COURSE DESCRIPTION

CGS2060, Computer Literacy, is an introduction to basic computing concepts and applications presented through lecture, recitation, Web-based media, textbooks, and hands-on experience.

Lecture Topics

Overview of Digital Technologies What is a Computer? The Power of Connections What Can Computers Do? Information Systems Using Digital Technologies in Careers Using Digital Technologies to Achieve Personal Goals Information Security and the Social Impact and Implications of Digital Technologies Hardware The Digital Revolution Integrated Circuits and Processing Storage Input, Output, and Expansion Selecting and Purchasing a Computer Software An Overview of Software Programming Languages System Software Application Software Software Issues and Trends

The Internet and World Wide Web Internet Technology Web Technology Internet and Web Applications The Future INternet Telecommunications, Wireless Technologies, and Computer Networks Fundamentals of Telecommunications Network Media, Devices, and Software Wireless Telecommunications Technologies Networks and Distributed Computing Computer Crime and Information Security Information Security and Vulnerability Machine-Level Security Network Security Wireless Network Security Internet Security

Skills Covered in Recitation

Mac OS X File Management Web Research Word Processing with Microsoft Word Numeric Analysis with Microsoft Excel Presenting with Microsoft PowerPoint or Apple Keynote Apple iLife

COURSE OBJECTIVES

By the end of the semester, students will:

• demonstrate knowledge and understanding of basic computer concepts such as computer hardware, software, architecture, networks, information security, and the Internet
• demonstrate basic Mac OS skills and file management techniques
• demonstrate skills related to email use
• demonstrate skills involved in Web-based research
• demonstrate working knowledge of word processing with Microsoft Word
• demonstrate working knowledge of spreadsheets with Microsoft Excel
• demonstrate working knowledge of software included in Apple iLife
• prepare a presentation with Microsoft PowerPoint or Apple Keynote

CONDITIONS FOR ENTRANCE INTO CGS2060

Students who are planning on majoring in business should take CGS2100 rather than CGS2060 Students who have taken CGS2100, MicroApplications for Business, are not eligible for credit in CGS2060. If both CGS2060 and CGS2100 are taken in the same semester, the student will receive credit for only one of the two courses.

MATERIALS

Students are responsible for purchasing the following materials within the first two days of class:

GRADING/EVALUATION  

900 - 909 A-	910 - 1,000 A
800 - 809 B-	810 - 879 B	880 - 899 B+
700 - 709 C-	710 - 779 C	780 - 799 C+
600 - 609 D-	610 - 679 D	680 - 699 D+
	000 - 599 F

Final Letter Grade: The points you earn over the duration of the semester determine your final letter grade. No additional point earning activities will be provided for students who, at the end of the semester, realize that they have fallen short of their desired grade. Nor will we review and haggle over old assignment and test grades during the last weeks of the semester with students trying to boost their final grade. Issues with assignment grades must be dealt with within two weeks of the posting of the assignment grade, and issues with test grades must be dealt with immediately following the exam. Please don't email the instructors at the end of the semester to haggle over your points or beg for more. What you earn is what you get.

GETTING HELP

Beginning the 2nd week of the semester, and continuing until the due date of the last assignment, TA Recitation Instructors are available to assist students with their assignment work in the 315 MCH computer lab according to the schedule posted on the class Web site. Apple specific questions should be addressed to your own recitation instructor.

Instructor contact info is accessed using the "Teacher Info" link on the course Web site

For questions regarding assignments and recitation matters, email your recitation instructor or visit any one of our recitation instructors during the help hours. For questions regarding lecture class and issues that your Recitation Instructor is unable to answer contact your lecture instructor.

Instructors will respond to student email within 24 hours Mon - Fri. It is appreciated when students look up answers for themselves on our class Web site prior to emailing a question to the teacher.

WHERE TO WORK

On Your Own Mac
If you have a Mac with Microsoft Office 2004 and iLife, and an Internet connection, you can do your class work on your own PC.

In the 315 MCH Computer Lab
Students who don't have a Mac, or Office 2004, or iLife, will need to do some or all of their coursework on a Mac in the 315 MCH computer lab. When working in the lab, students should save all their work on a flash drive.

