I can't log into my HCC account or have another HCC-specific technology issue.  Can you reset my password / fix my account/ etc?

I do not have any access to accounts, passwords, etc.  The best I can do is put in a workorder if your classrom computer hardware has a problem.  Otherwise you need to talk to HCC's ITS.

For password/account problems, call 443-412-2477 option 3.

For other questions and problems, you can chat through owlnet, text 443 227 5757, or email helpdesk@harford.edu.  Most of these are open only weekdays until 5pm.

 You said this assignment is not a huge part of my grade, but it is graded out of 100.  100 is a big number!!! In fact all the assignments are graded out of 100!  Doesn't that mean they are all worth the same?

A grade on an individual assignment is graded as a percentage. Percentage means out of 100. so if you got 73 on an assigment, that means you got 73% of the credit available for that assignment.

Each assignment makes a different contribution to your overall class grade depending on the class grading scheme and how many of each type of assignment there are. 

For example, suppose tests are worth 30% of the class grade and we have 3 tests.  Then each test is worth 10% of your overall grade.  If you got 73% on that test, then you got 73% of the 10% that test could have contributed to your overall grade (so, about 7.3%).  Suppose another type of assignment is worth 15% and we have 15 of them; then each is worth about 1% and if you got 73% on one that contributes 0.73% to your overall grade.

Blackboard tries to just add up all the points for all the assignments because Blackboard is designed for people who don't understand how percentages work.  We should laugh at them. 

Will you help me with my homework?

Sure! You can bring your questions about assignments to office hours or email me.

The more you can narrow down what you're having trouble with, the better (and faster) the answer you'll get.

If you are coming to office hours, bring as much as you have got done already, but have in mind the specific parts you need help on

If you are emailing me for help with your answer to a short answer question or written problem, please put it into the body of an email rather than just attaching a document. (Attach a document if you have a question about document formatting e.g. "My footnotes are numbered wrong, how do I fix this?") 

If your question is limited to a short block of code, please paste that into the body of an email.  If your question involves more of your project, attach your zipped project directory, but still if possible include the part(s) of the code you're having trouble with in the body.

Will you check my homework before I turn it in?

No.  I will happily answer specific questions about any part of an assignment, but I won't just pre-grade your whole assignment. 

But I need help with my whole homework! Why won't you help me without a specific question?

The help I give you needs to lead you to learning the material, so I can't give you useful help until I know what parts you are and aren't having trouble with.  Otherwise I may be wasting your time "helping" with the part you can do already, rather than the part you actually need me for.

Identifying the parts you do understand and the parts you don't is an important part of the learning process.  There will probably be a lot of parts you do understand.  For instance you may not need my help to know what "variable" means, or what MM stands for.  Eventually, you'll hit something you really  don't  understand.  That's when you should come by office hours or email me or ask in class, and we can spend lots of time on the stuff you really need my help on, without me wasting your time explaining stuff you already know.

I'm having trouble with the class material.  How can I do better?

Face to face: Ask more questions in class.  Come to office hours and ask questions. Try the learning center (Library, Room 115).

Use the discussion boards in BlackBoard to ask specific questions. (Saying "I don't understand hardware." or "Arrays don't make sense." doesn't tell me enough to get a useful response.)

Try the NetTutor resource in Blackboard

Why did I lose credit for using the wrong document format??  Who cares?

Understanding and following document format requirements is a baseline skill for dealing with computer technology.  The incredibly common format I am requiring is available on all campus computers, many alterative editors can also save to MS office formats, and you can get a free online account to use basic versions of MS office programs. 

If you use a document format that the LMS (Blackboard/BrightSpace) cannot display I may or may not choose to take the extra time and effort to view your document.  If I do choose to grade it at all, I will certainly not bother to give feedback; just a score.

How did I do on this assignment?

All grades are given as percentages.  Percentage means out of 100.  90% and above is A, 80-89% is B, etc. 

Grades are not "curved" (in most cases this would lower grades, not raise them).

