CIS350-S09/Policies
From MCIS Wiki
Instructor: Professor John Peterson
Office and contact info: Hurst 114 943-2392 [1]
Class webpage: wiki.western.edu/mcis
Office hours: 1:00 – 2:00 MWF; 9:30 – 10:30 TTh. I am around many more hours than this; email or knock anytime.
Topics: A study of client-server applications designed around the World Wide Web. Students design and implement applications which provide access to centralized resources such as databases and mail servers from web browsers. Students utilize Ruby on Rails to construct applications such as an online shopping site, an enterprise document server, or a shared Intranet database.
Organization: We will start with a succession of small projects and homework assignments to familiarize you with our tools. The second half of the class will be a larger scale web project. Every student will be responsible for a different project. The projects will be sponsored by the Western community.
Text: The Ruby Programming Language (required), Agile Web Development with Rails (required)
Coverage: While this course is “about” the visual aspect of programming, in modern software development environments the creation of GUIs is relatively easy. Instead of lecturing to the GUI aspect of programming, we will instead learn this by using GUIs to explore many other topics in CS such as game trees, graphics, and simple AI. There will be math involved – you will be expected to be comfortable with coordinate systems, 3-D graphics, geometry, and other mathematical foundations of CS.
Outline: after three weeks of warmup assignments with GUIs and event oriented programming, we will go on a 3 week cycle, as follows:
- Lectures about the particular problem to be solved and any special techniques needed to address this problem. These will generally start before the previous assignment is due.
- Work days to get you started on the new project – usually one a week
- A prototype will be due at the end of each week before the project is due. Prototype requirements vary from project to project
- Additional lecture days, emphasizing program development issues and debugging.
- A recap in which we examine the code submitted.
Preparation: it is your responsibility to come to every class prepared to work on the current project. If you work at home, you MUST have your program available on a stick or your S: drive so that we can work in class. You are responsible for attending every class – if you cannot make it to class I must be notified by email before the class starts. Any time you miss class or fail to prepare for class you will lose 3 points off the top of your final grade. The wiki will always make it clear what sort of preparation is expected for each class.
Grading: Your final grade will consist of your project (50%) and homework average (50%).
Late Work: Late work will NOT be acceptable. Programs can be submitted at most one class late, which will lower the grade by one letter.
The Wiki: Please use the wiki to ask questions and take notes. I will set up a wiki page for each assignment that will include a comment area. There will also be a wiki page for each lecture to deal with notes or questions. You are expected to participate in the wiki – students that don’t contribute to the wiki will lose points on their assignments.
Submitting Assignments: Submit all assignments through my drop off folder. Submit a copy of the entire workspace and name the top folder using your name, project #, and the word “late” if it is submitted past the deadline.
Ask for Help: When you have problems understanding RoR, debugging a program, understanding a problem domain, or just figuring out where to start it is up to you to ask for help, either in class or privately. When you enter the real world, you’ll find that it’s much better to admit you don’t understand and get help than to go off and do the wrong thing.
Academic Honesty: You are expected to work on these projects individually. You are welcome to work with other students but please write the code yourself instead of directly copying it. Wholesale copying of others code is punishable by a 0 on the assignment.
Students with Disabilities: Western State College of Colorado seeks to provide reasonable accommodations for all qualified persons with disabilities. This College will adhere to all applicable federal, state and local laws, regulations, and guidelines with respect to providing reasonable accommodations as required, affording equal educational opportunity. It is the student’s responsibility to register with the Learning Assistance Center (x7056, UN 201) and to contact the faculty member in a timely fashion to arrange for suitable accommodations.
Changes to the Syllabus: This syllabus may be altered at any time – I will announce any alterations in class and update the syllabus in the wiki.
