PLEASE, don't risk it!! A couple more notes. Be aware that exams are photocopied, and will be compared to exams submitted for regrades -- so don't make changes on graded exams. Also, be aware that lying to an instructor in order to be able to make up a missed exam or in other ways to obtain a better grade can be treated as academic dishonesty. During exams, cell phones and PDAs must be stored away in a place not visible (e.g., inside a backpack) and should be turned off.
• Regrade policy: regrade requests must be submitted in writing and within one week of the distribution of the graded material. Grade-database errors should also be pointed out within one week of posting.
• Communicating with the instructors and TAs: when sending electronic mail to the instructors or TAs, please remember that many students have the same name, and your instructor may be teaching other courses too. So please give your full name and list the course you are referring to, and preferably include your student ID number. You should use your UCR email account (remember that UCR sends many official notices now only by email). Please try to be polite and professional, and use reasonable grammar and formatting.
• Cell phones: During lectures and lab sessions, please turn off your cell phone.
• Homework and lab reports: All turned-in assignments will be turned in electronically. Each file should begin with our report template header. Source code shoudl comply with professionally accepted coding standards. Also, you must include a section explaining the design, structure, etc of your program and how it works. Comments in source code are important, but they are not a replacement for an explanatory section. Please remember that successfully writing a computer program that compiles and runs correctly is not something anyone can do in just a few minutes, even when it looks easy. Debugging typically takes three times longer than figuring out how to write your program. So don't leave your programming assignments to the last minute!
• Lab attendance : is required for the full 3-hour lab. If you finish early, help others (teaching increases your own learning), read ahead, work on your at-home program assignments, etc.
• Lab enrollment : To reduce disruptions and provide for the best educational environment, all persons in lab during scheduled lab time should be formally registered in that section. In general, no swapping sections and no unregistered people in the lab are allowed, even if there are extra computers.
• Switching/adding/dropping lab and lecture sections: all add, drop, and section changes of all lower division Computer Science courses, after the period when students can do so electronically is over, are done through the College of Engineering's Student Affairs office. Neither the instructors nor the CS department itself can sign any add/drop forms, nor can they arrange for section changes. Please go to Student Affairs, Bourns Hall A159, for any such changes.
• Late/early policy for at-home programs:
  • Late penalty for at-home programs due before the midterm: 5% for 1-day late, 10% for 2-days, 15% for 3-days, not accepted after 3 days.
  • Late penalty for at-home programs due after the midterm: 10% for 1-day late, 20% for 2-days, 30% for 3-days, not accepted after 3 days.
  • BONUS for any at-home program turned in EARLY: 2% for 1-day early, 4% for 2-days early, 6% for 3-days or more early.
  • "Day early/late" is defined as 24 hours before/after the due time.
• Time Requirements: This is a four-unit CS course. As such, you should expect to spend 3 hours/week in lecture, 3 hours/week in lab, and 6 to 10 hours/week doing individual study (readings, homeworks, programming, lab preparation, etc) -- no exaggerating here! Please don't underestimate the time you will need to spend on this course. These are real time amounts spent by successful past students. Computer Science and Engineering are challenging disciplines requiring extensive time to master -- it's worth it in the end (great jobs, great pay, respect, etc.), but those things don't come for free. So practice, practice, practice! Work hard in school, then reap the rewards of a great career.
• Final Exams are scheduled by the University, not by the instructor, and are correlated to the course sections. This means you take the final exam scheduled for the section you are enrolled in.
• Final grades: Per university policy, changes to your final grade can be made only in the event of a clerical error. Asking your instructor how far you were from a cutoff and what extra work you can do to improve the grade is not appropriate.

Electronic assignment turn-in

Anonymously report suspected cheating

Anonymously Provide Comments/Suggestions

Grades

Additional Resources

• Coding Style Guide
• UCR CS department's Online Documentation page.