COMP1921 Computing 1B (Session 2, 2016)

Units of credit: 6

Handbook entry: http://www.handbook.unsw.edu.au/undergraduate/courses/2016/COMP1921.html

Staff

Aims

• computer organisation
• elementary algorithms (such as searching for and sorting data)
• elementary data structures (such as linked lists and trees)
• problem abstraction
• problem solving

Assumed Knowledge

• You should have completed a first course in C programming, and be able to write, execute and test simple C programs.
• You should have familiarity with the Unix/Linux operating system.

Learning Outcomes

• devise algorithmic solutions for well-specified problems and express these solutions as C programs
• develop suites of test cases to ascertain the accuracy and robustness of your programs
• repair any errors discovered in testing, and analyse and improve the performance of your programs
• understand and explain the run-time behaviour of your programs at the machine level
• make effective use of a number of common, useful data structures

Graduate Attribute	How Acquired
the skills involved in scholarly enquiry	reading documentation and lab work
the capacity for analytical/critical thinking and creative problem solving	developing programs in tutes, labs and assignments
the ability to engage in independent and reflective learning	exploring the C language in labs
the skills to locate, evaluate and use relevant information	reading documentation
the capacity for enterprise, initiative and creativity	developing programs in tutes, labs and assignments
a respect for ethical practice and social responsibility	building correct programs
the skills of effective communication	discussions in tutorials

Course in a nutshell

COMP1921 consists of lectures, tutorials, labs, an assignment and a final exam.

Lectures: are scheduled into a 2-hour block on Monday and a 1-hour block on Wednesday from Weeks 1 to 12. The schedule of lectures can be found on the course website. The material presented during lectures will not be comprehensive. Students are advised to read the course textbook to augment the ideas being presented: the depth and breadth of information presented in the text and references of a similar standard should be used as a guide for your learning.

Should you have any questions on the content or presentation, please don't hesitate to ask during lectures or post them on the course forum. Usually other people will have similar questions.

Tutorials: Tutorials commence in Week 2 and run until Week 13. Tutorials offer a vital chance for you to discuss problems and their solution in more depth with talented programmers. Please make the most of the opportunity by preparing for them and engaging in the discussion.

We will make tutorial questions available by 5pm on the Thursday of the week before they are to be discussed. In general, tutors will not be providing answers to the tutorial questions directly. Their role is to facilitate the tutorial by steering the direction of the solution development and presentation. To get the most from tutorials you must participate in finding and presenting solutions to tutorial questions.

Resources for Students

• Alistair Moffat: Programming, Problem Solving, and Abstraction with C, Pearson Educational, Australia, Revised edition 2013, ISBN 978-1-48-601097-4.

• Brian W. Kernighan and Dennis M. Ritchie: The C Programming Language, 2nd edition, Prentice Hall, USA, 1988, ISBN 0-13-110370-9.
• Paul Davies: The Indispensable Guide to C, Addison Wesley, England, 1995, ISBN 0-201-62438-9.

Assessment

• the first 50% of the marks are the easiest to get (by far)
• the marks for the harder part of the problem are harder to get (unfair, I know)

• all programs will be 'human' marked for style, design and correctness
• submitting a non-compiling program, the maximum mark will be 30%...
  • ... because a program may be excellent in design but fail to compile for a trivial problem
• if a program compiles:
  • and does not do the basics, the mark will be less than 50%
  • and does do the basics, the mark will be 50%
  • the basics generally consists of setting up the correct data structure and input processing and possible handling simple cases
• when you submit a program it is generally tested with some input to see if the output is correct
  • each set of input-output is called a testcase
    • you will see whether your program passes the given testcases or not
    • we may use more testcases at marking time to test programs
  • there are no marks for passing a testcase
    • it is just 'evidence' for the marker that the program is working

Labs

Lab exercises will be released by 5pm on Thursday of the week before they are to be attempted.

It is important that you can do the lab exercises on your own. The exercises are the best indicator of what is expected from you in the course. If you can do them 'on time', then you should have no trouble passing this course. (Most lab exercises take between 15 and 30 minutes.)

You will be allowed to pair up in teams of two students from the same lab.

• The two of you can submit the same code for all exercises in a lab.
• Teams need to change at least twice in the semester, after week 4 and after week 8 (and you can't switch back to your original team mate).
• Both of you must be able to explain all your submitted programs to your tutor.

Submitting your lab solutions for assessment requires you to use the submit command shown at the end of every exercise. The number of exercises each week may vary, but is generally between 3 and 5.

Each solution file that you submit will be awarded a number of labmarks between 0 and 2, as follows:

• If you submit code that does not compile, it will receive 0 labmarks.
• If code compiles without warnings, runs successfully, is readable, and does not violate the style guide, then it will receive 2 labmarks.
• Otherwise it will receive a mark between these two extremes that depends on the severity of the problem.

There are 2 conditions:

• There is a strict time limit: you must submit your code by midnight on the Sunday after the lab.
  • The reason for this strictness is promptness of marking.
• There will be no appeal to labmarks awarded (because exercises considered individually are worth only a very small fraction of your final mark). So if you make a silly programming mistake, learn from your mistake and move on. Your total labmark will be scaled at the end of the course.

Quizzes

• The quizzes are held instead of the lab in that week, in the same computer laboratory of course.
• Quizzes consist entirely of programming exercises and could include producing test cases.
• The concise C-reference guide will always be available.

Assignment

Final Examination

Final Course Mark

Component	Mark
labs	10%
quiz_week_5	5%
quiz_week_9	15%
assignment	15%
final_exam_written	20%
final_exam_coding	35%
total	100%

• at least 27/55 for [quiz_week_5 + quiz_week_9 + final_exam_coding]
• at least 50/100 overall

In other words, 55% of your final course mark comes from actual coding (behind a computer, on your own), and you need to pass this part of the course.

Plagiarism

• Academic Integrity and Plagiarism
• CSE: Addendum to UNSW Plagiarism Guidelines
• CSE: Yellow Form (whose terms you have agreed to)

Supplementary Examination

• a supplementary examination may or may not then be granted, at the discretion of the lecturer in charge
• a supplementary examination will not be granted if you cannot pass having passed the examination

Supplementary examinations can be full examinations, or they can test just one component in the course such as your programming skills. They may also include an oral component. Note that a supplementary examination is typically more difficult than the original examination to reflect the fact that you have had more preparation time.

Supplementary Assessment:

• if you have received special consideration then:
  • if the supp exam mark is higher than (any) previous final exam mark, then it replaces your final exam mark
  • if the supp exam mark is lower, then it is ignored

Note that there will be only one supplementary assessment and no alternative time/dates are possible. Read instructions on this topic in

• CSE: Yellow Form (whose terms you have agreed to).

Course Evaluation

Student feedback from the last course offering indicated that students were generally satisfied with the course, but some suggested more guidance and tighter integration of the labs with the lectures. We will endeavour to achieve that in this offering.

Acknowledgments