Welcome to the homepage for CS 307, Fundamentals of Computer Science, Fall 2002 version. All of the important administrative information you need for the class is contained via one of the links below.

Syllabus  Schedule  Software  Links  Assignments  Office Hours / Lab Hours  Test Review Materials

Announcements:

December 16:  Final averages and grades are now available on the grades page.

A word on grades, borrowed from Dr. Elaine Rich 

"I think we all wish that we could have courses without grades. You hate worrying about grades. I 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 two essential properties:
- 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. [within the limits of the tools I have available namely exams, quizzes, and homework.]"

The following is taken from Dr. Eberlein and Dr. Rich's homepages, but it is completely applicable to our class.

"In order for this grading system to work fairly for everyone please keep in min
 -Assigned grades are not the starting point of a negotiation. This isn't a weekend bazaar. Unless we have made a specific mistake in grading your work (i.e., you have a correct answer that was marked wrong or your score was added incorrectly), your grade is final.

Note that none of the following grade discussions is appropriate:
(1) "I know my answer was wrong, but I deserve more partial credit points." When I grade, I make decisions about how many points to give for various kinds of wrong answers. This is never a clear cut decision. The important thing is that I make some decision and then implement it fairly for everyone. It is completely unfair to come back later and give one person more points just because they ask. I will not do it. It is completely out of line for you to ask this.
(2) "I don't like my final grade. It will ruin my life for the following reason: ... Therefore you should give me a better one." Class grades reflect only one thing: how well you did in the class. Life circumstances just don't play a role here. Don't come to me with this kind of argument.
(3) "I don't like my final grade. I am desperate. Isn't there some sort of extra credit thing I could do?" Any answer other than "No" to this question would be completely unfair to other students in the class unless they were all offered this option. That would be equivalent to saying that the semester isn't over and everyone can keep trying. If you feel this could in some way be appropriate because of your experience at some other institution of learning (high school or other college) it is in fact completely inappropriate in my class and in the computer science department at the University of Texas at Austin. Final grades are final.
(4) "I don't like my final grade. Can I have an incomplete and try again?" There are University rules for giving incompletes. If you meet those rules (e.g., you had a medical problem during the semester), then, of course, come and tell me and ask for an incomplete. But make sure you do it as soon as you can. Do not wait until the semester is over. If you do not meet the rules, the answer is "No".
(5) "I don't like my final grade. It doesn't reflect what I really know. I guess I didn't show what I know on the exams, but won't you give me a chance to convince you that I really know this stuff." Again, any answer other than "No" would be unfair to everyone else."

Please keep all of the above in mind.

December 12: The regular final will be held in Welch Hall, room 2.224, the giant lecture hall in the chemistry building. (Everyone goes to the same room.) The makeup on Friday is in Welch 2.256.

December 10: I have been getting a lot of questions on this so: hash tables, maps, and sets and other data structures we did not specifically cover in class could appear on the test. The question would explain how the structure worked and ask you to implement it or about efficiencies or about the consequences of design.

December 9: Here is a link to an old binary trees assignment. I have added links to the slides from the last two lectures to the schedule page.

December 6: The regular final is Thursday, December 12, 7 - 10 pm. The makeup is Friday, December 13, 7 - 10 pm. You must contact Mike via email to take the makeup. I will post the rooms and breakdown by name next week.

Office hours next week. Monday 10 - 1, Wednesday 10 - 1, Thursday 10 - 1.

December 1: Class for Monday, December 2 is cancelled as are my office hours. There will still be section on Tuesday.

November 22: Assignment 12 is online. I have put the slides for the stack and tree lecture on the schedule page. The sample finals are also available now on the Test Review Materials page.

November 18: Midterm 2 results are online.

November 15: Assignment 11 is now online.

November 11:  The second midterm is this Wednesday from 7 - 10 p.m. (In the evening) Room assignments are;

November 11: The top 10 scores on the extra credit quiz with ties turned out to be 15 people. Perfect score 20 out of 20 (Mark Araas, Kevin Martin, Raul Reyes, Jason Turner) and 19 right, 1 wrong which is a score of 18.75 (Michael Chrien, David Geoffron, Kyle Goetz, Zack Hindes, Hyun Jeong, Thomas Lovitz, Nhat Nguyen, David Rathmann, Dustin Regier, Patrick Visniewski, William Woods) These students will get a +/check+ on their second lowest assignment instead of a check+/check+ like the students who got 5 or higher on  the extra credit quiz.

