This section contains very important information on many different topics in no particular order.
Use of the Blackboard online system
The online program named Blackboard will not be
used for communication with students except in those cases where
confidentiality is required, (such as the reporting of grades to students) or the
broadcasting of email messages to all students enrolled in the course.
However, the Blackboard Assignment feature is the mechanism that you will use to submit your exams.
Orientation:
All students are required to complete the online orientation. To
participate in online orientation, click on the orientation link below.
Broken Links:
Occasionally one or more of the links, which tie these online, documents
together, may become broken. If you discover a broken link, or
any other problem with the online documents, please notify me as soon as
possible so that I can repair the problem.
Communications via Email
If you send email to me, it is imperative that you include your name and the
identification of the class in which you are enrolled (ITSE1356) on the
Subject line. I normally have a very large number of students in any given
semester. If I have to search the rolls to identify you, I may not
answer your Email.
Spam blocking software
I receive several hundred email messages every day. Many of the messages that
I receive contain viruses or worms. Most of the rest are SPAM.
As a result, I have been forced to become very selective regarding the messages
that I am willing to open and read. I can't trust that simply because a message
claims to be from someone that I know, it is safe to open and read. Unless
something in the Subject line of the message causes me to believe that I can
trust the message, I will simply delete the message without reading it.
Therefore, if you send email messages to me, your Subject line MUST be
formatted as follows:
Last name, First name, ITSE1356, Brief topic of message
When I see that format, I will trust that the message is safe to open and
read. Otherwise, I will assume that your message contains a virus or
constitutes SPAM, and I will simply delete your message without reading it.
Therefore, if you want me to read your message, you MUST format your Subject
line as shown above.
Telephone number
It is also important that you provide a telephone number where I can contact
you. I receive many email messages from students with invalid return email
addresses.
Questions via Email:
From time to time you may need to ask questions via email, and I encourage you
to do so. However, please make the question as specific as possible. For
example, "What is a DTD?" is not a question that I can easily answer via email.
If you, like many others, procrastinate and save your questions until the weekend before an exam deadline, don't be surprised if you don't get a response from me until after the exam deadline has passed.
I am usually happy to answer questions about XML concepts at the level of this course. However, please don't ask questions about the exams (unless you believe there is a problem with one of the exam files that I have provided). It is almost certain that I won't answer them. Your performance on the exams constitutes a major portion of your final grade, and it isn't fair for me to answer questions about the exams from one student when all students don't have an opportunity to hear the question and the answer.
If I didn't assign your exams on a take-home basis, you wouldn't have an opportunity to ask questions anyway. Just pretend that you are taking the exam in an ACC testing center and that I am not there.
When appropriate, please illustrate your question with a short example, and refer to the corresponding section of the textbook.
I am here to help you, so don't hesitate to ask for help when you need it.I normally respond to student email messages within 24 hours except on the weekends. If you send a message to me and you don't receive a response within 24 hours (allow 72 hours on weekends), make certain that your Subject line is correctly formatted and send the message again.
How many chapters...?
I frequently receive questions (both via Email and in the classroom)
similar to the following, “How many
textbook chapters do I need to read to be able to solve problem
X on exam Y?”
My answer is usually something like the following, “Read (and understand) as many chapters as necessary to learn enough about XML to be able to write the code or answer the questions.”
If I gave true/false and essay exams (tests) in the classroom under closed-book conditions, I would feel obligated to tell you in advance how many chapters you need to understand in order to prepare for the exam. However, my exams are all take-home exams. You have access to all of the exam questions from very early in the semester. You have access, not only to my tutorials and the textbook, but also to any book that you wish to consult, and to numerous resources on the web, in preparing yourself to successfully complete the exam. I consider it to be your responsibility to make use of those resources in whatever manner, and on whatever schedule works best for you.
I simply provide tutorial materials, conduct classroom lectures and discussions, answer appropriate Email questions, and establish the necessary deadlines. (Unfortunately, deadlines are a fact of life, not only in college, but also in the workplace.) I make no attempt to tell you how to schedule your time and your efforts.
So, before you ask, the answer is, “Consult whatever resources you need to consult, on whatever schedule you need to consult them, to learn enough about XML to be able to successfully complete the exams by the required deadlines (but please don’t get human assistance in the actual writing of the exam).”
Help me debug my exam
Please don't waste our time by asking me to help you debug your exams. The
best way to debug is to avoid errors in the first place. Then there won't be
any bugs that require attention.
If you understand the requisite XML concepts, the only bugs that you will incur will be the result of careless errors on your part. I won't waste my time showing you how to correct for your own carelessness.
Carelessness is costly
A few semesters back, on the last Friday of the month, which was anticipated to
be one of the most active trading days of the month, programmers working on a
network made a careless error and shut the NASDAQ stock exchange down for
several hours. There is no way of estimating how much this cost various people
around the world.
A few months later, programmers working for a telephone company made a careless programming error and swamped the 911 emergency call center in Austin with wrong numbers for several hours. Hopefully no one died as a result, but we will never know.
Although careless errors on exams may not be as costly as the errors described above, they are costly nonetheless. In fact, the cost for making a careless error on an exam is just as costly as not knowing how to write the exam in the first place. In either case, you get no credit for the exam. So, don't be careless.
Who Am I?I typically receive hundreds (occasionally thousands) of email messages each day, many of them from my students along with many spam messages.
When you send an email message to me, make absolutely certain that the Subject line contains the following information as a minimum:
Include your current telephone number somewhere in the body of the message, and make it easy to find. If my email or your email goes down, I may try to call you on the telephone.
If you don't comply with the above, don't expect me to answer your email messages.
