CPSC/ECE 3220 -- Section 002 -- Fall 2018
This project is maintained by robertu94
CPSC/ECE 3220 – Section 002 – Fall 2018 (3 credits)
Time and Location: MW 14:30-15:45 (Jordan Hall G033)
University Telephone: N/A
Instructor: Robert Underwood, robertu@g.clemson.edu
TA: Zheng Miao, zmiao@g.clemson.edu
Office: 221 McAdams
Office Hours:
By appointment as needed
If the instructor should ever be more than 10 minutes late or the university is closed (for example due to inclimate weather), you may assume that class (and the corresponding quiz) has been canceled. Exams will be rescheduled in a manner consistent with university policy. In this case, please check email for further explanation.
Assignment deadlines will not be extended due to university closures.
This syllabus represents a general plan for the class; deviations will be announced in class by the instructor and this document will be updated. The course materials described below are living documents and will be updated as the semester progresses. Students are expected to review these documents at least once a week.
Course Website: robertu94.github.io/cpsc3220-f18
Schedule: Google Calendar
Repository: git clone https://github.com/robertu94/cpsc3220-f18
Assignment Submissions: handin.cs.clemson.edu
The class will also make use of Canvas for grading, on-line quizzes, and course discussion. Questions that could be helpful to all students should be asked on canvas. This allows me to answer questions once rather than many times. You should NOT post project source code or specific implementation information. Such behavior may be considered a violation of academic integrity.
All project requirements are posted in the course repository. The repository is managed using Git. Learning a source control management tool such as git well now will pay huge dividends once you get into industry. I can’t express how important it is to learn this skill sooner rather than later.
Required Textbook: None
Optional Textbooks:
These books are completely optional, sufficient material will be provided in classes to complete all assignments.
Additional Optional Resources:
The goal of this class is to prepare you to use both fundamental and emerging topics in operating systems design and development to equip you to solve and analyze computing problems.
By the end of the course students will be able to:
In this section of this class, students will:
This is not a course on how to program. Proficient programming ability in either C or C++ is expected, but you will likely get better at programming when you finish.
CPSC 3220/ECE 3220 partially fulfills major requirements for computer science, computer information systems, and computer engineering majors. Since CPSC/ECE 3220 is a junior-level course with several programming course as pre-requisites, students are expected to be proficient in in C or C++ and be comfortable operating in a UNIX/Linux command line environment.
Weighting
Grading Scale
I reserve the right to adjust the grading scale and/or weightings if necessary in the favor of students.
I may assign readings from time to time. The content of readings may used in quizzes or exams at my discretion.
There will be several programming assignments (probably 4). All assignments will be graded on a School of Computing lab machine. These must be submitted by 17:00 Eastern Standard Time to the handin.cs.clemson.edu server. Late submissions will not be accepted under any circumstances. In the event a late submission, your last non-late submission will be used if available. Failure to submit an assignment by the deadline will result in a 0 on the assignment.
To encourage early submissions I will utilize an Autograder that will allow you to test your submissions against my test cases daily prior to the deadline. Because assignments are machine graded and there will be multiple opportunities to submit to the Autograder for each assignment, no deviations from the program specification will be tolerated. I recommend starting early, testing extensively on your own, and submitting often to achieve a positive outcome.
The autograder will provide feedback each day that you upload a new submission by noon. The feedback will provide information on which test cases you passed or failed. It takes time to grade all assignments even for an autograder – especially as the deadline approaches. In the event you don’t get a response by 1pm: You should try the following, in order: 1) check your SPAM folder. 2) make sure that you really did submit new code. 3) make sure that the code you submitted wasn’t the same as your previous submissions (the autograder only grades new code). 4) contact the grader. 5) contact me.
I will give short “pop quizzes” at the beginning of every class that will be used in part to take attendance. These quizzes may require you to enter information distributed during classes to ensure that you attend in person. If you miss a quiz, your grade will be a zero. I will drop the lowest 4 quizzes.
There will be a midterm and final exam. The content of these exams are cumulative and comprehensive. The time and date are in the schedule. No exemptions will be given.
Office hours are an opportunity to reinforce course topics 1 on 1 or in small groups. If you have a university approved reason (I.E. Class, illness, family emergency, or other university approved activity) that you can’t attend office hours, I am happy to make an appointment. You are required to attend office hours at least once prior the midterm exam; failure to do so will result in a participation score of 0.
You are expected to participate in class activities (ask questions, make comments, contribute to activities). Doing so is for your good. I will assign participation points coarsely: 100% to fully-engaged students, 50% to nominally engaged (physically attend, but not volunteering questions/comments), and 0% for students who don’t show up or are trying to hide.
Attendance required and is critical to success in this class. Not only is the material highly cumulative, hints and examples for projects will be given for projects. Any student with more then 3 unexcused absences will be dropped from the course.