Most grades will come back through electronic systems (Blackboard/BrightSpace, MyITlab).  If you did not submit an assignment, or submitted it late, I may not have bothered to type the 0 into the system.  Blackboard does not show grades for missed team work.

Grades for hardcopy assignments will come back written on the paper (sometimes on the back page).

I think you recorded the wrong grade / added the points wrong, what should I do?

Email me telling me which assignment and what you think is wrong, and I will do a regrade.  (If it was team work, also tell me your team number, if it was on paper, give me the paper back.)

Note that sometimes the result of a regrade is that I discover that I didn't note one of the places where you lost points.  In which case I'll add the note and the points will stay the same.

If I am doing a regrade and I notice that I missed somewhere else I should have taken off points, I will do so.

The system shows an assignment as Not Graded.  What does this mean?

If it is an assignment that you turned in on time, it means that I have not graded it yet.  If it is an assignment that you turned in late, it means that I didn't bother to type in the zero.

How long until this assignment is graded?

Every time someone asks this question, it adds a week. 

 

(If it has been several weeks, or you discover that everyone else's is graded except yours, then it's fine to check with me that yours didn't get overlooked somehow.)

If you had to have a makeup/regrade/other special circumstances, that grading will always have to wait until everything else (all grading in all classes, and administrative work) is done.

Is the online system (LMS) showing my correct grade?

Grades for most individual assignments will be available in the online system you used to turn them in.

Assignments not turned in electronically (e.g. paper tests) will come back on paper and will not be included in the online systems at all.

So how do I find out my grade?

 The class handout/syllabus has the grading scheme for your class.  Different assignments are worth more or less based on this scheme and on how many such assignments are given. 

In general, to find a weighted average,

So, suppose homework is worth 25% classwork is worth 35% and tests are worth 40%.  If your homework average is 90, your classwork average is 80, and your test average is 70, then your overall grade is 90 * .25 + 80 *.35 + 70 *.4 = 78.5 .

Excel makes this very easy to do.  If you are over halfway through any of my classes, you should be able to do this.

At the end of the semester, will you give me an extra credit assignment to improve my grade if I didn't do well?

No. Listen to me. There a NO special extra credit assignment that I keep secret from all the other students but will give just to you because you really really need it. I promise you, that is not going to happen, so you need to do your assignments now.

How does extra credit work?

 Extra credit is added to the rest of the score on  a single assignment, and can raise that score even above 100%.  So if you got 110% and 90% on two tests, that would be a test average of 100%. 

You could end up with more than 100% average on one type of assignment, which would help make up for a low average on another type of assignment.  But note that 110% on a type of assignment worth only 10% of the class grade would not make up for  having a 60% on a type of assignement worth 40% overall.

What are the class policies on team work?

Unless stated otherwise, classwork is to be done as team work.  Team work may be allowed in other circumstances.  If you work alone when team work is assigned I will deduct 15-25%

The work turned in by a team should be agreed on by the whole team.  The whole team will share the grade, positive or negative -- if you turned it in, you are saying it was the team's work, not just one team member's.

If an assignment is team work, the whole assignment is team work.  One team member cannot turn in one part (extra credit or otherwise) independently.

Every team member must contribute to all parts of the assignment.  Parallel work is not allowed (unless the assignment explicitly says so).  If the team agrees to turn in work and leave, a single member cannot choose to stay and work further (on extra credit or otherwise). I will deduct points if the "team" does not function as one.

If you come in late or leave early enough that you cannot contribute to all parts of an assignment, you must work alone and take the point hit.  If you join a team but leave your teammates to finish without you before everyone agrees you're done, you will receive no points at all.  If you have been abandoned, tell me.

You are strongly encouraged to work with different people each time.  Please don't make me have to assign teams; it is tedious and you are not small children.

You are strongly encouraged to switch off between team members during an assignment so that everyone is involved in typing/writing, in planning, in watching for typos/syntax errors, etc.

You must cooperate with your team members.  This means that one team member's preferences cannot rule over the team's needs. 

Someone in a team never does any work / takes over and does everything.  What should I do?