November 6: Assignment 10 is now online.

November 6: Some slight changes and updates to the extra credit opportunity this Friday. You can earn extra credit as described in the November 4th announcement by taking a Multiple Choice Java test this Friday in class at the normal class meeting place. The test is 20 multiple choice questions on computer science topics from the first half of our course in Java. I am altering the criteria to get the homework extra credit slightly. To discourage guessing your score on the exam is equal to ( R - 0.25 * W ) where R is the number of questions answered correctly and W is the number of questions answered incorrectly. So for example if you got 10 right and 10 wrong your score would be 10 - 0.25 * 10 = 7.5. Questions left blank do no count for or against you. To have the second lowest assignment grade replaced with a check+/check+ you must score a 5 or higher using the formula above. 

As extra incentive to do well the top 10 score on the test including ties will get their second lowest homework score replaced with a +/check+.

Please note, the test will take 45 minutes and you must remain the entire time, even if you finish early.

November 4: UPE, the computer science undergrad honor society, is offering FREE tutoring from now until the end of the semester. Tutoring will be held every Thursday from 6 pm to 8 pm in Taylor Hall 3.144.

November 4: Important Announcement! This Friday, November 8, you will have an opportunity to earn extra credit for CS 307. I am helping to conduct some research on multiple choice tests in Java. A multiple choice quiz will be held during Friday's lecture. If you take the quiz you can replace your second lowest quiz score with a 10 out of 10 (Your lowest quiz score is automatically dropped.) If you get higher than a 33% on the quiz you will also have your second lowest assignment score replaced with a check+, check+. (Again, lowest assignment score automatically dropped.) The quiz will cover material through the first half of the course and you will have 50 minutes to take the exam. If you do not attend lecture on Friday you will not have another chance for this extra credit.

My office hours for this Friday are cancelled.

October 23: Class on Friday is a presentation on Internet and video game addiction. I will be out of town and so office hours are cancelled fro Friday. The discussion section handout for next week and assignment 8 are now online. I have also added materials to the test review page for the second midterm. Remember, the midterm covers material up to and including the Monday lecture before the test.

October 23: The regraded tests were handed back on Tuesday. I regraded all tests myself, strictly by the criteria. About 60 students submitted for regrades. 36% got points back, 36% stayed the same, and 28% lost more points. Of the students who got points back it was normally 1 or 2 points. There was only 1 or 2 students who had major grading errors in their favor. The bottom line is most students get the benefit of the doubt on the initial grading and it is generally not a good idea to submit for a regrade, just for the heck of it or because you don't have anything to lose. You do in fact have something to lose because the regrade may lower your grade. Most faculty take a dim view of students who see a grade on a test or in a class as the starting point for negotiations. I am very willing to regrade if you feel an error in grading did indeed occur because someone did not understand your algorithm or code, but try to be on solid footing, tracing the code yourself, reviewing the model solution.

October 21: My office hours today are from 12 - 1, not 11 - 12. My office hours for Friday are cancelled due to an out of town meeting. Again, class on Friday is a presentation on internet and video game addiction.

October 18: My office hours this Friday are moved to 11:45 - 12:45. I will not be having office hours next Friday. Next Friday's lecture will be a presentation on internet and gaming addiction. The discussion section handout this week is the one that was online last week. Because section was used to review the test you will be doing recursion in section next week.

October 14: Scores for midterm 1 are now online. Tests will be handed back and reviewed in section tomorrow. If you did poorly on the test and did in fact study hard you may want to consider dropping the course. Please see me during office hours if you are considering this. The tests do get harder during the term because the material in the second two thirds of the course is more difficult than the material in the first third. All tests were graded according to the same criteria. If you feel the criteria was unfair, you have no recourse. If the criteria was applied incorrectly then you may request a regrade in section. I will be doing all regrades and I will regrade the question strictly by the criteria.

October 7: The midterm is this Wednesday from 7 - 10 p.m. (In the evening) Room assignments are;

October 4: Assignment 5 is now online. There is no dedicated discussion section handout this week. Instead do the sample midterms on the test review page. There won't be any interactive grading sessions next week due to the test. You will get feedback on your assignment 4s the week of October 14 - 18. Assignment 5 will not be graded interactively.

September 30: The first midterm is next week, Wednesday, October 9, 7 - 10 p.m. Rooms will be on the web site on Wednesday.  I have created a page with links to various sample tests and study tips.

