- Aaron Brick, abrick@ccsf.edu
- M.I.M.S., Berkeley, 2005; B.S., Johns Hopkins, 2000
- Batmale Hall 462, office hours Thursday & Friday, 9:30 – 10:30
Assignments.Assignments are listed in the course calendar and syllabus and are always due Sunday night at midnight. Programs must operate correctly on the student server hills. Late assignments are not accepted. Source code or response text for each assignment must be submitted using the ~abrick/send program. Submissions that are relevant to the assignment prompt earn passing grades based on peer review rank. Students get two free passes: their lowest two homework scores are replaced by two perfect scores. See also Peer Review.
Canvas.The college provides a Learning Management System called Canvas for for online courses. We rely upon it for our discussion, announcements, and exams. All assignments and peer review take place on the student server. Canvas displays the same syllabus, calendar, and grade data published on my web site. This data is not integrated with Canvas's gradebook.
Caveats.All dates, scores, and texts published on this site are provisional. Please inquire if you think there may be an error.
Contact.I am always available to students by email and at my office hours. I generally respond to messages within three working days. You can make contact with me on LinkedIn when you pass one of my courses.
Enrollment.During the first two weeks of the semester, I offer add codes at my office to any students, wait listed or not, who need one. You are responsible for dropping yourself if you decide to leave the class.
Exam. The prompt for the written final exam is to thoroughly describe a certain piece of work. The exam period lasts five days. Exams are not peer reviewed. A model response is available afterwards. Late exams are not possible but early ones can be taken during office hours.
Extra Credit.To earn extra credit while enrolled in my class, propose to me an interesting or useful project you want to pursue. See also independent study.
Grades. Final grades are 45% each homework and peer review performance plus 10% final exam, one letter per decile. Your current grades and detailed comments on your work are published on this site through the semester.
Help.We all need help, all the time. Every course has group discussion in a classroom or an online forum. The Academic Computing Resource Center in Batmale Hall offers orientations and peer tutoring. You may always come to the instructor's office hours with your questions and without making an appointment.
In-person classes.Studying in person, on campus, means having more personal interaction and interchange with your peers and instructor. This context is conducive to group discussion, but requires class attendance at certain hours, which is logistically challenging for many students. The college's academic calendar cancels classes on certain days such that a week might go by with no class meeting happening. See also online classes.
Independent Study.I supervise independent study projects. They have to be useful, novel, and serious to be worth our time. Propose your project to me in person so that we can discuss it. See also extra credit. Here are some project ideas to get you started: a tally of the property taxes paid on each city block; a ranked-choice peer evaluation system; a model of the flight of a Frisbee; an improved search API for MediaWiki; a microtonal tilt audiogame; a long-running location detection app.
Online classes.Online study is a learning experience suited for self-starters and remote learners, including the same readings and assignments that your peers in an in-person class see. You will interact with the class community each week by reviewing completed programs and talking in a message forum. There is always an optional evening in-person orientation when the course begins, and no campus attendance is required. Online courses run every week during the semester. See also in-person classes.
Peer Review. Students collaborate to anonymously review each others' work for its clarity and correctness using the ~abrick/review tool. This mechanism exposes you to others' useful design ideas and offers you meticulous feedback on weekly assignments. The review consists of examining, comparing, critiquing, and ranking seven files of peer work from the previous week. See the Rules of Student Conduct for college rules. Your identity will not be revealed to your classmates if you do not include it in your submissions. One peer review per week earns full credit; additional reviews earn 10% more each. The long lines of a peer review file have two fields: the file code, and a specific, constructive commentary in complete sentences, which should be both supportive and critical. Mark any irrelevant or inappropriate submission with the special comment WTF.
Plagiarism.All students must do their own work. If you turn in plagiarized work, be prepared to receive a zero. See the Rules of Student Conduct.
Schedule. Every class week is named and contains resources or tasks. Begin with the assigned reading, and in an online class, read the Instructor’s Notes afterwards. Use class time or the class forum to clear up anything you found mysterious. Exercises and assignments are designed to be tackled using each week's own concepts and techniques.
Services. You will need to access the student Linux server hills.ccsf.edu using an ssh client. On Linux and Mac systems one is preinstalled with the name ssh. On Windows you can try PuTTY and on Android, ConnectBot; any alternative is fine. Your hills username is the same as your CCSF email name: up to eight characters long. Your initial password is based on your birthday and first and last initials, in the form jan0188.fl. Passwords will not be shown as you type them, and you will have to change the default right away. If you mean to connect wirelessly on campus, the network to use is CCSF Student.