When you are already in a team with a person who is not cooperating, the first thing to do is just try to politely change what's happening. "Let me see if I've got the way this works -- I think we should..." or "How about you try this this part - how should we start?" or even "I feel like I'm/you're always typing, let's switch it up for this part." 

If that doesn't help, it might be worth calmly and respectfully saying, "I feel like you're not saying much, could you try to be more active in the team?"  or "I can see you've got this down, but I need a little more practice, I'd like to try some things first, before you just speed through everything."

After that classwork, however, remember that you are strongly encouraged to try working with different people.  You can choose not to work with someone who creates a situation that you don't like. It is fine to remind someone that "Chapin wants us to try working with different people" and say you're just humoring me.

Can I audio-record class / take a picture of the board?

It is fine to do this, using your own equipment.  Neither I nor any classmate should appear in pictures (unless your classmate has given you their explicit permission).

I missed class, what did we do?

On the class page, content goes up almost every day, so you can easily answer this question for yourself by going to the class page.  These include any new assignments (except any assigned in myITlab, which you can find in the assignment calendar).  If no new content has been added, we probably continued the previous topic or topics (for example we may have reviewed several previous topics.)

Will you send me the powerpoints / give me notes for a day I missed?

No.

You are expected to read the class page and other materials, and get notes from a classmate.  Read throught these and come to me with questions and you can haunt my office hours indefinitely until you have a handle on the material.

I missed turning in an assignment.  Can I make it up for credit?

No, late work will not be accepted for credit. 

You are STRONGLY encouraged to turn in partial work regularly (turn in on campus if your home internet is flaky). You don't have to wait until 11pm the night it is due to turn something in. I will only ever see your last submission, so it is in your best interest to always have something turned in. That way you will always get partial credit at least and this acts as offsite backup because you can download your partial submissions if you lose or mess up your originals

The rare paper assignments can be turned in early under my office door or in my mailbox in the Joppa office.  If you cannot get to campus to turn in paper homework but let me know before it is due I may, at my discretion, arrange an alternate method of turning it in on time.

I missed class on a day there was classwork assigned.  Can I make it up for credit?

No, class policy is that missed classwork cannot be made up for credit.  Classwork must be done in class with me observing and turned in by the end of class time. 

I suggest you do read through the classwork, to determine whether you understand the material, and then get in touch with me with specific questions.

HCC requires that students who miss class for official HCC athletic events are allowed to make up any work from the days missed.  This unfair policy is HCC's, not mine.  Athletes who will  miss class for a game must send me official notice at least two weeks in advance and will be required to complete the makeup work before the day we would do it in class.

I will not be here at the time of a test, can I still take it?

If you let me know before the date of the test, I can arrange for you to take the test in the test center early.  Give me at least a week's notice before the time you will leave, to make arrangements.

I missed a test, can I make it up for credit?

If you contact me before the end of the period we are taking the test, and give me a compelling explanation  why you cannot make it, I may, at my discretion, allow you to take a makeup test.  Makeup tests are always harder.

If you contact me after this, but can prove that you could not get in touch with me sooner, I may, at my discretion, allow you to take a makeup test.  Makeup tests are always harder.

Otherwise, no, you have missed this test.

Most of my classes just put everything in the LMS.  Why is some of our material somewhere else? 

Unfortunately, the LMS's editors are terrible at creating anything but single paragraphs of unformatted text.  Also most information typed into the LMS is difficult to get back out except in special proprietary formats.

Also, the LMS will eventually time out your login.  I'd rather students be able to keep the material open and available however long they need to.

The class page is showing up blank or giving a connection error! What do I do?

Since HCC no longer hosts educational material, I have had to move to an alternative host. neocities.org is up most of the time, but it does very occasionally have outages. These have never yet lasted more than an hour or two. If it is down for a longer time you can certainly take screenshots to show this and email me, but unless it is down for more than a day, this shouldn't affect your ability to finish most assignments ... unles you never looked at the assignment until the very last minute...

