Program Design II Syllabus
CSCI 2320 Spring 2024

Instructor Information

Name : Terry Sergeant   Office Hours
E-Mail : tsergeant@hsutx.edu MW 8:30–10:00; 2:30–3:30  
Office : JB 322 Tue 8:30–9:30  
Phone : 670-1292 Thu 8:30–11:30  
Web Site : https://josephus.hsutx.edu Fri 9:00–10:00  

Summary

Description : Students will continue practice in writing correct programs in a high-level language with emphasis on the object-oriented programming methodology. Topics include: OOP, inheritance, polymorphism, recursion, creating generic structures, sorting, searching, and elementary data structures.
Prerequisite : CSCI 1320 with a grade of C or better.
Textbook : No textbook is required. Some students find it helpful to have access to an introductory Java programming book.

Course Objectives

Students who satisfactorily complete this course will (hopefully) be able to:

Grading

Your grade in the course will be earned / calculated as follows:
lab days   10%
homework assignments   24%
first exam   22%
second exam   22%
final exam   22%
A $\rightarrow$ 90 100
B $\rightarrow$ 80 89
C $\rightarrow$ 70 79
D $\rightarrow$ 60 69
F $\rightarrow$ 0 59

Lab Days

Most Wednesday's will be designated as a “lab day” in which we will spend some time working on exercises or homework during the class period. Attendance is mandatory and you will receive a grade out 10 possible points for each lab day evaluated as follows:

3 points preparation did you prepare for the lab day in advance?
2 points attendance did you show up on time and stay for the entire lab session?
5 points participation were you actively engaged in the session without distraction?

If you know in advance you will have to be absent on a lab day you can receive credit by doing the following:

  1. Prior to the start of class on Wednesday leave a comment on the lab day assignment in Canvas announcing you will be absent and do a commit of your prelab assignment and push it to bitbucket. If your committed prelab work is on time and correct you will receive 3 points.
  2. Prior to the start of class on Friday leave a comment on the lab day assignment in Canvas explaining your progress since the first message. Perform a commit and push of your completed lab day work to received up to 7 points.

Homework Assignments

Homework in this course serves as the primary conduit for helping students become proficient programmers. The homework assignments combined with the lab days will serve as anchors for our typical week:
On Monday homework is due and we introduce the lab day instructions and homework assignment for the week along with lecture topics to support them. Wednesday is lab day. Friday is lecture. This schedule will be modified to accommodate exams as well as adjusting to the beginning and end of a semester.

A homework assignment is considered late if it is not submitted at or before the beginning of the class period on the day it is due. Late homework assignments will receive a 20% point penalty and must be completed within a week or the original due date. Assignments that miss the one week deadline will receive a grade of 0 (unless there are extenuating circumstances).

A primary goal of this course is for each student to become an independent problem-solver. Achieving this goal requires that each student practice solving problems independently. For that reason, each assignment contains a list of allowed resources. You will be required to complete each assignment using ONLY the allowed resources. Here is a list of the resources allowed for all assignments (except for the first).

In completing this assignment you MAY use/access the following resources:

You may NOT use/access:

Failure to abide by these guidelines will result in a zero for the assignment and the incident will be reported to the university provost as a violation of the university academic integrity policy. A second incident of academic dishonesty (whether from this course or another computer science course) will result in an F in the course.

Exams

Exams are comprehensive. The first two exams will be scheduled during the semester and the final exam will take place at the scheduled time during finals week. Exams are to be done without help from others and using only study aids that are expressly allowed by the instructor for that particular exam. Receiving improper help is a violation of the academic integrity policy.

Students with Disabilities

An individual with a disability is defined by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) as a “person who has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities.” Any student with a documented disability may choose to seek accommodations. Eligible students seeking accommodation should contact the Director of Undergraduate Advising and Disabilities as soon as possible in the academic term (preferably during the first two weeks of a long semester) for which they are seeking accommodations. The director will prepare letters to appropriate faculty members concerning specific, reasonable academic adjustments for the student. The student is responsible for delivering accommodation letters and conferring with faculty members. Please refer to the most recent version of the Undergraduate Catalog for the complete policy. (Carol Krueger, Director of Undergraduate Advising and Disabilities, Office: Sandefer Memorial, 1st floor Academic Advising Center, Phone: 325-670-5867, Email: disabilityservices@hsutx.edu)

Student Support

Peer-to-peer academic support (tutoring) is available for all undergraduate HSU students. The Academic Center for Enrichment (ACE) is open for virtual tutoring sessions via Zoom. To access instructions or make an appointment, open the ACE course on your Canvas dashboard. For additional information regarding academic support, contact the Advising Center at 325-670-1480 or tutoring@hsutx.edu.

In addition, all full or part-time students are eligible to receive free, confidential, and voluntary counseling services at HSU. Services include consultation, evaluation, counseling, and crisis support services for students facing issues impacting their overall well-being. To obtain any of these services, students may call The Office of Counseling Services at (325) 671-2272, email counseling@hsutx.edu, or begin the intake process by completing our online forms at:https://www.hsutx.edu/intake.

Computer Account Use

The instructor may occasionally use email to communicate with the class as a whole or with individuals. When contacting you for this course the instructor will use your HSU email account. You are expected to check your HSU email account at least once per day and you will be held responsible for any content distributed in this way.

Attendance

Regarding class attendance, the Undergraduate Catalog states:
Accordingly, absence from more than 25 percent of class meetings and/or laboratory sessions scheduled for a course (including absences because of athletic participation) is regarded as excessive, and a grade of F may be assigned as deemed appropriate by the professor.

Course Calendar and Class Structure

We will utilize Canvas to provide outline for the course. Do take notice of these planned exam dates:

Date Event  
Fri 16 Feb Exam #1  
Fri 05 Apr Exam #2  
Mon 06 May Final Exam (at 10:30am)