Overview
An introduction to computer science providing a broad survey of the
discipline while emphasizing the computer's role as a tool for
describing, organizing and manipulating information. Topics to
include machine architecture, software, data organization, and the
potential and limitation of machines. Serves as a terminal course for
students who want a one-course introduction to the field, as well as a
preliminary course to upper-level computer science offerings. Note:
this is NOT a programming class and it may be taken concurrently with
COMP 125 or 170.
Prerequisites
There are both official and unofficial prerequisites for this course.
The official prerequisite is MATH 100 (Intermediate Algebra) or
equivalent placement. The reason for this prerequisite is that our
study of computer science will inherently involve a level of
analytical and mathematical sophistication. This will arise in
understanding how information is represented digitally and how
computations proceed on such data.
The unofficial prerequisite is that, although we do not expect
students to have any formal training in computing, we will expect that
the great majority of students enter the class with at least some
experience as a user of computers. Specifically, we will assume that
students are comfortable with creating text files, sending and reading
email, and using a web browser to explore content on the Internet.
Students who do not have this experience are certainly welcome in the
class however they should be aware that these topics are not going to
be covered during lecture. The instructor can provide advice for
gaining such experience.
The people
Instructor:
- Michael Goldwasser
- Email: mhg@cs.luc.edu
- Office: DH 115 (inside the DH105 Suite),
Lake Shore
Campus
- Phone: (773) 508-2883
- Hours: Saturdays, 12:30-1:30pm and 4:30-5:00pm, or by appointment
Teaching Assistant:
- Feven Atnafu
- Office Hours: Saturdays 12:30-1:30pm and 4:30-5:00pm
- Location: DH 310 (inside the DH350 Suite)
- Phone: (773) 508-3584
The lectures
The material will be presented in one weekly lecture, meeting
Saturdays, from 1:30-4:30pm, in room 730 of Damen Hall on the Lake Shore
Campus Class participation is most welcome.
Textbooks
There are two required textbooks for this course:
- Computer Science, An
Overview, 6th edition
- J. Glenn Brookshear
- Addison Wesley, 2000. ISBN 0-201-35747-X
This book will be the primary reading for the course and provides the
outline we will follow through the material. This book is a great
source which provides a solid, intuitive understanding of computer
science while at the same time avoiding the temptation to overly
simplify. This book also contains a wealth of information which we
will not have time to cover. For each chapter, we will likely cover
only a selection of topics, leaving the rest for those who wish to do
additional reading (or for those who continue in Computer Science).
- The Analytical Engine: An
Introduction to Computer Science Using the Internet
- Rick Decker and Stuart Hirshfield
- Brooks/Cole Pub, 1998. ISBN 0-534-95365-4
This book comes with a wonderful suite of software which will form the
basis for many of our assignments. For this reason, if you are buying
a used copy of the book, please make sure that it still contains the
enclosed CD. The text is written with a more light-hearted style.
Some of the readings will directly related to our assignments, some of
the reading will be used as supplemental support for selected topics,
and some of the reading will be left as optional for those who are
interested.
Of course, there are volumes of other books related to various aspects
of Computer Science. The end of each chapter in the Brookshear book
generally gives references to the other fundamental readings for the
given topic. Additionally, there are some other books which try to
give an overview of computer science in the same spirit as the books
we have chosen. Though we have chosen not to use the following books,
we list them for your interest:
- An Invitation to Computer Science, Java Version
- G. Michael Schneider and Judith L. Gersting
- Brooks/Cole Pub, 2000. ISBN 0-534-37488-3
- The Essential Guide to Computing: The Story of Information Technology
- E. Garrison Walters
- Prentice Hall PTR, 2001. ISBN 0-13-019469-7
Online Resources
This course will take advantage of the Internet and the departmental
network in many ways.
COMP 150 Web Page:
www.cs.luc.edu/~mhg/comp150/
With the exception of the first day's printed handouts, most of the
information for this course will be distributed only by means of the
course web page. This web site will contain all assignments, a
schedule of lectures and detailed lecture notes, and links to many
other sources of information.
Discussion Group
In order to create more of a class community and to foster further
discussions involving computer science, we will be maintaining an
online discussion group which allows all members of the
class to post messages to the community. We encourage messages related directly to
course material or to more general issues of Computer Science.
Questions of a general nature can be answered by the instructor or
other students. The instructor will also use this discussion group for
announcements throughout the semester.
Email with Instructor
Questions or comments of an individual nature should be
emailed directly to the instructor. Topics suitable for email include
questions about grades received, requests for an appointment,
requests for help on an assignment.
Graded Work
The components of an overall course ``percentage'' will be calculated
based on the following assigned work:
Assignments (50%)
There will be a total of 11 weekly
assignments during the
course, each of which involves some amount of work on a computer.
We will ignore your lowest of the eleven grades, and the remaining
ten assignments will contribute to this portion of the grade.
Each assignment will contain one or more practice problems which
are not to be turned in and which can be discussed freely between
classmates. The problems which are to be submitted for a grade,
however, must be done entirely individually. A more complete
explanation of our policy towards Academic
Honesty is given below. Each week, we will also attempt to
offer a small extra credit challenge to those interested.
