CS 329E Elements of Computing in Society: Class Policies and Information

CS 329 Elements of Computing in Society
Elaine Rich
Fall, 2010

Class Information

Unique

Time

Room

52420

T, Th 11:00-12:15

PAI 3.14

Prerequisites

CS 303E or CS 305J or CS 307 or one semester of programming at the college level or one year of programming in high school.

Textbooks

· Hal Abelson, Ken Ledeen, and Harry Lewis, Blown to Bits: Your Life, Liberty, and Happiness After the Digital Explosion. (This book is available on the Amazon Kindle.)

· Quinn, Michael, Ethics for the Information Age, 4^th Edition.

Staff

		Office	Office Hours
Elaine Rich	ear@cs.utexas.edu	ACES 2.442	W 11:00 – 11:50 and TH 3:30 – 4:30
Sarah Abraham	theshark@cs.utexas.edu	PAI 5.33 Desk 2	T 3:30 – 4:30 and by appointment

Grading

We all wish that we could have courses without grades. You hate worrying about grades. We hate having to assign grades. But grades are essential to insuring that your degree has the value it deserves. So we have to have a grading system and that system has to have three essential properties:

It has to motivate everyone to learn as much as possible.
It has to be fair to everyone in the class.
It has to be a true measure of how much each student knows about the class material.

In this class, grades will be assigned as follows:

Project	44%
Homeworks	40%
News articles	6%
Notecards	6%
Class participation	4%

Project

Everyone will choose a topic for a term project. The project will have two parts:

A written report.
A class presentation.

Homeworks

Short homeworks will be assigned most weeks. You can see what they are and when they are due by going to the Class Schedule page. The following short documents describe how we will grade the homeworks and they offer tips for writing good papers:

News Articles

As you’re reading the news, be on the lookout for articles that touch on the issues that we are covering in class. Every Thursday (unless otherwise announced), you should come to class with a printout of an article that you found interesting. You should be prepared to present your article to the class.

Notecards

It is important that you come to class having done the assigned reading. To help assure that everyone has done so, you will often be asked to turn in, at the beginning of class, one 3 x 5 card on which you have written a short description of an idea that you found interesting as you were doing the reading. Once you’ve chosen an idea, do a bit more research on it. Come to class prepared to present what you have learned. I will flip through the cards at the beginning of class and choose a few.

Students with Disabilities

Any student with a documented disability (physical or cognitive) who requires academic accommodations should contact the Division of Diversity and Community Engagement, Services for Students with Disabilities at 471-6259 (voice) or 471-4641 (TTY for users who are deaf or hard of hearing) or http://www.utexas.edu/diversity/ddce/ssd/ as soon as possible to request an official letter outlining authorized accommodations.

Academic Integrity

You should read carefully the class policy on academic integrity. Cheating of any form will not be tolerated and will result in a failing grade in the class.

Religious Holidays

By UT Austin policy, you must notify me of your pending absence at least fourteen days prior to the date of observance of a religious holy day. If you must miss a class, an examination, or an assignment in order to observe a religious holy day, you will be given an opportunity to complete the missed work within a reasonable time after the absence.

Additional Class Policies

You should read CS Department Code of Conduct. The policies described there will be followed in this class.