UMBC CMSC 313 Syllabus

You are expected to attend all lectures for this course.

You are responsible for all material covered in class even if not found in the class presentation materials available on-line. If you should happen to miss a lecture, you are responsible for getting any missed notes or announcements from a classmate.

Schedule

The schedule includes lecture topics, lecture notes, recommended reading, midterm and final exam dates, and project due dates.

Grading Criteria

Your grade in this course is based on projects, lab assignments and exams, which are discussed in more detail below.

      2 Midterms (15% each)        =  30%
      1 Comprehensive Final Exam   =  20%
     10 Lab Assignments (1% each)  =  10%
      5 Projects (6, 7, 8, 9, 10%) =  40%

Letter grades will follow the standard scale:

			100 >= A >= 90
			 90 >  B >= 80
			 80 >  C >= 70
			 70 >  D >= 60
			 60 >  F

Your grade is based on timely work accomplished during the semester; incomplete grades will only be given for medical illness or other such dire circumstances (almost never).

All grades will be posted on the course Blackboard site

Lab Office Hours

TAs from CMSC 313 and other courses will hold drop-in office hours in ITE 240. During these times TAs will be available for assistance on projects or just to answer your questions. These labs are available to all CMSC 313 students and operate on a first-come, first-serve basis. Check the open lab schedule for hours of operation.

This lab is open to all students enrolled in any course where programming is taught or programming projects are required such as CMSC 201, 202, 313, 341, 421, and possibly others. While most TAs can assist you with C questions, only the CMSC 313 TAs will have specific knowledge about your programming assignments and x86 assembly language. We recommend that you plan to use ITE 240 when CMSC 313 TAs are scheduled. Note that instructional activties have priority and may cause the cancellation of some office hours.

Students using the lab must observe all the rules below:

Observe all the University and Departmental policies regarding the use of the University's and the Department's computer and laboratory facilities.
No Food or Drinks Allowed in the Lab. Absolutely! Never!
Do not log in to multiple machines, especially when there are students waiting for access to the lab.
Be respectful of others working in the lab. DO NOT create disturbances (e.g. don't be noisy, don't play audible music, etc).
CMSC 421 related activities have priority. This is because they have special requirements that limit them to this lab, while there are designated OIT Labs across campus that provide general computer access.
Observe the TA hours in the lab. Students are only allowed to work during the TA lab hours. Sign in with the TA when you arrive. You must leave the lab by when the TA goes off duty - no excuses, no exceptions!
Report offenders of lab rules to the instructional staff.
Report any suspicious activity to the instructional staff or the Campus police, as appropriate.
The lab is provided to you by the University for your benefit. Take good care of it! Do not abuse it!
Repeated offenses might result in shutting down the laboratory for everybody.

Failure to observe all the lab rules will result in suspending your lab access, as well as further disciplinary actions as determined by Departmental and University policy.

Projects

The critical programming skills cannot be learned simply by attending the lectures. You should budget enough time to work on the projects as well. The due date and time for each assignment will be include with the project description. Please see the late project submission policy.

To be assigned a grade a project much show substantial effort. Projects which do not show a substantial effort (at the discretion of the grader) will recieve a score of 0. . Please see the project grading page for details of project grading.

There will be five graded projects totaling 40% of your final grade. In addition, Project 0 is a mandatory ungraded project. The purpose of Project 0 is NOT to make sure you know how to use the submission system, but rather to make sure that the submission system is prepared to accept projects from your account. If you fail to submit Project 0, no future project submissions will be possible and your grade for those projects (which ARE graded) will suffer.

Network and computer failures at UMBC are a fact of life. They are out of your control and out of our control. However, they are not an excuse for a project to be submitted late, nor are they a reason for project deadlines to be extended, even if the outage occurs on the due date. Plan accordingly. Waiting to submit your project until 5 minutes before your project is due is a recipe for disaster. In the event of network outages or computer failures you are still responsible for submitting your projects on time. There are labs on campus even if your dialup or ResNet connections are down. Also, it is your responsibility to take care of any problems with your account, such as quota overages, which interfere with your ability to complete and submit projects for the course. Project extensions will not be given for such problems.

Project Compilation

All projects must compile/assemle and run on UMBC's Linux system using the gcc compiler. To ensure you are accessing a Linux computer, log on to linux.gl.umbc.edu. Do not develop your projects on the Irix machines (irix.gl.umbc.edu); different compilers may be installed on the two systems, and what compiles on one may not compile or run on the other. See the projects page for more details.

Getting Help on Projects

You should make every attempt to do as much work on each project as possible. If you get help from anyone, you must document their assistance in the comments section of your code. The TAs and the instructors are the best sources for assistance. See the Project Policy page for a description of OPEN and CLOSED projects.

Project Regrade Requests

There are two kinds of regrade requests, one carries a deduction and one does not.

If you feel the grader has made a mistake on your project or exam, you may choose to request a grade correction. Grade corrections must be discussed in person with your instructor within one (1) weekof receiving your grade. Otherwise the grade stands.

