HTW Berlin Fachbereich 4 Internationaler Studiengang Internationale Medieninformatik (Bachelor) Info 1: Informatik I Summer Term 2014

This page describes some of the general information that you will need to know about Informatik 1 (called Info 1 by the administration).  It also includes course policies that I will expect you to abide by during this term.  You should read through this page and make sure that you understand its contents.  You will probably also want to save it for future reference.  This handout—as well as other course information—is available on the web via the course web page, http://www.f4.htw-berlin.de/~weberwu/info1/. It is generally a good idea to keep a bookmark of my home page around, as I put lots of information there.

Contents:

Course Teachers Collaboration Area Course Materials Course Details Laboratories Expectations and Policies Tutorial Where to Find Additional Information

Prof. Dr. Debora Weber-Wulff, weberwu@htw-berlin.de or d.weber-wulff@htw-berlin.de or debora.weber-wulff@htw-berlin.de, Tel: 5019-2320, Room: WH C 645. My office hours are Mondays 11.30-12.30. I am notoriously bad to reach by telephone, but I read my email religiously and can sometimes be found on Skype as weber-wulff. I strongly suggest that you Google me to see if you can figure out my position on plagiarism. Alexander Becker is an IMI bachelor student who has survived this course and was also tutor last year. He will be offering a tutorial session Thursdays, 14:00 - 15:30, in the lab WH C 576. This session is voluntary, but you can get lots of help from him if you need it. You can reach him by email at Alexander.Becker@student.HTW-Berlin.de

Contacting People

I have a collaboration room set up for the class on Moodle, a learning management system for collecting materials and submitting assignments. You can reach all the other students in your course this way, and there is a forum that reaches all members of the class (this is not identical to the people in your semester, as there are people taking this class from other semesters), a forum for questions for me, some additional material, and areas for uploading your exercises. You have automatically been assigned to this room by the administration.

Please use your HTW email account for all correspondence. We do not use "cute" email addresses like gogogirl@hotmail.com or master_of_the@universe.de in communicating with each other at university.

Please put up a picture in Moodle that looks like you—I will have difficulty learning to associate your face to your name if all I see online is a picture of your dog. These pictures are not public.

Course Materials

Text: The textbook for this course is Objects First with Java: A Practical Introduction Using BlueJ by David Barnes and Michael Kölling. I will be using the 5th edition (published in 2011). We are focussing on Java 1.5 and not all the cute things in Java 1.6 or 1.7. There are older editions available and translations in German and other languages, they may work for you. Use at your own risk.

Reference: There is no required reference for this course; the textbook plus a web reference such as Java's API documentation (http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/api/) should be sufficient. However, some people prefer to have a paper reference in addition to the on-line reference.

If you prefer to have a paper copy of a Java reference, I recommend that you acquire a copy of

    Java in a Nutshell by David Flanagan (O'Reilly).

Be sure that you get the most recent edition. This book is an excellent reference on Java and it is reasonably priced. It is also available from a bookstore or online.

Further Reading: If you are interested in the topics covered in this class, you may wish to read more. In particular, I recommend:

• Java Gently by Judy Bishop
• Concurrent Programming in Java by Doug Lea, Addison Wesley
• Java Design by Peter Coad and Mark Mayfield, Prentice Hall

These are all superb books. However, they were not cheap when I priced them last. The last two cover more advanced material than we will in this class, and none are in any way required for Info1. During the term I may recommend other advanced books for those who wish to learn more about certain topics.

Sources: You can buy Java books (among many other places) at a technical bookshop such as Lehmann's or order them from any bookstore (this may take a day or so). You can also get them from on-line stores such as amazon.de, bol.de, or buch.de.  Some publishers—like O'Reilly—also sell their books directly. Shop around for a good price. (If you buy it from Amazon, IMI gets a few cents kickback to pay for cookies for the showtime.... but English books are rather expensive at Amazon and they appear to treat their workers as slave labor). I strongly suggest only getting the English version, as Java usually changes by the time they get around to getting it translated into German :-(

There is also plenty of material online about Java. If you feel the need to practice syntax, I strongly suggest using CodingBat.

Course Meetings

The class lecture meets on Mondays from 15.45-17.15 in WH C 355 and Tuesdays from 15.45-17.15 in WH C 335. I like to start on time. Please make that extra effort (perhaps getting one tram earlier) to be seated and ready to go at the beginning of class time. Excuses for being late do not amuse me.

