All course web pages are public Google Docs
Professor Futrelle
Office: 450 WVH, 617-373-4239, Lab 460 WVH, 617-373-4607
Office hours: Wednesdays and Thursdays 3 to 4 PM in my office or lab.
Other meeting times can be arranged
Homepage:
http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/futrelle/ Email to me for this course:
futrelle.is4300f09@gmail.comYou are required to use Google Docs for all homework handins
Google Docs support various types of formatting, including inserting images and drawings. You will need a Gmail account. Get one if you don't already have one. You are not required to use Gmail, just Google Docs, though you might find Gmail convenient for mailing your programming assignment zip files.
How Google Docs will work in this course
When you are ready to hand in your Google Doc, use the Share menu to share it with me, with edit privileges. I can then add remarks and a grade to your handin. I can easily send you a note using "Send messages to collaborators" on the Share menu, to alert you that I've graded your work. The revised Google Doc will appear in your browser (refresh your doc) within seconds.
Mammal names
Mammal names will be used as convenient handles for all assignments.
Such names should be familiar to Linux people, Ubuntu's Jaunty Jackalope, and to Mac people, Snow Leopard.
Google Docs and email rules - If you do not follow the rules, no credit, I won't read your handins
I have about fifty students, total, in my two classes. Each class will have about a dozen assignments. That's too much to keep track of reliably without carefully specified organization and protocols. You
must clearly identify Google docs you permit to me, and all files you will be required to send, and all email.
Standard formats for identifying your work, for a hypothetical student:
- Google doc title for an assignment and a project:
- Student, Ima IS4300 F09 Assignment 3 "Penguin" XXXXXXX
- Student, Ima IS4300 F09 Project "Eagle" XXXXXXX
- File names for Derby DB folder, a Readme, and a zip file:
- StudentImaIS4300F09DB-A8-Emu XXXXX
- StudentImaIS4300F09Readme-A8-Emu.txt XXXXXX
- StudentImaIS4300F09DBZip-A8-Emu.zip XXXXXXX
- Subject line of email to futrelle.is4300f09@gmail.com
- Student Ima - IS4300 F09 [+ more to describe the specific subject of the email]
But equally important is the following: On and in every document you produce, text or source code, you must include your name, the course, the date, and any other relevant information such as a title for a Google doc or your name as the author in a java source javadoc comment. Creating informative file names as described above, is half the story. Just imagine that I print out one of your Google docs or Java source files. The filename doesn't appear in what I printed. If there is nothing written in the file as to who you are and what it's about, then I'm stuck. If it's in a pile on my desk, and it has absolutely no identifying information, I won't be able to tell it's yours. Over the years, I've received many papers from students, in hardcopy in the past, with practically no information at the top as to what the document is and whose it is. The students must have thought I had extrasensory powers. More likely they didn't think much or at all about how I could ever associate the document with them. (This is not unlike the warning that you should always carry your ID with you. The sister of a HS classmate of our daughter was struck by a bus in NYC recently. She had no ID of any kind with her. She was in the hospital in critical condition for 18 hours before they were able to identify her.)
Major course pages
Assignments here
Includes exercises from the textbook. Organized on a week-by-week basis, with all due dates specified. All handins (electronic) are due by 11:59PM on the day specified.
Comments on assignments here
Comments about general issues for homework as well as comments on specific assignments.
Assignment details page (none as yet)
Supplements the main Assignments page.
Swing GUI programming page (in preparation)
The relational database system we'll use, includes information on the Derby assignments.
Has information about your semester project and its three handins.
Information on quizzes and exams.
The details for the Quiz on Tuesday, October 13, have been posted on the
Exams page.