CSE 199 Fall 2016

Also on the calendar. The registrar’s office has their own semi-useful calendar herelaunch.

Geoffrey Challenlaunch is providing most of the content for the class in the form of short videos. But you will notice contributions from others—​including other course staff, other UB CSE faculty members, and hopefully eventually alumni and external experts 1. The four fantastic faculty leading activity sections are Jesse Hartlofflaunch, Matthew Hertzlaunch, Andrew Hugheslaunch, and Jennifer Winikuslaunch.

We have a great group of undergraduate and graduate teaching assistants to help you learn about the internet. Greg Bunyealaunch is serving as the head undergraduate teaching assistant. Carl Nuesslelaunch is serving as the head (and only) graduate teaching assistant. The 24 other teaching assistants are Aishani Bhalla, Mohit Bhatia, Isabelle Caneda, Wesley Csendom, Junjie Chen, Michael Drewitt, David Dobmeier, Lakshmi Ethiraj, Richard Hanulewicz, Liam Gensel, Harshita Girase, Patrick Jones, Heeba Kariapper, Valencia Kaplinsky, Lawreen Latif, Angus Lam, Ian Ngumi, Brijesh Rakholia, Rachel Roberts, Parth Shah, Kyle Schoener, Dan Starner, Evan Walley, and Grant Wrazen. Phew! That’s quite a group. Instructors and teaching assistants are broken down by activity section below.

Times and locations for activity sections and recitations are listed below. You can also find this information on the HUB.

In addition to activity sections and recitations we are planning a number of other optional—​but fun—​activities. First, we have several movie nights planned for the semester where we will watch some great internet-related films 2. Second, we will hold open shooting sessions each week on Wednesday starting at 10AM. We’re still shooting footage for the later weeks in the class, so if you’d like to be part of the studio audience you are more than welcome—​although I can’t spring for any fancy prizes. Details about both of these events will be on the course calendar. The course calendar will also list office hours for all CSE 199 instructors.

There is no required textbook for this course.

We will not give any exams.

There are no prerequisites.

We reserve the right to adjust this schedule as needed. That said, here’s what we are trying to accomplish on a week-by-week basis:

The table below describes how this course meets the learning objectives of the University at Buffalo UB Seminar programlaunch:

Watching the videos before coming to class is critical for our approach to work. We will monitor and quantify your progress through the video series in a variety of ways. Attempting to foil them will be considered a violation of academic integrity.

Equally important to success in this course is coming to class and participating in the activities. We will assign you to a new random group for each activity section, and one group member will be responsible for submitting the group’s work and recording what group members were present.

Missing one or two classes during the semester is fine—​that happens to anyone. However, there is no way to make up for a missed activity section. If you do not attend for any reason, legitimate or not, you will not receive credit for the activity. As a result, missing class repeatedly will make it hard to pass this class.

There are 26 activities this semester and we will grade participation out of 22—​meaning that you have 4 excused absences. These can be used for any reason: family obligations, leisure travel, hangovers, alarm configuration mistakes, confusions about what day of the week it is, not finding your partners, not making it back to check in with your teaching assistant, etc. That said, we would suggest that you reserve your four excused absences for interesting uses (like leisure travel) as opposed to for stupid uses (alarm configuration mistakes). The choice is up to you, but don’t contact us after you miss class asking if you can make up the activity. Regardless of why you missed class, the answer is no 7.

In addition, if you do not check out with a teaching assistant during class you will also not receive credit for the activity. So please don’t forget this step. Luckily, we have enough undergraduate teaching assistants so that there is one for around four groups, so you should be able to find one at checkout time.

One of the best ways to learn new material is to explain it to others. We’re providing you a way to do that—​but to hundreds or thousands of students in coming years.

During the semester you will need to record three short videos for inclusion in the internet-class.org video library. You can work with another student or alone on these assignments, but if working in a group of two both students need to be involved in several minutes of the video to receive full credit. Note that both students in a group of two must be both be in CSE 199 8, although they don’t have to be in the same section.

As a final assignment we will ask you to participate in the internet. That can take a variety of forms: creating a personal website or blog, maintaining a Wikipedialaunch page, contributing to a open source software project perhaps on GitHublaunch, etc. We are open to many different ideas here, but just to note: normal social networking activities will not earn you credit for this activity. You’ll discuss this assignment in more detail with your activity section leader and course staff later in the semester.

Scores from all four CSE 199 sections will be combined and, if needed, renormalized for the purposes of grading. Your score in the course will be converted to a letter grade as follows:

Please refer to the undergraduatelaunch incomplete policy. Of particular importance is this language:

Please review the CSE Department academic integrity policylaunch and the UB undergraduatelaunch academic integrity policy to familiarize yourself with the relevant academic integrity policies and procedures. Students that submit plagiarized work will receive a grade of F for the course.

Please register and coordinate with the Office of Disability Services. Let the course staff know when accommodations need to be made. We are committed to helping you learn.

This website is the source for all information about the class: the syllabus (which you are reading) and the video series.

All enrolled students will be added to a mailing list which we will use for course communication. You are responsible for email messages sent to this list, and to your @buffalo.edu email address. If you are not enrolled and would like to be added to the list, you can sign up herelaunch.

The online forum is the place to go to discuss the videos and activities. This is a great resource because it allows you to get help from anyone at any time—​not just during class or recitation. Please use and contribute to this valuable shared resource.

The three 4PM sections will meet together in Bert’s Cafeteria at 4PM on Mondays and Wednesdays.