I may have to move one or two lectures to accomodate other appointments. If so, I will announce it in advance via the Moodle announcements. I will be attending an international conference June 16 and 17. I may be swapping times with another teacher so that we can have some more lecture time.

In addition to the lecture, each student is assigned to a laboratory session. I will be teaching both groups. Group 1 meets Tuesdays 12.15–13.45 and group 2 meets 14.00-15.00 in C 579. Please stay with your groups and be on time. Instructions will be given the first few minutes of class and pre-labs will be checked then.

The tutorials are a chance for you to repeat material, ask questions, do extra exercises, etc. Alexander Becker will be available all semester, not just the 3 weeks before the exam. Learn to ask for help!

Laptop use and talking in class

Laptop use in lecutres in the past has proven distracting to instructors, fellow students, and birds passing by, and has been scientifically shown to be detrimental to learning ([1] [2] [3]). So I request that there be no laptop use during lecture (except mine). You are to take notes on paper and then review the topic at home. Taking pictures of me or the slides, or recording what I say is not permitted. Use your brains plus pen and paper.

[2] Sana, F., Weston, T., & Cepeda, N. J. (2013) Laptop multitasking hinders classroom learning for both users and nearby peers. In: Computers & Education, Volume 62, March, pp. 24–31. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360131512002254

[3] Blackwell, D. (2014) Why you should never take notes on a laptop. [Blog post] http://contemplatingcognition.wordpress.com/2014/06/05/why-you-should-never-take-notes-on-a-laptop/ Retrieved on 7 June 2014.

See also http://www.explosm.net/comics/3230/

I understand that you want to speak with your neighbor about stuff, or are perhaps afraid to ask a question out loud, so you turn to your neighbor. This is immensely annoying to the person teaching the class, as we are not behind a TV screen, but have to put up with multiple such distractions. If you are talking about the party this weekend, then do it after class. Surely you are adult enough to keep quiet for 90 minutes! And if you have a question—there will be 10 more people with the same question. Be brave, and ask—and maybe we can start a discussion! There will be a chance every now and then for you to discuss a question with your neighbor and then we will see what the correct results are. But other than that, please pay attention and keep quiet.

Assignments and Grades

During the term, there will be 12 graded exercises numbered 0–11. Yes, this is how we count in Java. The graded exercises will be written reports on programming experimentation. There will be a 2-hour online examination on or about July 21. We will have 2 shifts of exams, Group 1 and Group 2. The examination will cover Java programming and conceptual understanding in ways that may be difficult to assess during the laboratory sessions.

Your grade in Info1 will be a weighted mixture of the evaluated elements of the course (Lecture summaries, lab reports and exam). The partial grades will be assessed as follows:

• Lecture summaries: 10%
  In the Moodle collaboration room you can find a section called "Lecture summaries". You are expected to write about half a page of complete sentences summarizing each lecture. It is due at 22.00 Sunday of the next week. It is either done or not done. I expect you to do 20 out of 25 lectures, each one counts half a percent of your final grade. If I find plagiarisms of lecture summaries (especially from the Wikipedia or from each other), you will not get any credit and may even be excluded from completing this course with a passing grade.
  
  
• Lab reports: 36%
  There are 12 exercises to be done. For each week you must write a report. The report must be in English or German, spell-checked and using complete sentences, explaining what you did in the exercise session, that is, the process. Screenshots are welcome. Each report should not be more than 5 pages and in PDF format and must have your name and the exercise number on it. It must include a reflection on what you learned during the session, if anything. Code can be included in an appendix. The reports must be submitted to the Moodle area by 22.00 the night before your next lab.
  
  I will be giving "stars" to let you know how well you are doing on each graded exercise. No stars does not mean no points - it means you handed in a report on time, but it was nothing to write home about.
  
  

  Stars	Meaning
  ****+	Exceptional - above and beyond the call of duty. Very seldom. Additional red star.
  ****-	Excellent: All of the exercises completed and an excellent report.
  ***--	Very good: All of the exercises completed, and a good report that may have some minor problems.
  **---	Good: Something is missing, although the report is good, or the report has major problems.
  *----	Satisfactory: Nothing worked, but you had a good report.
  -----	Nothing worked, but you managed to scrape together a report. Or you did a million bells and whistles, but turned in a half-page report using bullet lists of misspelled sentence fragements that are, however, technically a report on time.
  X	Late work, not handed in

           
  Late work will not be accepted and will be treated as missing work. Always turn in what you have completed on time rather than delaying in the hope that you will be able to do more.
  