I can't open something from the class page.  I get a page that says  "The page you are trying to reach cannot be found"

If you typed the address or chose it from a drop-down in the browser, double check the url is right.  If you clicked a link on one of my pages, email me to let me know the link is broken.

I can't open  a handout/assignment.  The file name ends in .pdf .

There is a known issue viewing PDFs when you are in Blackboard on a MAC OS computer. You can fix this with a free plugin ( http://schubert-it.com/downloads/  ) or use the free browser Google Chrome ( http://www.google.com/chrome ).

However, in  general, there's no reason you need to be in Blackboard to get to stuff on the class page.  Just go directly to the class page using the URL (at home, add a bookmark!) or by going through my HCC faculty page, instead of logging in to Blackboard, then clicking on a link just to get there.

I'm having an LMS or OwlNet or Owlmail Problem, or a problem with a machine in a campus lab.

Try the student E-Access page for frequent problems and their FAQ.  If that doesn't help, email helpdesk@harford.edu or call 443 412 2777.  For LMS-specific problems, try online@harford.edu .

In the labs, report your problem to the lab monitor, and tell them which computer you were at, what you were trying to do, and that you need this for required coursework.

Where should we save files on campus ?

Not on the C: drive of the computer you are sitting at!  On campus computers are set up to automatically delete anything saved on C: (e.g. in Documents) when you log out.  Saved work may also be deleted if the power goes out (e.g. if someone trips over the power cord of your computer).

A W: network drive should have been set up for all students in my classes.  You should be able to save there directly from all programs on campus machines, including putting your projects there from NetBeans.  See this page on campus drives.

You may also choose to use a thumb drive. 

Can I make an appointment to come by your office hours?

It is always fine to come by office hours  You don't need an appointment; just show up at my office.  (Office hours are first come first served, so you may sometimes have to wait a few minutes until another student is finished.)


 

You weren't at your office hours!

Was there a sign on the door saying that office hours were cancelled?  If so, then you're right, sorry about that, I'm probably ill. 

There may instead be a sign on the door saying "Back in 5 minutes," or telling you another room in Joppa where you can find me.  In which case you need to wait/come find me. 

If there is no sign, I may be holding office hours in the classroom where I ended the previous class.  Look at the door schedule to see which classroom this was.

Other times you happen to come by my office, including 5 minutes before or after office hours, are not my office hours.

Can I work in the classroom when you aren't there?

No, according to HCC rules, classrooms are supposed to be closed and locked when no faculty are present.  Lab hours may be available for students.

 

You said I copied text from a certain website but I've never been to that site.  I got it from another website/ the textbook/ a friend.

That also counts.  Yes, including the textbook.

You said I copied text from a website or other source but my text isn't exactly the same.

The requirement is that you put it in your own words.  Tiny cosmetic changes like removing or inserting an extra word, swapping punctuation, or deliberate misspelling does not constitute putting it in your own words.

Suppose, for instance, you were looking for info about compilers and found on the wikipedia page for Compiler:

A compiler is a computer program that transforms source code written in a programming language (the source language) into another computer language (the target language, often having a binary form known as object code).  The most common reason for wanting to transform source code is to create an executable program.

If you basically quoted this with minor changes, that would not be putting it in your own words:

It is a computer program which transforms source code in a programming language, the source language, into another computer language, the target language, very often having a form known as object code and the most common reason for wanting to transform source code is to create an executable program

However if you understood it well enough to paraphrase, you'd be fine:

Compilers translate programs from one programming language to another, usually creating a program that can run.

But my copied text was the right answer!  Shouldn't I get credit for the right answer?

No, none of my courses offer credit for googling a keyword and copy-pasting.  If you cannot express a class concept in your own words, you have not learned it well enough for a passing grade.  The process of formulating your own description or explanation is a key part of learning.  Trying to use someone else's words to trick me into thinking you've done this is dishonest and counter-productive.

Also, almost every time, the answers students have received -100% for have in fact been terrible answers to the question I actually asked, and would have received 0 points even if I hadn't noticed they did not sound like student writing. 

You said I copied text from a website or other source, but that was just for one question! You can't give me a -100% on the whole assignment!

