This is the main web page that may be used, (in addition to Blackboard), for communicating information between Professor Baldwin and students enrolled in this course.
This section contains important information on many different topics in no particular order.
Use of the Blackboard online system
The online program named
Blackboard
will be used for communication with students in those cases where
confidentiality is required, (such as the reporting of grades), posting
announcements, sending email messages to individual students, and broadcasting
email messages to all students enrolled in the course.
The Blackboard Assignment feature is the mechanism that you will use to download submit your assignments.
The Blackboard Test feature is the mechanism that you will use to take your online tests.
The Blackboard "Send Email" feature is the mechanism that you will use to send Email messages to your instructor.
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.
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.
Therefore, whenever you send a new email message to me, you MUST
use the Blackboard "Send Email" feature to construct and send the
message, and your Subject line MUST contain a brief
description of the topic. (Don't simply reply to an earlier email message
from me if the topic is different.)
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.
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 day before an assignment or test deadline, don't be surprised if you don't get a response from me until after the 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 assignments (unless you believe there is a problem with one of the assignment files that I have provided). It is almost certain that I won't answer them. Your performance on the assignments constitutes a major portion of your final grade, and it isn't fair for me to answer questions about the assignments from one student when all students don't have an opportunity to hear the question and the answer.
If I didn't give you take-home assignments, you wouldn't have an opportunity to ask questions anyway. Just pretend that you are working on the assignment 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 assignment 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 assignments 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 assignment. However, my assignments are all take-home assignments. You have access to all of the assignments 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 assignment. 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 assignments by the required deadlines (but please don’t get human assistance in the actual writing of the assignments).”
Help me debug my assignment
Please don't waste our time by asking me to help you debug your assignments. 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 assignments 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 assignment is just as costly as not knowing how to write the assignment in the first place. In either case, you get no credit for the assignment. So, don't be careless.
Who Am I?
I receive many email messages addressed to Dr. Baldwin, and I appreciate the
courtesy. My highest degree earned is a Masters Degree in Electrical
Engineering, and I am a full Professor at ACC. Under the circumstances, Prof.
Baldwin is a more appropriate salutation than Dr. Baldwin.
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 use the Blackboard "Send Email" feature to compose a message containing the following information and send it me.
If you do provide the information, please make the subject line of your e-mail message read as follows:
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 Blackboard Email 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.
Your official Email address
It is my understanding that beginning in the Spring 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.
11/10/13 No
announcements at this time
No announcements at this time
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