	Submitted homework files that are unable to be opened with the 2004 version of Microsoft Office on a Mac, due to being created with the wrong software or version of the software, will receive a zero. Make sure you use the correct software and the correct version.
	Students that opt to do their work on their own computer accept the responsibility for their computer's proper functioning. PC problems that arise will not be accepted as an excuse for late assignment submissions. If PC problems occur at home, students should complete their work in the 315 MCH computer lab.

 

POLICIES

We hope this class is a fun and enriching experience for everyone. When working with large groups such as ours, it is important to be clear about what is expected of students and provide some guidelines for behavior so that everyone is assured of the same educational advantages.

Attendance & Behavior

• Attendance is required for lecture and recitation classes and counts towards your grade.
  • Reasons to attend Lecture
    • keep up-to-date on important class announcements and reminders
    • obtain a deeper understanding of textbook topics
    • learn about important technologies and concepts not presented in the textbook
    • obtain insight into items that will be on the tests
    • students who regularly attend lecture are more likely to meet with success when asking the teacher for favors
    • earn attendance points and maybe extra credit
  • Reasons to attend Recitation
    • obtain hands-on, guided, practice in preparation for assignment work
    • take exams --all exams are given in recitation class, missing an exam without an excuse can drop your final grade a full letter
    • earn attendance points
• Lecture attendance points and policy: Lecture attendance will be taken by means of several unannounced pop quizzes. Students who attend class regularly and read the textbook chapters in advance of discussions will have the best chance of earning full credit. Students may miss one quiz due to emergency without penalty. Students need not provide documentation for missing a lecture quiz unless more than one quiz has been missed in which case the student must provided documentation for both missed quizzes in order to earn any missed attendance points. The average percentage of total quiz scores taken will provide the percentage of attendance points earned.
• Recitation attendance points and policy: Students earn recitation attendance points on the days indicated on the agenda. Students must provide a documented excuse for any missed recitation class in order to earn recitation points for that day, or take make-up exams.
• Students may, upon notifying his or her instructor, be excused from class to observe a recognized religious holy day of his or her faith.
• Arrive on time, stay to the end; students must be present and engaged from the beginning to the end of class to be considered "in attendance" and deserving of any attendance points.
• Students who arrive more than 10 minutes late to class, without an excuse that the instructor considers valid, will be prohibited from taking exams scheduled for that day and will take a zero as a test grade.
• Students are responsible for any information presented in class, even when absent. It is the student's responsibility to find out what was missed if unable to attend.
• Students must attend recitation class at its scheduled time and will not be allowed to sit in any other recitation class. Students may be allowed to attend a different lecture class if approved by lecture instructor.
• Cell phone use is prohibited in the classroom during class time.
• Students participating in disruptive and/or distracting behavior (conversing with friends, loud snoring) during class time will be asked to leave.

Students who miss class must present official documentation for the absence to the instructor if they wish to find out what they missed, make up quiz, extra-credit, or attendance points, or have late penalties overlooked. Acceptable documentation includes official letters from a doctor or university administrator, letters from an athletic advisors or coach for sporting events, obituary or dated literature from a funeral in the case of the passing of a loved one.

NO INCOMPLETES WILL BE GIVEN FOR THIS COURSE.

Assignments

There will be a 20% point penalty per recitation class for late assignments. In other words an assignment that is submitted between one second late up until the end of the next recitation class day will be penalized 20%, one second past that to the end of the next recitation class day will be 40%, etc.

• Assignments are accessed from our course Web site (click Assignments on the menu).
• Assignment due dates are listed on the Course Agenda located on our course Web site (click Weekly Agenda on the menu).
• Most assignments are submitted electronically using the form provided with the assignments on our web site. Instructions are provided on the Assignments page.
  

  Students are responsible for confirming that an assignment is submitted successfully with the submitted file in working order by following the instructions accessed by clicking the Assignments link on the Web site Submitted assignment files found to be corrupt and unopenable, will require re-submission with late penalties. Students are responsible for regularly checking their grades on-line to confirm that assignments were received and graded.

• Assignments 1 - 3 will NOT be accepted if submitted on disk, printout, or as an email attachment.
• Students may access grader feedback by clicking the assignment score in the gradebook.
• Recitation Instructors are responsible for grading all assignments.
  

