Syllabus
344 Shell Programming
Fall 2008


Instructor: Tyson Henry

OCNL 224, 898-5709, trhenry@csuchico.edu
See my schedule for my office hours.


Prerequisite:       
    

Basic programming skills and experience using Linux or UNIX are necessary.

Registration:

Send me e-mail with your ECST username, e-mail, and PIN.

Required Textbooks:

Learning the bash Shell, Cameron Newham & Bill Rosenblatt, O'Reilly

Learning Perl, Randal L. Schwartz

Note: It can be very helpful to own this book, however it is available on-line to Chico students when you access this website from a csuchico.edu domain

Other books may be required as the semester progresses.


Attendance:

Attendance of lectures and labs is not required, but is highly recommended. You will be responsible for all material covered during lecture.  A significant portion of your grade will be based on your class participation.  If you miss many classes, your grade will suffer.


ECST Computer Account:

You need an account on the ecst.csuchico.edu domain.  This account will allow you access to the Department's computers that we use in lab.

See Elbert Chan Monday - Friday 3:30 - 5:00 OCNL 249

Grading:

Grading is relative. The students that do the best work will get an A , the students who don’t do as well will get a B, and so on. I do not follow the traditional percentage grades of 90% = A, 80% = B, etc., and I do not grade on a curve that defines how many students will receive each grade.

Students will receive a letter grade A-F (4.0 – 0.0) for each category (1 assignments, 1 for quizzes, etc). The course grade will be a weighted average of the individual letter grades (see category percentages below). This mechanism allows for relative grading of each category (e.g., if the best score on the quizzes is a 60%, that student will probably receive an A for the quizzes, thus an A (not the 60%) will be averaged with the student’s other grades).

I will routinely post the grading spreadsheet on the class webpage. If I make a mistake in the posted grades, talk to me immediately. If you do not talk to me within a week of the posting of a grade, I will assume you think the grade is correct and fair, and you will lose your right to dispute the grade.


Grade category percentages

Assignments (in & out of lab) 50%
Quizzes (in lab) 30%
Final Project & Presentation 20%

Note: These percentages were updated on 10/27 to reflect the discussion we had in class.  Please let me know if you are not happy about how I have readjusted the grading.
Honesty:

I expect all students to understand and follow the University’s honesty policies (http://www.csuchico.edu/prs/EMs/EM04/em04_36.htm). I will fail students who do not follow these policies, even if they don’t understand them. It is your responsibility to understand these policies.  If you are planning on cheating you might want to read my cheating policy.