Being absent, excused or not, does not change the responsibility for assigned work or material covered during the class. Excused absences require documentation. For University-sponsored events, students must provide written notice prior to the event. For all other excused absences, students should provide written documentation to the instructor as soon as possible.
As a rule, No make up quizzes or exam will be given. If you arrive late, you will not be given additional time to complete the quiz or test.
You are expected to have a laptop with a Linux programming environment running the Linux kernel (natively or in a VM). There will also be electronic quizzes that you will be expected to complete during class. You may also want to follow along with the programming examples presented during lecture.
I also expect the following, both as a courtesy to your classmates, to yourself, and to me:
There is no lab section for this course; however, the Ubuntu lab machines (joeys, adas, or koalas) will be used to test all of your assignments. Before submitting any code, you should make sure that it compiles and runs correctly on these machines. If your program doesn’t work on the lab machines, then it doesn’t work.
I do occasionally make mistakes. If you think I made a mistake when grading an assignment, quiz, or exam, you should email me, with detailed justification, within one week of the date the grades are available. If you don’t, your original grade will stand.
Email is the most effective way to contact me with individual issues (please use Canvas for general issues). I check email frequently between 8am and 5pm weekdays and will generally respond within 24 hours. As a rule, I will not respond to email after 5pm or before 8am.
Remember that failure to plan and prepare on your part, does not constitute a crisis on mine. If you send me a project-related email right before a deadline, I may not answer it in time to be helpful.
Clemson University values the diversity of our student body as a strength and a critical component of our dynamic community. Students with disabilities or temporary injuries/conditions may require accommodations due to barriers in the structure of facilities, course design, technology used for curricular purposes, or other campus resources. Students who experience a barrier to full access to this class should let the professor know, and make an appointment to meet with a staff member in Student Accessibility Services as soon as possible. You can make an appointment by calling 864-656-6848, by emailing studentaccess@lists.clemson.edu, or by visiting Suite 239 in the Academic Success Center building. Appointments are strongly encouraged – drop-ins will be seen if possible, but there could be a significant wait due to scheduled appointments. Students who receive Academic Access Letters are strongly encouraged to request, obtain and present these to their professors as early in the semester as possible so that accommodations can be made in a timely manner. It is the student’s responsibility to follow this process each semester. You can access further information here: http://www.clemson.edu/campus-life/campus-services/sds/.
If you need help during this course, talk to me sooner rather than later; often a brief discussion will clarify things enough to get you back on track. The longer you wait, the harder it will be to catch up.
If you are consistently having problems with the course content, you can also seek help from the Academic Success Center and take advantage of the tutoring and supplemental instruction opportunities they offer on a regular basis. The tutoring schedule is available online.
Attempts to cheat on any graded activity will not be tolerated.
The following represent a non-exhaustive list of academic integrity violations:
If I suspect that you have committed an academic integrity violation. I will not hesitate to report you to the Clemson University Academic Integrity Committee.
As members of the Clemson University community, we have inherited Thomas Green Clemson’s vision of this institution as a “high seminary of learning.” Fundamental to this vision is a mutual commitment to truthfulness, honor, and responsibility, without which we cannot earn the trust and respect of others. Furthermore, we recognize that academic dishonesty detracts from the value of a Clemson degree. Therefore, we shall not tolerate lying, cheating, or stealing in any form.
Following the Clemson University Code of Student Conduct, academic dishonesty of any kind will be reported to the Clemson University Academic Integrity Committee. In the event that the committee reaches a finding of guilt, the student(s) involved in the misconduct will receive an automatic F for the semester. I will also recommend, at the board’s discretion, that the participating students be dismissed from the university. I take this policy very seriously. The University’s statement on academic integrity is posted here. The Clemson School of Computing Academic Honesty Policy can be found here.
Clemson University is committed to a policy of equal opportunity for all persons and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender, pregnancy, national origin, age, disability, veteran’s status, genetic information or protected activity in employment, educational programs and activities, admissions and financial aid. This includes a prohibition against sexual harassment and sexual violence as mandated by Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. This policy is located at http://www.clemson.edu/campus-life/campus-services/access/title-ix/. Ms. Alesia Smith is the Clemson University Title IX Coordinator, and the Executive Director of Equity Compliance. Her office is located at 110 Holtzendorff Hall, 864.656.3181 (voice) or 864.656.0899 (TDD).
Materials in this course are subject to a variety of copyright licenses and provisions. Consistent with US Law you may assume that all rights are retained except as otherwise specified in writing on the document. Copyrighted documents are used either with permission of the author or under fair use guidelines.
I would like to thank my various operating systems and systems instructors who formed my understandings of these topics and inspired the structure for this class. Special thanks to Dr. Jacob Sorber, who designed several of the course projects and from whom I borrowed the structure of this document.