Please Be Patient
Other than questions regarding registration, please do not send email regarding
this course prior to the first day of classes. If you do, I probably won't
answer it. A great deal of preparation is required to teach a course of this
nature. I have many responsibilities to take care of in the final days before
the course begins and I do not have the time to work with individual students
until after the course actually begins. If I reach the point that I can accept
email regarding this course prior to the first day of classes, I will post that
fact on this bulletin board.
Computer Studies Student Information Form
The following is requested by the Computer Studies department, but is not a
requirement of the course in which you are enrolled. Whether or not you
provide the following information will not be taken into account when
determining your grade in the course.
If you are willing to provide this information, please compose an e-mail message containing the following information and send it to Baldwin@DickBaldwin.com
If you do provide the information, please make the subject line of your
e-mail message read as follows:
Last Name, First Name, Course Number, Student Information Form
DO NOT include this information in the message that you send confirming that you have completed online orientation. Send separate messages for those two purposes.
You should be able to copy and paste the following form into your e-mail client and then fill in the blanks. Don't be too concerned about neatness when filling in the form.
Last Name:_____________________
First Name:_____________________
Student ID:_____________________
Course Number: IT__ ____
Telephone Numbers
Home:___________Any issues that the instructor should be aware of:
Work:___________
Other:___________
E-mail address:_________
_________________________________________________
Reasons for taking the course:
_____Personal InterestPlease indicate the following:
_____Required by degree program, which is ______________
_____Work related - please explain in comments section below
_____Recommended by ______________________________
_____Other, please explain in comments section below
_____Hours working per weekWhat computer courses have you completed at ACC or elsewhere?
_____Number of credit hours enrolled in this semester
_____Number of computer courses completed at ACC
_____Highest degree earned
_____________________________________________________
What computer or computer related work experience do you have?
_____________________________________________________
Comments:
_____________________________________________________
Broken tutorial links
I discovered during a recent semester that Internet.com had broken the links to
many of my XML, Java, Python, Flex and C# tutorials. The tutorials were apparently still
there, but they were at different URLs from the URLs listed in my Table of
Contents pages.
If you are unable to view a particular tutorial by clicking the link in the Table of Contents, copy the name of the tutorial from the Table of Contents, and then search for it using Google Advanced Search. Enter the name of the tutorial in the "Exact Phrase" box, change the number of results per page to 100, and then click the Google Search button.
If you haven't located the tutorial of interest by the time you have viewed the last page of links on the Google results page, click on the link at the bottom of the last Google page that reads "repeat the search with the omitted results included." Then examine the links again to see if you can find the tutorial of interest.
Please also let me know if you find broken links in my Table of Contents.
A Special Invitation
Statistics show that the dropout and failure rate in Distance Learning classes is higher than in classes where students regularly attend lectures, ask questions,
and participate in discussions. It is my strong desire that you succeed in
this course and that you do not drop out.
If you are enrolled in the Distance Learning section of the course, I urge and invite you to attend my lectures whenever your schedule will allow.
You can find the schedule for all of my classes at the following URL:
Discussion during office hours
Whether you are a regular classroom student or a Distance Learning
student, if you don't understand everything that you need to understand about
XML, you need to be in my office talking to me about it. Often a
short explanation will get you past a roadblock and get you back on the track
to learning OOP. Visit during office hours, lab periods, or any time that my
office door is open.
Do not send executable attachments
If you send an email message to me and expect me to read it, DO NOT attach any
executable files, even if they are encapsulated in a zip file. This includes
files with the following extensions, just to name a few:
.exe
.com
.scr
.bat
.pif
.vb
If you do send such files, my virus blocker will simply reject the message and I will never see it.
The following file extensions should be OK:
.java
.class
.htm
.html
.css
.xml
.xsl
.doc
.zip (Provided the zip file doesn't contain any executable files.)
If you find it necessary to send a questionable file for any reason, you should also send another message without an attachment notifying me that you sent the questionable file as an attachment so that I can be on the lookout for it.
Grades
I have been notified that I am no longer allowed to send your grades to you via
email. Therefore, in order to view your grades on exams, you must establish a
Blackboard account. Since I have never established a student Blackboard
account, I can't tell you what is involved. All I can tell you is that you can
probably begin that process at the following link:
http://acconline.austincc.edu/
Once you are connected, you should be able to view your grades in the grade book. Once again, never having gone through that process as a student, I can't tell you what is involved.
Please be aware that only the individual grades showing in the grade book are of significance, and they are provided for information purposes only. The computations that purport to show your final grade are meaningless. I will compute and record your final grade (possibly including a curve) according to the information contained in the syllabus and other related documents, and will cause that grade to be recorded at the end of the semester completely independent of the Blackboard grade book.
Also be aware that if you find any information in Blackboard that conflicts with information provided in the syllabus and its associated documents, the information in the syllabus and its associated documents will prevail. If you find such conflicts, please notify me.
If you are unable to set up your account and view your individual grades via Blackboard, please let me know.
Your official Email address
It is my understanding that beginning in the Fall of 2008, all ACC students have
been provided
an official Email address by ACC, and that address is reflected in all
official ACC student records. I have been told that you can cause messages
sent to that address to be forwarded to the Email address of your choice. You
should make it point to either forward those messages, or to check your ACC
email address on a daily basis.
Please be aware that when I need to send a broadcast message to all students in the course, I will send that message to your official ACC Email address. If you don't check you mail at that address, you won't get the message.
Check this area daily for messages from Professor Baldwin to all students enrolled in the class. Newer messages are posted at the end.
12/09/11 Exams are ready for downloading
The zip file containing your exams is ready for you to download once you have
completed the online orientation and have received the necessary password for
extracting the exams from the zip file.
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File: ITSE1356.htm