Basic Info

Because this class is online, you will need to provide your own equipment for class. The requirements aren’t much different than any other class. You’ll need a capable computer, a decent internet connection, a camera, and the ability to do audio and video for communications.

The course staff will hold “consulting hours” at the times listed below. We will provide a mixture of in-person and online consulting for students. The idea of consulting hours is that it is a “room” where at least one member of the course staff (usually 2-3) is available to answer questions. Multiple students can come to the room - which gives a chance for students to talk to each other, and to see answers to others’ questions. Read more…

The course staff is available to provide help!

There will be 3 exams, given online. Two will be given on Wednesday evenings during the semester, one will be given in the official University Final Examination time slot.
Each exam will be administered using Canvas Quizzing.
Each exam will consist of 3 short segments. You must complete all 3 segments within the exam time window.

The staff for CS559 this semester includes the Professor, 4 Teaching Assistants (graduate students), and 3 Peer Mentors (undergraduate students). We work together as a team, and are all available to help you. Feel free to contact the course staff via Piazza. At least one member of the course staff will be available during Consulting Hours. If you would like to make an appointment to meet with a peer mentor or teaching assistant use the Appointment Scheduling Form Read more…

The course web has a lot to read. Here is a suggestion as to where to start (and a recommended order you could look at them).

Workbooks are the main assignments for class and the required reading. Understanding them is realy important.

A Syllabus may mean different things to different people. To the University, it is an official document that explains how the class meets some official rules. Officially, that is on AEFIS (since officially, that’s where syllabi are). A copy of that document will be available as a PDF here. What you are probably looking for (what I thought a syllabus is): If you want a concise description of how the course works, see the Course Overview. Read more…

In CS559 this semester, we will use GitHub as a mechanism for distributing framework code (the starter code for assignments) as well as to have students hand in their assignments.

If you’ve never used Git, some of this might not make sense yet, since we are using Git terminology. See Learning Git and GitHub below for help in getting started.

Learning enough about Git is a requirement for the class. Technically, knowing the basics of Git is a pre-requisite (since it is covered in CS400). However, we will help you learn.

It will be really worth your time to set you computer up for class. The tools you need are discussed at Tools for 559. Here are some steps that I used to set up a new Windows laptop for working on class projects. This can give you a sense of how to get the things on the Tools for 559 page setup on your machine. It will probably be different for you. Read more…

Pre-Requisites: what you need to know before taking this class. Officially the prerequisites are: (MATH 222 or MATH 276) and (COMP SCI 367 or 400) or graduate/professional standing or declared in the Capstone Certificate in Computer Sciences for Professionals The Programming requirements We require CS400. Not necessarily because we want all the specific things they teach you in the class, but rather, we expect you to be a mature enough programmer that you can write non-trivial programs. Read more…

Technical Requirements

Consulting Hours

Getting Help

Exams (policy)

Course Staff

Getting Started

Workbooks

Syllabus

Tools for 559

Git and GitHub in CS559

Software

Course Pre-Requisites (should you be here?)