If you made a minor mistake that caused our automated project grading script to fail and you can correct it by changing a "few" lines of code, you may discuss the request with your instructor. Regrades are given at the discretion of the instructor. After each grade is returned, there is a grace period of one (1) week during which you may discuss any problems you have with your grade. After that time, your grade will stand. Regrades will incur a 10-point deduction. Regrades will only be considered if you could possibly improve your score by a letter grade (after the deduction).

Students in all sections must discuss grade changes in person with their TA.

No grade change requests will be granted via email.

Exams

There will be two (2) exams -- a midterm exam and a comprehensive final exam. The midterm exam will be given in class. A common, comprehensive final exam will be given to all CMSC 313 students at the same time (see the course schedule for the time and place of your final). Make-ups for exams are given under only the most dire circumstances (such as hospitalization).

A picture ID is required to take/hand-in the exam.

Course BlackBoard

The course blackboard for CMSC 313 is available to all students in all sections. Blackboard will be used to post student grades and to support course discussion boards. Discussion boards wwill be created for general questions about course material, C, assembly language, and for general questions. A disscussion board will be created for each project in this course.

If you have difficulty accessing the course blackboard site, you can "self enroll" as a student in the course. To enroll for the course click on the courses tab in the Blackboard web site, and then select the Computer Science hyperlink under the Course Catalog section. Then select the enroll button for the current semester's course. Refer to this link for more information. If you're still having difficulty, email Mr. Frey. Be sure to include your UMBC user name.

Academic Conduct Policies

By enrolling in this course, each student assumes the responsibilities of an active participant in UMBC's scholarly community in which everyone's academic work and behavior are held to the highest standards of honesty. Cheating, fabrication, plagiarism, and helping others to commit these acts are all forms of academic dishonesty, and they are wrong. Academic misconduct could result in disciplinary action that may include, but is not limited to, suspension or dismissal. To read the full Student Academic Conduct Policy, consult the UMBC Student Handbook, the Faculty Handbook, or the UMBC Policies section of the UMBC Directory. The UMBC Student Academic Conduct Policy is also online.

If you need help with your project, see your instructor, your TA, the Computer Science Help Center (room ITE 201E), or tutors provided by the Learning Resource Center. We also encourage you to consult your textbook and the course web pages.

Having someone else's project (even a small part) in your possession, even briefly, is forbidden.

Safeguard your account password; you are responsible for the actions of anyone else you may allow to log into your account.
Safeguard hard copies of your programs; excuses such as "I must have left a copy of my code in the lab where someone else must have found it" will not be accepted.

Your project will be checked for similarities with all other student projects. If your project is found to be "substantially similar" to that of another student, or if it is determined that someone else wrote your project for you, then at a minimum you and the other student (if applicable) will receive a grade of zero for that project and 10 point deduction (one letter grade) in your semester average. Furthermore, all parties concerned will have their prior projects re-checked for cheating. Any second incident will result in a grade of 'F' for the semester.

Also, checking for cheating may occur at any time during the semester. Therefore, if you cheated on Project 1, you may be confronted about that at any time; receiving a grade for a project does not mean you are "in the clear".

Any act of dishonesty WILL BE reported to the University's Academic Conduct Committee for further action, which may include, but is not limited to, academic suspension or dismissal from the university.

Email Policies

Email is great -- much better than voice mail. If you need to contact your instructor about this class outside of lecture and office hours, email is much better than the telephone. You should, however, observe the following etiquette:

Email is good for lots of things, but it is horrible for debugging. Instead, if possible, use your instructor's office hours, open lab hours, the TAs' office hours or the Help Center for debugging help.
When you send an email to your instructor, your instructor will reply to the address from which the email was sent.
When your instructor wishes to initiate an email to you, it will be sent to your UMBC GL account. Therefore, you should check your email at that account on a regular basis, as it will be used when necessary to communicate with the class outside of normal lecture time. You may also choose to forward your UMBC mail to an outside account.
Use your real name. Email from "Hot Stuff" gets deleted without being read.
Use only the email addresses listed under "Staff Contact Information". Mail sent to any other addresses may not be read.
Include your name and section number in all email correspondence with course staff.
Include a meaningful subject line, something like "CMSC 202 Project 2 question". Your instructor teaches more than one course, so don't just refer to a project number.
Send email in text format only (no HTML, MS Word attachments, etc.). Mail with suspicious attachments will not be read.

In addition, due to the volume of student email during each semester, please note the following:

Although every attempt is made to respond to email promptly, do not expect responses during holidays or weekends, late in the evening, or on the evening a project is due. If you do not receive a response within several business days, feel free to email them again, your original email may have been lost or spam-filtered.
Do not expect an immediate response to your mail. This means your should ask your project questions WELL BEFORE the due date, if you expect an answer in time to help you.
Do not wait to submit a project because you are waiting for a response to your email. Once you receive a response, you can resubmit an updated version of your project if you so choose (subject to the late penalties and policies outlined above).