CSC 490 Spring 2002 Revised Syllabus
Note: Due to some constraints on the admissibility of courses for
technical electives, this course can only be taken for two credits.
If you take it for four credits, it will not be admissible as
technical elective. As a consequence, I have removed the 4-credits parts.
General Information
- Course Title: Selected Advanced Topics -- Working in CyberSpace (tentative)
- Course Description
This course is a combination of a seminar-type course with the
Computer Science department's colloquium series. Guest speakers
will give presentations on topics that are relevant for
the work computer scientists perform in professional
environments.
Goals and Objectives
The goal of the course is to provide students with a better understanding
of the kind of work they can expect to perform after graduation.
The presentations by guest speakers will address technical,
ethical, social, and economical issues related to the professional
duties of computer scientist in real-world environments.
In addition to the technical issues, participants in this course
are expect to interact with the guest speakers by hosting individual
speakers, coordinating discussions after the presentations,
preparing reports on the presentations, and performing further
research on the selected topic.
Topics
I've put together a tentative list of topics
that have been forwarded to me by potential guest speakers.
I'll update this list as I receive more.
Course Organisation
The core part of the course will consist of lectures
presented by guest speakers, mainly from industry.
During each class period, one or two guest speakers
will give a presentation on a topic in which they
have practical and recent expertise. A team of
students will be responsible for hosting a guest
speaker. These responsibilities include help
with practical arrangements (equipment, transportation,
coordination of after-talk activities, introduction
of the speaker, moderation of the discussion session,
etc.), some research into the topic to be presented
by the speaker, and the preparation of a report
on the visit and the presentation.
Textbooks
There are no regular textbooks available for this course.
Handouts will be made available in collaboration with the
guest speakers.
Additional Material
Further material will be made available in collaboration
with the guest speakers through handouts in class,
and through pointers to relevant Web pages.
The main assignment will consist of a report by the
student host team on the visit of a speaker. This report
will be prepared by the team, and will be graded as a team
effort unless there is clear evidence that the contributions
by the individual team members are grossly imbalanced.
In addition, each student has to provide feedback on
the presentations.
Further information on the assignments can be found
here .
Student Presentations
Those participating students who are enrolled in this course for four
credits are expected to give a presentation on a topic related to the overall
theme of the course. Ideally, this presentation should be coordinated
so that it matches with one of the talks by guest speakers.
Term Projects
The students enrolled in this course for four credits
also must do a term project. The topic for this project
will be coordinated by the course instructor, and must
relate to the overall theme. One option is to develop and
maintain a Web page with the materials for this course.
Exams
A portion of the overall grade will be determined by one
or more exams. These may be short quizzes, or more
substantial midterm/final exams. The exact arrangements
will be announced in class.
Grading Policy
The following table gives an overview of the grading scheme
to be used in the course.
Due to the experimental nature of
the course, I reserve the right, however, to make changes.
Web pages Copyright © 2001-2002,
Franz J. Kurfess,
Email: fkurfess@csc.calpoly.edu
Last modified: Fri Apr 12 14:49:23 PDT 2002