I am creating grading guidelines for the labs, and will post them to this website.  You are welcome to comment on them.  I am trying to identify the major elements of a project, and to divide 100 by the number of elements to arrive at a point allocation.  On a few occasions, I may judge one element as being more important that another.  My dream is that the guidelines can also be a useful check list for students to verify if important points have been covered.  I truly will welcome your comments, including comments on fairness!  If you judge something unfair or inappropriate, please suggest an alternative approach.  I do not know if I will be able to keep up with generation of detailed guidelines and also good lesson plans.  I will do lesson plans as the first priority, and lab grading guidelines as time permits.

NEED A COMPUTER BREAK?  CLICK HERE FOR SOME GOOD COMPUTER HUMOR. :-)

Do you know why realtors are richer than computer scientists?  
Realtors learn a lot; computer scientists only learn a little bit.  <];~)}=<--->

This page was modified 28 Apr 04 1531 hrs. 

    Empty your web cache to force loading the current web page if you are checking grades.

http://www97.intel.com/scripts-tji/index.asp (View with Internet Explorer.)

University of Maryland Undergraduate Catalog, Page 6:  "Any course at the university may require the knowledge of basic computer skills ... without special notice being given in advance."  

The type of mind needed for success in computer science, information science, programming, and network administration is different than the type of mind needed for success in CSC100.  

CSC100 is a broad introduction to computers, how they work and how they are used.  It is a survey course which covers a wide range of information of about equal importance.  It is horizontal knowledge.  Learning this information takes the type of mind that does well in business, history, law, psychology, and other disciplines that have massive amounts of information.  This is like learning about forests by hiking through forests.

The computer science, information science, and computer engineer majors need to have a mind wired more like an engineer, mathematician, or scientist.  These people deal with vertical knowledge.  That is knowledge that requires sequential mastery of concepts to progress from one level to another.  This is more like building a house.  You must lay a good foundation, and then build upon it.

If you want to go into computer science, or be a programmer, and you find CSC100 is drowning you, do not become discouraged.  If you are doing well in mathematics, you will do well as a programmer.  What CSC100 will do for you is to give you a broad practical introduction to computers that will help tie together diverse areas of the world of computers.  That type of integration usually is not done in a 4-year computer science program.

CSC100 is very different from an Introduction to Computer Science course, which is the first course a computer science major takes.  Do not be offended when you transfer to Computer Science and you are required to take Introduction to Computer Science.  It is a different beast.

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CSC100 Spring 2004 Section 23 Exam Schedule

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For chapter exams: 

Each chapter will consist approximately of 12 multiple choice questions and a few list questions.

    Levels of abstract thinking are organized in Bloom's taxonomy.  For CIS110, the ideal distribution of questions should approximately be:

Fall 2004 Final Exam using Shelly Cashman text

    There are 12 chapters of text and lecture topics to review.  Determine the number of study days remaining until your final exam.  Divide the number of chapters by the number of days remaining.  A general rule of thumb for exam preparation:  It should take you about half as much time to prepare for an exam as you spent in initial study of the material.  

    The final exam questions will be drawn from the same test bank as the chapter exams.  By studying with 2 to 3 other students, you will increase your retention from 20 % to 70 %, and you will also get exposure to more questions than appeared on your own exams.

    Chapters 9 - 12 have sample exams posted in the bottom row of the chapter matrix.

    Text vs Lecture makeup:  Material in the text and homework is all fair game.  For material in lesson plans that is not in the text or homework, I will try to ask questions only on such material covered in class.  If I have remembered incorrectly, I will certainly be open to challenges when you turn in your exam.  I will make my decision after quietly looking at my notes and reviewing the chapter again.  A challenge to a question will not be taken personally.

    Get a full night's sleep for the 2 nights preceding the final exam.  (Do as I say, not as I do.)

    Eat properly for the week before exams.

    Don't do things that tend to make you sick for the 10 days before the exam.

    Review the solutions to homework posted to the course web site.

    Review notes for class topics not covered in the text.  See the corresponding lesson plan on the course web site if you are not a thorough note taker. The final exam study guide contains review notes for lecture material. 

    Review past corrected exams.

    Meet with 2 - 3 other students that have other exam versions.  Go through exams together.  Discuss concepts you are uncertain of.

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1.  Comment: A student remarked that MS Word has the ability to create an index.  Ability to create an index is a very useful feature for large reports.  If you do a long term paper, try it.  It will impress your English teacher.  I have not yet checked if MS Word can create a table of contents.

2.  You may tape record lectures.  When (not if) you detect mistakes, no secret snickers.  Let everyone know.  The object is for students to have correct knowledge.

3.  What is "Hyperthreading"?  Hyperthreading is the use of the execution resources of a single CPU for separate threads of software simultaneously by making use of otherwise unused instruction decode and execution logic. The logic for instruction decoding and execution associated with a CPU is extensive. The logic used to execute a specific instruction does not utilize all the resources of a CPU at any one instant. Separating the logic into stages or levels to make them independent is a key to pipelining. Additional logic is needed to handle restarting a pipeline after branching. It is possible to have independent threads of instructions in various states of execution using different resources of the CPU by including additional bookeeping to track the state of execution of an instruction, and coordination to avoid conflicting attempts by several instructions to use the same logic circuitry.  Hyperthreading is used on the Pentium 4 and Intel Xeon processors.

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The projected course average is based on the following assumptions:

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See the Lecture Topics Schedule to determine the chapter you need to work on. Contents are subject to change without notice. Often, lesson plans are changed up to the day of the first lecture during that term.

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Professional society monthly newsletters are very good for locating the best jobs, but you need to respond very quickly. The newsletters often get published and distributed close to the application closing deadline.

Professional society meetings are very good for making personal contacts that lead to jobs.

IEEE ISSCC Solid State Circuits Virtual Museum http://www.sscs.org/History/isscc50/ includes sites on

Is your outlook dimmer because you have grimmer grammar, and are sweating the CSC100 required formal academic term paper?  Good writing skills are expected.  There is hope!

If you are Army on active duty, you have earned the right to a FREE CYBIS course from the High School Skills Curriculum on Writing (Grammar).  This is an on-line course available only on Ft. Bragg.  Go to the Academic Learning Center (ALC) in the Ft. Bragg Library.  This self-paced course takes the average soldier about 12 hours on-line to complete the course, but there are no extra points for beating the clock, and no lost points for taking longer.  It is a great opportunity, it will help your advancement in the Army, and it will help you do a better job on the term paper.  The ALC staff are former active duty Army, and they like seeing soldiers achieve and advance.  Let them set you up with the course.

Any of the ALC staff can help you.  
ALC Phone: 907-2286

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