Yes I can.  This policy was discussed on the first day of class.

You said I copied text from a website or other source, but actually that was someone else in my team, so I shouldn't be penalized.

By turning in work as a team, you are attesting that it was a collaboration between all team members, including you.  Everyone receives the credit; including negative credit.  

You said I copied text from a website or other source, but a -100% will hurt my grade!  A lot! Can't you just give me a zero?

If you got a zero, you'd be no worse off than if you hadn't turned work in.  That turns out not to be a sufficient deterrent.

Since people sometimes do it anyway, perhaps -100% isn't sufficient either.  Maybe it should be -200% for the second offense...

You said I copied text from a website or other source.  Actually, I can prove I was the original creator of the content of that website.

This is the only explanation that would make a difference.

I know all the stuff that's really important about this topic.  I can build my own computer and program pong in assembly.  Why doesn't my grade reflect this?

I can only grade you on the knowledge of class-specific concepts you demonstrated through the work you turn in.  For credit, you need to prove that you have mastered all of the class material, not just the part that interests you.  I also can't give you credit for homework you don't turn in, no matter how far beyond 9000 your skillz are. 

You don't let us use Generative AI to do our homework. That's dumb. Everyone will be using AI to do their jobs and you should be teaching us how to do that. Also AI is a great learning tool!

AI may be a useful tool in the field you will be going into. Experts in your field should definitely eventually teach you how specific AI tools are used and teach you to use them. In some fields a generic Generative AI chatbot might even be a useful tool, but they aren't particularly useful for low level computer science.

Most of the people who say that "AI is a great learning tool" are people who make money when their AI tool, AI-enabled process, or textbook about AI is adopted. However, generative AI chatbots simply generate text by predicting, word by word, the next word most commonly used in a sentence, based on its training data (with a little randomness). Most of them were trained on the contents of the web, so they will tend to simply echo what people on the web have said

That means that it is drawing from a lot of discussions between professional programmers and engineers that are far beyond the context and vocabulary beginning students need to learn. If you are still learning what a variable is, an answer about security issues in dynamically typed languages is probably worse than useless to you. It will also be drawing from a lot of people saying things online that are just wrong. This means that generic AI chatbots are not a great help for learning the basics.

For example, I had great hopes of an AI chatbot being able to help a student studying by testing them with questions about a topic and helping the student to improve their answers, but here's an example of me trying this out on a topic that people are confused about on the internet a lot: 

You said:
Ask me three questions about virtual memory, one 
at a time, and if my answers are incomplete or confusing, ask me 
follow up questions until I have explained fully before continuing 
to the next question

ChatGPT said:
Got it! Here's my first question:

What exactly is virtual memory, and how does it work with RAM?


You said:
Virtual memory is a system used to manage space in main memory.  It 
divides memory into chunks called pages and when a running program 
needs space in memory to store its instructions and data, it assigns 
pages, using a structure called the page table to keep track of which 
program is in which page.  When programs run, the addresses used in 
the program's instructions are translated using this page table so that 
it does not matter which pages a program is assigned on a given day, 
the program will still be able to run.

ChatGPT said:
That makes sense! So, if I get this right, virtual memory helps keep 
track of where everything is in memory by using pages and a page table. 
But can you explain a bit more about what happens when the RAM gets 
full? Like, how does the system decide which pages to move to the disk?



You said:
Well, we're talking about virtual memory right now.  Do you know what we 
call the process that your question is about?  That's called Page Swapping.  
It isn't part of virtual memory, although it relies on virtual memory to 
work.  Thinking that virtual memory and page swapping are the same thing 
is a very common confusion in people who know nothing about computer hardware.

ChatGPT said:
Got it, thanks for clarifying! So, page swapping is the actual process of 
moving pages to and from the disk when RAM gets full, and it relies on the 
virtual memory system.

Why do computers even need virtual memory in the first place? What are the 
benefits?