September 23: On the add and subtract methods on assignment 3 you can assume there is a precondition that the calling Matrix and the parameter Matrix are of the same size, i.e. they have the same number of rows and the same number of columns. For the multiply method you may assume there is a precondition that the number of rows in the calling Matrix is equal to the number of columns in the parameter Matrix. Remember when the graders test your code for correctness we always meet the precondtions.

September 20: Reminder. You must attend the interactive grading session you arrange with your USL (normally done at section meeting times.) Missing this will result in an automatic drop by one bucket in both correctness and style for your assignment. Don't blame the USLs, this is my policy becuase the only way we can give you feedback on your program is through the interactive grading session. If you do great on the assignment (+) then you can talk about different approaches, or implications or where to go next on the problem or about being a CS undergraduate.

I have posted a simple version of the Die class. This version assumes the values on the sides or faces of the Die are integers from 1 to the number of sides. Here is the documentation for the Die class, a result of running the javadoc application (part of the SDK you downloaded) on the Die.java file. Professional looking isn't it? It is not hard to create good documentation for the Java classes you write.

September 16: The lab hours page for USLs is up. 

September 13: Small section assignments have been revised somewhat. There are still about 20 people who have not signed up for a section. You need to contact Katie Messerly ASAP to set up your section.

September 13: Assignment 2 is now online. You are given a lot of leeway on what the implementation for program 2 will be. We are now in the groove with assignments each week, quizzes every Tuesday, and discussion section handouts. We are really getting to work. 

Sept 9: The list of section assignments for USL is now online. If your assignment does not fit your academic schedule then please contact the lead USL, Katie Messerly, and list all possible sections you can attend. A quiz will be given in section tomorrow but will not be graded. Graded quizzes start next week and you must take the quiz in your assigned section.

Sept 9:  Section signups are closed. The official section assignments will be posted soon. If you successfully signed up or initially assigned to a section an did not want a change that is your section. The special cases and people who did not sign up themselves will take a little longer.

Sept. 6: Section signups will close on Monday, September 9 and 1:00 p.m. If you have not been assigned to a section or signed up for one yourself or contacted Katie Messerly via email by 1:00 p.m. you will be assigned to a section. The final section assignments will be posted Monday evening.

Sept. 5:  After much gnashing of teeth and hard work by the head USL, Katie Messerly we are ready for section signups. Click here. Please follow the isntructions.

September 5 (Early, early morning, September 5): Actually we are not live yet. Delayed until tomorrow.

September 4:  I have the dreaded letters for students who were flagged by the advising office for not meeting a prereq or repeating the class. See the list. You can pick up the letter from me before or after class Wednesday ( 3 p.m. section only), Friday before or after class or during office hours, or Thursday from 9 - 11 a.m. My office hours for Wednesday September 4 are cancelled. 

The section signup link will be here later tonight.

August 28: The message with jokes is now on the newsgroup. Any problems subscribing to the newsgroup should be addressed to ACITS.

No sections next week. Small sections will meet for the first time on September 10.

JavaAtHome page updated with information for Java 2 SDK 1.4 and the Software page updated with new links to ACITS with information on how to access the newsgroups.

August 26: The summer 2002 CS 307 web site has moved to here.

Detailed instructions about accessing UT newsgroups can be found on the class software page. Nathan Skvirsky, a proctor for the course, has provided simple instructions on how to set up Microsoft Outlook Express to access the class newsgroup via an on campus computer.

Syllabus:  The most important document in the class.  This contains details for just about every issue on the class

Schedule: This has the calendar of everything including links to handouts given in class.

Software: A page with more links to information and instructions on how to use the various pieces of software required for the class.

Links: A collection of helpful and interesting links.

Assignments: The large page containing links to assignment handouts and the necessary java files for assignments.

Tutoring: In addition to the instructor, TAs, and undergraduate proctors, tutoring help available via the following means:

1. ACM at UT tutornet (ACM = Association for Computing Machinery) offers tutoring to members of the UT ACM chapter. You can join the UT ACM chapter for only $5 per semester.  See the web page to sign up.
2. Upsilon Pi Epsilon, the CS honor society, provides free walk-in tutoring by CS honor students. When this starts I will update this page with the time and place.
3. The Learning Skills Center, located in Jester A332A, 471-3614, has individual tutors for hire. The cost is about $10 per hour; students receiving financial aid can get 2 hours per week free.

Maintained by Mike Scott.  Email me comments and suggestions.

Mike Scott's Homepage