INSTRUCTOR: John E. Howland

TEXTS: Computer Science, A Modern Introduction by Goldschlager and Lister

The Internet Book by Comer

DATE: January 14, 1997

COURSE OBJECTIVES

(a) Develop an understanding of computing technology

(b) Develop an understanding of the impact of computing technology on modern society

(c) Develop computer use skills including elementary programming

(d) Develop an understanding of elementary computer science topics

This course will consist of lectures which will involve classroom use and demonstration of computer concepts, reading and discussion of issues pertinent to computing, writing assignments and programming laboratory problems. Personal computers, such as the Apple MACINTOSH or IBM PC compatibles and UNIX workstations will be used in this course. Programming will involve the J programming language.

EXAMINATION SCHEDULE

Examinations will be given according to the following schedule.

February 11

March 25

April 22

LABORATORY EXPERIMENTS

Laboratory experiments will be performed on a regular basis. Each laboratory requires completion of a brief written laboratory report using a standard format described in the Writer's Guide for Laboratory Reports. The report may be completed during the regular laboratory session or during the following week and is due to be submitted at the beginning of the next laboratory class period. A particular lab may require students to use the library and other sources during writing of the report. Laboratory experiment software may not be available after the end of the laboratory class period for some experiments, so normally all experimentation required during a lab will be done on the day of that lab. However, the laboratory workstations will be available for other use outside of regular laboratory hours.

Students will work in pairs to perform a laboratory experiment, but individual laboratory reports are required. Experimental data gathered during a lab experiment will be shared between lab partner's lab reports, but all other parts (such as hypothesis, analysis conclusions, etc.) of a lab report must be individually written.

STUDENT PRESENTATIONS

Students will be organized into panels to prepare a presentation to be given to the entire class on a computer topic selected by the panel (topics must be approved by the instructor). Each presentation should last approximately twenty minutes. The panel should also prepared to conduct a discussion of their topic and respond to class questions on the topic.

COURSE PROJECT

Each student will prepare a course project which is due during the last week of classes. This project may be one of two types: a paper or a programming project.

GRADING

The approximate breakdown on grading will be as follows. Exams will be used to determine 40% of the final semester grade. Programming homework will be used to determine 40% of the final semester grade. Class participation will determine 5% of each student's grade. This portion of each student's grade is subjectively determined by such things as class attendance (the instructor will not be taking attendance each class period) participation in class discussion, questions asked, etc. It is the responsibility of each to make his/her participation noticable to the instructor. Class participation will include discusstion outside of the classroom on the local USENET newsgroup, tu.csci307h, Each student should contribute to the discussion once or twice a week. Such contributions may include responses to topics posted by others or by posting new discussion topics. The instructor will be reading tu.csci307h and may contribute to the discussion from time to time. Discussion topics should be limited to the course but may cover any aspect of the course. This news group will be archived but not moderated. This means that all of the discussion will be saved so that it can be accessed at any time, but what you post to the group will be seen by all readers without any editing. It is up to you to engage in friendly conversation and debate. Personal attacks are sure to cause you to be flamed by others and are not encouraged. The use of USENET technology for class discussion is an experiment which I may to announce to the Trinity University community, so other faculty and students may occasionally read and contribute to tu.csci307h. tu.csci307h postings will not be forwarded to the outside internet world, nor will it be read by persons outside of the trinity.edu domain. Student presentations will be used to determine 5% of the final grade and the final project will be used to determine the remaining 10% of the final grade.

TOPICS

Computer hardware

Computer organization

Operating systems

Computer programming

Programming languages

Computer applications

J syntax

J semantics

Recursion

Iteration

Societal issues

The economy

The workplace and employment

The information age

Ethical and legal issues

Privacy

Computer reliability and safety

Computers in the world community

Philosophical issues