  Missing one laboratory will add 0,3 to your grade (i.e. lower your grade).
  Missing two laboratories will add 0,7 to your grade
  Missing three laboratories will add 1,0 to your grade and may cause me to not permit you to take the exam.

• Exam: 60%
  In order to be admitted to the final exam you must have handed in at least 9 exercises. The exam will be an on-line exam with two parts, a multiple-choice part and an essay / programming part. You may take 2 pages, hand-written on front and back, into the exam with you. If you are found with an instant messaging or forum or any other sort of communiction medium open on any device, or additional cheating implements, you will automatically be failed for the entire course and reported to the dean's office. We will be taking the exam in two groups, there will be different exams for everyone. The advantage is that the MCQ part of the exam will be automatically graded.

Laboratories

The Long and winding road, CC-by-nc-nd, foreby, 2008

Wanderer, your footsteps are the road, and nothing more; wanderer, there is no road, the road is made by walking. By walking one makes the road, and upon glancing behind one sees the path that never will be trod again. From Selected Poems of Antonio Machado

Laboratory sessions are an essential part of the course. Laboratory assignments are posted on the home page and linked from the schedule. Finger exercises may be given in the text and should be worked by yourself before class to check your knowledge of the materials. You are encouraged to work in groups on them.

• Pre-lab
  Students are expected to come to their assigned laboratory session having completed the preparatory work. In general, you are not expected to have begun the programming of the laboratory assignment before coming to lab; however, you are expected to have spent time reading the exercise and to have planned the various steps that you will take during your lab.
  Students who do not prepare adequately for lab will be thrown out of the laboratory. This will give you less time for experimentation and will be reflected in your grade for that laboratory. This is what people mean on meinprof.de by the "cruel and unusual punishment" Prof. Weber-Wulff doles out, but it is really just common sense. If you are not prepared, it is rather useless to be in the lab. And in Info 1 we have more people than machines, so you are just taking up space and oxygen in the lab.
  I expect your preparations to be printed out or written out by hand, not online somewhere or in your head. Submitting copies of group work is not acceptable, this should be your own work.
  I will be checking your pre-lab in the lab. Putting your name on the page and having it on your desk will help make this phase short.
  
  
• In-lab
  Each laboratory is designed so that there is a range of work that might solve the problem. You should begin by implementing a simple piece or version of the solution. When this works to your satisfaction, you should build on additional features or behavior. The assignment sheet will indicate a target portion to be completed in lab. You may be asked to design test cases as a part of the pre-lab exercises or to share code and test cases with your classmates.
  
  As a rule, you are not expected to spend any time outside of the laboratory session at a computer, programming. You report on what you achieved in class. You are, however, expected to spend time preparing for the lab and writing your report. Expect to spend at least as many hours outside of class as inside working on this. Of course, you may continue programming if you would find it helpful at any point: to try out the programs and environments that are provided; to test hypotheses; to develop intuition; or just to have fun!
  
  Your grade on the laboratory will be based on how well you complete the target portion of the assignment. In general, it is better to do this part well than to go beyond the target portion. You will get a better grade for having a good report than for implementing all sorts of bells and whistles.
  There are always questions "for the bored" so that those who wish to have a more rigorous course can find something to occupy their minds. It is not necessary for anyone to do these exercises. There are no extra stars to be earned for doing them, they are just to occupy the bored and keep them out of trouble.
  
  
• Post-lab
  After the experiment session ends, you should write up and turn in your completed assignment by the specified due date. Although the details of the post-lab writeup may vary from lab to lab (and from student to student), you can expect that the 5 pages you write must include:   
  • a short description of your lab plan;
  • a discussion of what you did during the laboratory;
  • a written evaluation of your lab-work, including a comparison with your development plan;
  • information about the code running (e.g., transcripts or screen shots),
  • a brief account of how much time you spent on which portions of the assignment
        (including any parts that were particularly problematic),
  • a brief account of what you learned during the exercise,
  • and a list of any collaboration. (See the course collaboration policy for details).
  
  You may also include in an appendix
  • any additional material indicated in the post-lab section of the laboratory assignment;
  • any written pre-lab or "finger" exercises from the laboratory assignment;
  • a copy of the final version of any code that you wrote (including documentation).  