  Questions, concerns, or complaints regarding graded assignments should be addressed to your recitation instructor at recitation time, or during office hours within two weeks of the posting of the assignment grade. After two weeks the score becomes permanent even if the student does not agree with it. Students should keep a copy of their assignment files until final grades for the course are posted and you are satisfied that your score is accurately recorded.

• Assignments that contain content that anyone would find offensive (including profanity, vulgarity, insults, violence, or sexually explicit language) will receive a zero and the student responsible may be brought up on charges of violating FSU's Conduct Code.

No assignments will be accepted after the final deadline posted on the class agenda.

Cheating

Always begin your assignments from a new, blank document file. We consider it cheating when a student starts an assignment from some other student's assignment file, or copies portion of another student's file. Cheating Penalties : First Offense: ALL students involved are given zeros on the assignment Second Offense: An "F" for the course and formal charges against ALL students involved

There are no innocent participants in cheating incidents. Students who leave their assignment work available for others to access either on a private or public computer, intentionally or accidentally, will be considered accomplices to cheating should someone else use their work and submit it as their own. DON'T SAVE YOUR HOMEWORK FILES ON FSU COMPUTER LAB COMPUTERS. USE A PORTABLE STORAGE DEVICE. DON'T LEAVE YOUR ASSIGNMENT FILES ON YOUR OWN COMPUTER IF SHARING YOUR COMPUTER WITH ANOTHER STUDENT IN THE CLASS.

• Assignments are designed in a manner that requires every student's files to contain unique and different data. If two or more students submit work with the same, or portions of the same data, and/or if file properties are the same, it is evidence that cheating has taken place.
• Two or more students working together on an assignment is considered cheating. An assignment submission is intended to be a measure of one students ability.
• Be warned! Special software will be used that compares every electronically submitted assignment file to all other submitted files to determine if the file was copied from another student.
• Sometimes cheating is not detected until after students have submitted several copied assignments. In such cases the first copied assignment is considered the first offense, the second copied assignment, the second offense, and so on.
• Students caught communicating during exams will be asked to leave and forfeit the exam.

Exams

• Test dates are listed on the Weekly Agenda accessed from our course web site
• All exams are taken during regularly scheduled recitation classes.

Makeup Exam Procedure Makeup exams must be scheduled within two weeks of the original exam date. After that time the student will automatically receive a zero for the exam regardless of the excuse for missing the exam. Make-up exams must be approved and scheduled by the recitation (lab) instructor. Make-up exams are taken in recitation class during "help sessions". Only students with official documentation for their absence will be allowed to make-up a missed test. Acceptable documentation includes official letters from a doctor or university administrator, obituary or dated literature from a funeral in the case of the passing of a loved one.

Communication

Students are responsible for class announcements sent to their FSU email accounts, and posted to the class web site, as well as those made in lecture and recitation class. Besides regularly attending class, and visiting the class web site, students are expected to check their email on their FSU account (http://webmail.fsu.edu) at least twice a week.

FSU's Academic Honor Code & Student Conduct Code

Students are expected to uphold the Academic Honor Code (http://registrar.fsu.edu/bulletin/undergrad/info/acad_regs.htm) based on the premise that each student has the responsibility to:

1. Uphold the highest standards of academic integrity in the student's own work,
2. Refuse to tolerate violations of academic integrity in the University community, and
3. Foster a high sense of integrity and social responsibility on the part of the University community.

Students are expected to uphold the Student Conduct Code (http://www.srr.fsu.edu/conduct/conduct.htm) that applies the principles found in the "Statement on Values at Florida State University" by promoting responsible freedom for all students. In particular note that any "conduct that creates an intimidating, hostile, or offensive campus, educational or working environment for another person." will not be tolerated in this class.

Students with Disabilities

Students with disabilities needing academic accommodations should:

1. Register with and provide documentation to the Student Disability Resource Center (SDRC).
2. Bring a letter to the instructor from the SDRC indicating you need academic accommodations. This should be done within the first week of class.

(This syllabus and other class materials are available in alternative format upon request.)

For more information about services available to FSU students with disabilities, contact the

Student Disability Resource Center
97 Woodward Avenue, South
108 Student Services Building
Florida State University
Tallahassee, FL 32306-4167
(850) 644-9566 (voice)
(850) 644-8504 (TDD)
sdrc@admin.fsu.edu
http://www.disabilitycenter.fsu.edu/

 

© 2006 Florida State University, baldauf@cs.fsu.edu