COSC 1315 - First Day Handout - Prof. Richard G. Baldwin

Summer 2008, Revised 05/26/08

A copy of this document is to be printed and provided to each student on the first day of class if possible.

Online orientation

Online orientation is required of all students.  If you need assistance carrying out these instructions, let me know and I will assist you.  Otherwise go to http://www.austincc.edu/baldwin/   Follow the link to your course for the current semester.  This will take you to the Official Web Page for your course.

Select Links.  Then select Online orientation requirements.  Follow the instructions.  Then send an Email message to Baldwin@DickBaldwin.com stating explicitly that you have read, understand, and will comply with the information and instructions provided by the documents listed there.  Make the subject line of your Email message read:

"LastName, FirstName, COSC1315, online orientation complete"

Email communications

All Email messages that you send to me must contain the following items in the Subject line:

Your name, COSC1315, Short topic of the message

Otherwise, I will probably regard the message as SPAM and delete it without reading it.

Your grade:

Your final grade will be based on the best three out of four written exams and ten laboratory programming assignments.  Each of the three exams is worth 25 points toward your final grade.  The average of your scores on the programming assignments is also worth 25 points toward your final grade.  Because of the small amount of lab time allocated to this course, you may find that it will be necessary for you to complete some of the programming assignments as homework either in the Open Lab or at home.

Study material:

There are three bodies of knowledge that you must master in order to be successful in this course.

Online lecture notes:  Lectures and lab programming assignments will be based primarily on a set of sixteen online lecture notes published by Prof. Baldwin at http://www.dickbaldwin.com/Cosc1315/Pf00100Index.htm.  These lecture notes are freely available to all students.  If I counted correctly, there are eighteen classroom sessions during the Summer 2008 nine-week session.  Therefore, the plan will be to cover approximately one lesson per session in the classroom.

Textbook:  The textbook will be used primarily as backup reference material to support the online lecture notes.

Practice tests:  The four written tests will be based on the online lecture notes.  A set of online practice tests (see http://www.dickbaldwin.com/Cosc1315/Pfsg00100StudyGuideIndex.htm) will be provided to help you study for the written tests.

Regards,
Prof. Richard G. Baldwin