CSCI 2194 (Professional, Ethics, and Design Seminar),
Spring 2006:
Syllabus

Course description

The objective of this course is to help you develop into a more qualified computer professional. As the course name suggests, the course has three primary objectives:

While the first two are important to your long-term development as a computer professional, most of the time and effort in this course will spent on the third objective. One of the things that is difficult to teach in most courses but is very important for professionals involved with programming is the ability to turn a vague problem description into a detailed set of requirements and a design that meets them. To develop this ability, in this course students work in groups to design solutions to a single significant problem.

Basic information

Class meeting times and location

Prerequisites

Instructor and contact information

Course materials

Textbook

There is no textbook for this course. However, we will use UML to represent designs, so it would be helpful to have a good book on UML. See the section below for some suggestions.

Web page

Most course-related information (this syllabus, homework and reading assignments, etc.) will be made available via the World Wide Web. The course Web page is a starting point for Web-accessible course material; you can find it linked from my home page (http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~bmassing) or directly at http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~bmassing/Classes/CS2194_2006spring/HTML/.

Other references

Here are some reasonable UML references.

Course requirements

Grading

Grades in this course will be determined on the basis of class attendance/participation, an ethics presentation, and the design project, weighted as follows.

Component Maximum points
Class participation 10
Ethics presentation 15
Project 75

Numeric grades will be calculated as a simple percentage, by dividing points earned on the above components by maximum points. These numeric grades will then be converted to letter grades based on a curve, but in no case will the resulting letter grades be worse than students would receive based on the following scheme.

Numeric grade Letter grade
90 - 100 A
80 - 89 B
70 - 79 C
60 - 69 D
0 - 59 F

Ethics presentation

Detailed requirements will be provided via the course Web page. Ethics presentations are scheduled for March 1; please plan accordingly (i.e., please plan to be in class that day).

Project

Detailed requirements will be provided via the course Web page. Briefly, however: The class will be split into groups of four to five students each. All groups will work on the same problem, first analyzing the requirements and then developing a design and a prototype solution. Each group will turn in a written report (including UML diagrams) and do an in-class presentation. Each group member will also turn in an evaluation of other members of his/her group. Sophomores' design presentations are scheduled for April 19; please also plan to be in class on that date. Other due dates will be announced via the course Web page.

Attendance

Regular class attendance is strongly encouraged; class participation grades will be based largely on attendance.

E-mail

Course-related announcements will sometimes be made by sending e-mail to the Trinity e-mail addresses of all registered students. Students are strongly encouraged to read mail sent to their Trinity addresses frequently.

Late and missed work

Since most of the due dates for this course are linked to scheduled in-class events, they should be considered to be inflexible. Exceptions are possible only in very unusual circumstances; if you know you will be unable to meet a deadline, please notify the instructor as far in advance as possible.

Collaboration and academic integrity

Some work for this course is to be performed in groups; some (e.g., the evaluations of other group members) is to be performed individually. Detailed requirements for the project and ethics presentation will spell out which is which. Work submitted by an individual student must represent that student's own effort. Work submitted by a group must represent the efforts of members of the group only (i.e., collaboration between groups is not allowed). For students covered by the Academic Honor Code, unless otherwise stated all submitted work will be considered pledged work. Work that is identical beyond coincidence will be considered to be in violation of Trinity's Academic Integrity Policy or Academic Honor Code, whichever applies, and will result in disciplinary action. You are responsible for the security of your work, both electronic and hard copy.



Berna Massingill
2006-01-18