UP ONE LEVEL: ENEL 315 Home Page

The University of Calgary
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

ENEL 315:
Software Development Concepts and Techniques

Course Outline for the 1999 Winter Session

Author: Steve Norman
Last modified: Fri Jan 8 13:59:14 MST 1999

Contents

Preface

This document is the official course outline, as specified in the U of C Calendar. It contains information about
  • who the lecture and laboratory instructor is;
  • where and when the lectures and labs take place;
  • course content;
  • policies for assignments, exams, tests, and course grading.

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    Lecture and Laboratory Instructor

    Dr. S. A. Norman
    Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
    Office: EN A 229F
    Phone: 220-8642
    Email: norman@enel.ucalgary.ca

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    Lectures

    Lectures are Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 10:00am in EN E 239.

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    Laboratory Sections 

    DAY     TIME              SECTION         LAB INSTRUCTOR

Tue     2:00pm-3:50pm     B01/B02         Dr. Norman

Thu     2:00pm-3:50pm     B03/B04         Dr. Norman

    Please note the number of your lab section. (``B01'' stands for ``laBoratory section 1''.) You should write your lab section number on every assignment you hand in and type it into every file of source code you work on.

    Laboratory sections take place in EN C 01 and EN C 07.

    Laboratory sections begin Tuesday, January 12. You will have a lab section almost every week. You will be given more precise information about the laboratory schedule as the term progresses.

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    Course Content

    NOTE: the list below does NOT give the order in which topics will be covered. A typical programming exercise will use ideas from four or five of the categories listed below.

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    Textbooks

    Note: As part of the first lecture I will supply some advice about whether or not students should buy either of the recommended textbooks.

    Required:

    Recommended:

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    Laboratory Assignments

    Some assignments are to be completed by each individual student and others are to be completed by groups of students. A note near the top of each lab handout will specify whether the assignment is to be done by individuals or by groups.

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    Get Help, But Don't Cheat!

    Do the individual assignments by yourself. If you copy someone else's work or let someone else figure out all the difficult exercises for you, you will not learn very much.

    This does not mean that you should not get help from others while you are doing your assignments. You are encouraged to discuss the assignments with instructors and fellow students, since this is one of the best ways to learn the material. However, you should not let anyone write your programs for you. When you hand in your assignments, ask yourself two questions:

    Do I understand every line of code I wrote?
    Could I do this assignment over again without any help?
    The answer to both questions should be YES.

    Computers allow electronic copying of programs, which makes it very easy to cheat in a course like ENEL 315. If you are caught cheating you may be reported to the Dean's Office for appropriate discipline. If you cheat and don't get caught, you are still in trouble, because examination marks count much more than assignment marks in your final course grade.

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    Helping Cheaters is Academic Misconduct

    Helping students to hand in work that is not their own is a form of academic misconduct. This point is made very clearly in the University of Calgary calendar.

    Therefore, I believe that distributing solutions to lab exercises before the lab assignment due date is a serious form of academic misconduct. If I discover such activity, I will report it to the Dean's Office immediately. Distributing solutions means making solutions available to other students via paper copy, electronic mail, Web site, or any other medium.

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    Missed or Delayed Term Work

    You are expected to complete all lab assignments and hand them in on time, and you are expected to write the mid-seesion test.

    If you don't hand in some term work due to illness, domestic affliction, or another legitimate reason, I am willing to make accommodations, but only if you report the problem to me as soon as is reasonably possible. Accommodations will be decided on a case-by-case basis; typically they will involve either accepting lab assignments after the due date or making changes to the weighting used to compute the course grade.

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    Examinations and Course Grading

    There will be one mid-session test. It will probably take place one evening in the week before Reading Week. When the details are known, they will be announced in lectures.

    The mid-session test and the final examination will be closed-book - you may not bring any books or notes. You may not use electronic calculators or computers during either the mid-session test or the final exam.

    Here is the weighting that will be used to assign grades: 

    Lab assignments:    20%
Mid-session test:   30%
Final examination:  50%

    Regardless of your assignment and midterm marks, if your mark on the final exam is less than 40 percent, you will fail the course. Regardless of your assignment and midterm marks, if your mark on the final exam is greater than or equal to 40 percent and less than 50 percent, your grade will be D+ or lower.

    Regardless of your mid-session test and final exam marks, you will fail the course if your overall lab assignment mark is less than 50 percent.

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    Other Course Information

    You are strongly encouraged to use the World Wide Web to look up course information. For example, you will be able to use the Web to read
  • this outline;
  • information about the teaching assistants;
  • all lecture-related handouts;
  • all lab handouts;
  • some lab solutions.
    • (Not much of this information will be available right at the beginning of the term. The set of course pages will grow as the term progresses.)

    The URL for the ENEL 315 Home Page is 

    http://www.enel.ucalgary.ca/People/Norman/enel315/
    If you are using a Web browser on a computer in an Electrical Engineering lab, you may use the following shorter form: 
    http://www/People/Norman/enel315/

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