CMPS 134 Computer Science I Fall 2023

Time and Place:  Mondays, Wednesdays 3:00pm - 4:15pm in LSC 091
Instructor:  Dr. R. McCloskey
Office:  LSC 191
Telephone:  941-4221 (office), 941-7774 (CS Dept. office), 941-4250 (fax)
E-mail:  robert.mccloskey@scranton.edu
Course Web Page
Office Hours:  See schedule
OSSS: Office of Student Support and Success
Reporting Obligations
U of S Academic Code of Honesty
Mental Health Resources for Students

Textbook:  Building Java Programs: A Back to Basics Approach (4th or 5th edition) by Stuart Reges and Marty Stepp, published by Pearson. (No MyLab (MyProgrammingLab?) code needed)

Programming Assignments: 

Expect approximately eight. Grades will be based upon not only correctness but also on subjective attributes such as quality of documentation and readability.

As a general rule, work cannot be submitted more than 48 hours past the time that it is due. Consider those 48 hours to be a "grace period".

Submitted solutions must include comments that

• identify the student submitting it (e.g., Chris Smith), the course and semester(in this case, CMPS 134, Fall 2023), and the assignment number (e.g., Prog. Assg. #2),
• identify all persons who provided assistance in completing the work, including classmates, graduate assistants, tutors, and others,
• point out any known flaws in the work.

Students are allowed to collaborate with each other while working on assignments, but such collaboration is to be acknowledged, in writing, within the submitted work, as mentioned above. Collaboration should not go so far that it becomes untruthful for a student to claim that submitted work is, to a large extent, his or her own. Under no circumstances is a student to copy the work of another or to allow another student to copy her/his work.

Exams and quizzes:  Students should expect a 75-minute exam in late September and another one in early November. A comprehensive two-hour final exam will be administered during Final Exam Week, which is December 12‐16. (Makeup exams will be offered only if circumstances warrant it, such as in the case of an emergency or sudden illness.)

A short quiz (taking about fifteen minutes) can be given during any class meeting, with or without prior warning. In particular, students should expect a quiz to be given shortly after the due date of each programming assignment, for the purpose of assessing their understanding of whatever concepts played a central role in that assignment.

Lab (CMPS 134L):   Students are required to be registered for CMPS 134L, an associated Pass/Fail one-credit lab course that meets once per week for a 110-minute period.

In each lab meeting, students —typically working in pairs— will carry out activities and small assignments, some of which will result in artifacts to be submitted for grading. The work done in a lab will be marked as either absent, unsatisfactory, satisfactory, or noteworthy. To earn a Pass grade, a student's work must be marked either satisfactory or noteworthy in at least 75% of the scheduled labs.

Grading: Approximate weights of graded items:

Item	Approximate Weight
Semester Exams and Quizzes	53%
Final Exam	25%
Programming Assignments	20%
Class Participation	2%

Mapping from numerical average to letter grade (approximate):

Numeric Range	[94,100+]	[90,94)	[87,90)	[83,87)	[80,83)	[77,80)	[73,77)	[70,73)	[65,70)	[60,65)	[0,60)
Letter Grade	A	A-	B+	B	B-	C+	C	C-	D+	D	F

Intended Course Outcomes Upon completion of the course, a successful student will have the ability to do each of the following:

• Explain the role of software in computer systems.
• Explain concepts and terminology of Object Oriented Software Development.
• Explain the purpose and use of an IDE (Integrated Development Environment) in the development of software.
• Read, understand, and explain source program components written in the Java programming language.
• Readily make use of Java's String class along with several other such classes from the Java Standard Library.
• Investigate and make use of classes from the Java Standard Library that were not presented or used during the course.
• Formulate an abstraction and express it as a complete Java class specification consisting of variables (instance and otherwise) and methods, public and private, serving as constructors, observers, mutators, and others as appropriate.
• Develop a Java application program to perform some well-defined task making appropriate use of user-defined classes as well as classes from the Java Standard Library.
• Make appropriate use of Java's primitive (i.e. intrinsic) data types, operators, and control structures, and furthermore have the ability to readily master those similarly available in other programming languages.
• Make appropriate use of the array data structure in the solution of problems and the specifications of tasks for a computer to carry out, and to appreciate that other data structures exist and may be applicable.
• Explain searching and sorting in general and be familiar with specific algorithms for each.
• Recognize the use of recursion and be able to explain it as an alternative to iteration.
• Recognize the use and potential value of inheritance in the design of software components.
• Recognize the use and potential value of interfaces in the design of software components.