Assignments will generally be made available each Saturday and due
one week from the following Monday. Our hope is that you approach
the assignment as if it were due the following Saturday. In this
way you will have worked through most of the assignment before the
following Saturday. You will then have a final opportunity to
discuss the assignment with the instructor in case you are having
trouble, while still having a few more days to finalize your
solutions and submit the assignment. The late
policy is discussed below.
All assignments for this course must be submitted electronically!
The procedures will allow submission both from inside Loyola's lab
or from any outside computer through the Internet. Details of the
procedure will be discussed in
Assignment 0.
Exams (50%)
We expect the first two midterms to take approximately 45-60 minutes
each. We will allow up to two hours for the completion of the final
exam.
Course Grades
Letter grades will be based on each students overall percentage of
awarded points according to the following formula.
- Student percentage above 90% will result in a grade of A or better.
- Student percentage above 86% will result in a grade of B+ or better.
- Student percentage above 80% will result in a grade of B or better.
- Student percentage above 76% will result in a grade of C+ or better.
- Student percentage above 70% will result in a grade of C or better.
- Student percentage above 66% will result in a grade of D or better.
- Student percentage above 60% will result in a grade of D or better.
- Student percentage below 60% will result in a grade of F.
Any modification to this scale at the end of the year will be {\em in
favor of the students}. That is we may later decide to award an A to
a student who is slightly below the above cutoff, but we certainly
will not take away an A from someone who is just above the cutoff.
Academic Honesty
Students are also expected to have read the statement on academic
integrity available on page 14 of Loyola's
``Undergraduate Studies''
catalog. In addition to this statement, we wish to emphasize issues most
relevant to this course.
When it comes to learning and understanding the general
material covered in class or the practice problems, you may
certainly use other references and you may have discussions with other
students in this class or other people from outside of this class.
However, work which is submitted for this
course must be entirely your own. You are
in no way to discuss such assignments, nor are you to use or
or search for direct or indirect assistance from any outside
references.
The only exception to the above rule is that you are free to have
consultations with the instructor, teaching assistant, or members of
the organized tutoring centers on campus. Even in these cases, if you
receive significant help you should make sure to document both the
source of the help as well as the extent.
Any violations of the general Loyola policy or the policies outlined
in this handout will be dealt with severely. Penalties will apply
equally to a student who is aiding another student. Any such
violations will result in a minimum penalty of a zero on the given
assignment which cannot be dropped, and severe or repeated violations will
result in an immediate failing grade in the course. Furthermore all
incidents will be reported in writing to both the department and the
appropriate dean.
Late Policies
All exams must be taken promptly at the required time. Requests for
rescheduling an exam will only be considered if the request is made
prior to the start of the exam, or else in an ``emergency'' situation
with appropriate documentation.
For assignments, we wish to allow students to continue to work
comfortably beyond the official deadline when a little more time will
result in more progress, while at the same time discourage students
from falling several days behind pace and jeopardizing their success
on future assignments.
Our solution is the following late formula (some have suggested that
we should offer extra credit to anyone who fully understands this
formula).
We will consider an assignment submission ``complete''
whenever any part of the assignment is last submitted or modified.
Any assignment which is not complete promptly by its due date and time
will be assessed a penalty based on the formula S = R * e-t/6,
where S is the grade given, R is the grade the work
would have gotten if turned in on time and t is the amount of time
(in days or fractions thereof) the work was late. Thus, the value of a
late assignment decays exponentially, with a half-life of about four
days. Examples: work turned in 1 hour late will receive over 99% of
original credit, work turned in 6 hours late will receive 96% credit,
one full day late receives less than 85%, work turned in four days
late will receive 51%. This penalty will only be waived in an
``emergency'' situation with appropriate documentation.
Computing at Loyola
Departmental Network and Labs
Each student in this class will be given an account on our
department's computer network, based on a given User ID and password
combination. Students may develop their assignments on computer at
Loyola or elsewhere, however the department account will be used in
submitting assignments electronically and retrieving grades.
For those who do wish to use our department labs as a regular work
place, this account allows use of machines in our department labs in
rooms DH340, DH341 or DH342. With each account, a student is given a
home directory (H:\MyHome) in which files can be stored
throughout the semester. Information on the lab policies, including a
schedule of open hours, is available at
www.cs.luc.edu/technology.html.
Finally, each user can send and receive email from this account. As
an example, a student with User ID ``aturing'' receives email
sent to aturing@cs.luc.edu.
Computer Center's run by division of Information Services
Other students may prefer to use some of the more general Loyola labs
maintained by Information Services. These labs are convenient due to
their locations across all Loyola campuses, as well as availability at
times when our department labs are either scheduled for a class or
filled with other working students.
Most of the software available on our department network is also
available on the IS network. Please note, however, that the
UserID/Password for your CS department account is unrelated to the
account you may have on the campus-wide network.
To faciliate CS students working in IS labs, we have worked with IS to
allow students access to the CS department NT file system from any of
the IS labs at Loyola. This includes direct access to the submit directory
as well as your CS home directory. (Note: the drive letters used will
not be mapped to the same letters as on our department machines.)
Instructions can be found at:
www.cs.luc.edu/lab/faq/atIT/itlabs.html
comp150 Class Page
mhg@cs.luc.edu
Last modified: 15 September 2001