  The reports need not be especially beautiful, but they should use complete sentences in English or German and concisely explain the above points. I appreciate good contrast and nicely-sized fonts. Grey on light blue or red on black in 8 pt does not do it for me. I do not want a click-by-click report, but a focused report on what happened in the lab. Taking digital notes during the lab will dramatically decrease the amount of time you need to spend on this. Don't forget to put your name, your email address, the name of the course, the exercise number, and the date on the report. Use a spelling checker. The reports are to be submitted as a pdf to the Moodle area for exercise submission.

Missed Meetings

You are responsible for all material covered in each lecture. This material may not be covered elsewhere, so if you miss a meeting, you are responsible for getting notes from a friend or otherwise making up the material. I will not email you what happened in class. Handouts will not be distributed on paper outside of class, and there is no script or slides. You need to learn to take notes—one page with important key words that you want to look up afterwards. Maximum.

Attendance at laboratory is mandatory. If for any reason you cannot attend your scheduled laboratory session, it is your responsibility (and not a friend's) to make alternate arrangements with me as far in advance as is reasonably possible. In particular, if you have an athletic event or other scheduled conflict, I expect that you will discuss this with me as soon as the conflict is scheduled. I understand that unforseen events do arise (see below); however, your brother's wedding is (probably) not one of them.

The only exceptions to this policy (i.e., last-minute or after-the-fact rescheduling) will be in cases of significant and unanticipatable emergency. In these cases, I request documentation. In addition, I would appreciate it if you would make an effort to notify me at the earliest possible opportunity.

Late Work

Laboratory assignments will have due dates clearly indicated. Late work will not be accepted and counts as missed.

Collaboration

This section details the general course collaboration policy. Certain assignments require different kinds of, or restrictions on, collaboration. When the collaboration policy differs from that described here, it will be specified in the laboratory assignment.

I encourage you to work together on the exercises. They are designed for working in small groups, allowing you to help each other learn and to balance your knowledge and strengths. Note that collaboration extends to discussion and problem-solving, but not to writeups. I expect that any written work you turn in will be your own, though it may reflect joint preparation.

Experiment work is a more complex topic. It is often useful to discuss your program with peers or with course staff, and I strongly encourage this. It is particularly useful to do so as a means of debugging your program. Reading code written by others and having others critique your code are good ways to improve your programming style. However, it is of no benefit to you or to anyone else to have someone else actually do your experimental work. I expect that the default assumption (i.e., unless specified otherwise) is that experimental assignments are your own work, but may reflect input from others just as an essay edited by friends might. You should be the one who wrote the code you turn in.

Some labs will involve more explicit collaboration. In those cases, we will explicitly specify ways in which labs can be broken up, so that each person writes code but no one person writes the whole program, or indicate explicitly that a particular lab or portion of the lab may be programmed together, as a team. Even in this case, it is important that each team member have an opportunity to independently compose some code. Since the pre-lab will generally involve designing the code that you are going to write, it is best to also allocate responsibility for pieces of the code to members of the team at that time.

In each piece of work that you turn in, you must specify everyone with whom you have collaborated and each person's role in the collaboration (e.g., pre-lab, post-lab discussion and analysis, in-lab coding—specify which pieces or how responsibility was distributed—, debugging, or advice). Failure to specify such collaboration will be interpreted as a statement that you have not collaborated with others in your work. While this is acceptable under course policy, it is probably ill-advised. (Really. we want you to work together and to learn from each other!)

Examinations are diagnostic in nature and as a consequence should represent independent work.

Of course, copying of the work of others (especially from the Internet) and not quoting it properly is entirely unacceptable and may result in a failing grade for the course.

I also encourage you to make use of the collaboration room forum for questions. Do not worry—if you have a question, there are sure to be five others with the same question, so ask! Someone is bound to help, either a fellow student, the tutor, or me.

Tutorial

Our tutor, Alexander Becker, will be holding a weekly tutorial. You can join if you want, it is not mandatory. He will also be available by email for questions.

Where to Find Additional Information

The primary source of information for this course is our web site. The home page for the course is located at http://www.f4.htw-berlin.de/~weberwu/info1. Course materials will be made available there and in the collaboration room. You can set your profile in Moodle to have news from the collaboration room sent to your normal email address.