You said:
One good reason is that it is a lot more efficient to keep track of a 
smaller number of pages in the page table instead of having to keep track 
of millions of memory addresses individually.  More importantly, this allows 
programs to run wherever we have space for them in memory (because we are 
translating the memory addresses they use) so we don't have to worry about, 
for example, if a program with an instruction to load data from the address 
MM20 will still work even if it doesn't get the page that contains MM20.  
Also, since we are doing this translation, no program can deliberately write 
into the middle of another program in memory, since we would never translate 
an address into another program's assigned pages.  VM also does support other 
memory management tasks such as page swapping (that's where the "page" in the 
name comes from -- virtual memory's page system)

ChatGPT said:
That makes a lot of sense! So, virtual memory helps keep things organized and 
secure by managing pages instead of individual addresses, which is super 
helpful for running programs without conflicts.

What happens if a program tries to use more memory than what's available in 
both RAM and virtual memory?


You said:
Well, virtual memory manages RAM.  I'm not sure what you mean by the space 
"available in virtual memory".  Are you thinking about page swapping again?

ChatGPT said:
Yeah, I was a bit unclear there. I guess I was trying to ask what happens if 
both RAM and the space used for page swapping are full. Like, can a program 
still run if it needs more memory than is available?



You said:
Again, we are talking about virtual memory.  Do you have a virtual memory 
question, or only a page swapping question?

ChatGPT said:
Good point! I see the distinction now. Let me rephrase my question to focus 
on virtual memory:

What happens if a program needs more memory than what virtual memory can 
provide? Does the system have a way to handle that situation?

Notice how I several times had to steer ChatGPT away from the very common confusion between virtual memory and page swapping and in the end it kept generating text about page swapping. I knew enough to know that this was misleading. A student in CIS 102 would probably trust that ChatGPT had the right information and come away with the idea that an explanation of virtual memory should be 2/3 about page swapping.

So, in general, if you would like to use a generative AI tool in this way, to help you study I have no problem with that, but this is your warning that it might be misleading you badly, and it is not a thinking being that can make meaningful decisions, it is just a text generator so if you learn something untrue or misleading from using it, that is on you.

What you are not allowed to do is turn in to me the output of a generative AI when I have asked for something you created (wrote, coded, etc). If you do, it is very likely to be the wrong result, either because it is simply wrong, or because it is answering a more complex question than the very simple things you are expected to learn in beginning computer courses, so it will be using words and ideas you probably don't know or understand, and I will know that if you did understand those ideas, you wouldn't need to be in an intro course.

Can I do a special project or other assignment for extra credit?

No.  Extra credit will not be offered that is not available to the whole class. 

Similarly, extra credit will not be offered on anything outside the class material.  (In other words, your ability to field-strip a PDP-11 is impressive but isn't worth any class credit.)

Can I have an extension on this assignment?

No.  Extra time will not be offered that is not available to the whole class.  Turn in as much as you did get done, for partial credit.

I lost something in the classroom, how do I find it again?

Anything turned in to me I will leave at the front of the classroom in the hope you will return soon to find it.  If it is not there, also check at the secretary's office for the building, and at the lost & found in the security office in the library.

The weather is bad! Is class cancelled?

HCC uses the AlertMe system to alert students when we are closed for weather, by email and/or phone -- whatever contact you give them. They're also usually pretty good at putting a banner across the HCC main page to announce closing, or you can call 443-412-2322 to check.

If we are open, I will hold class unless I can't get there, in which case I will probably send an email (unless the weather has also knocked out my power/internet...).

I was told shaking hands with my professors was a way to show respect and professionalism.  Can we shake hands?

Please don't.  Shaking hands is also a way to multiply the power of the college as a disease vector.  A fist bump is plenty respectful for me and less likely to exchange germs.

Hey! You used "they" as a singular pronoun!  That's incorrect grammar!  "They" is plural!

Thou art using "you" as a singular nominative! Fie! Did no one teach thee that "you" is an oblique plural?

So what are your pronouns?

I use I/me, I respond to ye/you/thou/thee. Everything beyond that is somebody else's problem.

How many hats have ye?

Approximately 53.  Not all of them get worn to class.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(better.  still plural tho'. )