ANNOUNCEMENTS

The course will be asynchronous, that is, instead of "attending" classes, you will watch pre-recorded lectures, read assigned material, and join online discussions. Course materials will be available on Blackboard starting September 8, 2020. During the assigned class time, you can join the Blackboard course room (an online session) to ask questions to the instructor or meet with your peers and have live discussions.

What is Blackboard?

• Blackboard is a web-based virtual learning environment. You can access course materials, join discussion boards, keep track of your grades, and attend the virtual course room.

How do I login to Blackboard?

• Visit the login page at http://umb.umassonline.net and log in with your UMass Boston email user name (not including the "@umb.edu") and password.

How do I login to the Blackboard course room?

Once you are on Blackboard, select CS 187. Then, select Blackboard Collaborate Ultra from Tools. The course room is an open Collaborate session dedicated to the course. You can join this session any time. Select the session name and Join Course Room to join the session. This generates a unique link to help the session identify you. For more information, visit https://help.blackboard.com/Collaborate/Ultra/Participant/Join_Sessions/Blackboard_Learn

For Blackboard help:

• https://www.umb.edu/elearning/tools/blackboard/support

• https://help.blackboard.com/Learn/Student

Syllabus

DESCRIPTION

This is the first course of a two-semester sequence, two credits each semester. Successful completion of the sequence will fulfill the student's First-Year Seminar requirement. Course content during the first semester will focus on understanding various facets of Computer Science (CS) and how it relates to our lives. Students will be introduced to different concepts of CS, read and discuss articles, implement, and present small projects. Students will become increasingly familiar with and experienced in scientific discourse, scientific methods, and scientific communication.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

This Freshman Seminar Course, in the College of Science and Mathematics, is organized along a theme of inquiry-based learning for students and faculty. Each participant has a role in understanding topics that are prevalent in the scientific community along with developing new information that might form the basic science investments of the future. Students will be co-developers of this freshman seminar series that will be based primarily on inquiry-based science education. Desired outcomes will focus on students’ developing discovery skills, becoming self-driven learners, learning to work in groups, and being successful at the university. This course will maximize students’ potential for success in the university and the scientific community. Grading will be based on class participation, written papers, and projects.

GRADING

Participation: Responses to lecture questions and Blackboard discussions (30%)

For each lecture, participation will be in one of the following ways:

• The instructor will upload pre-recorded videos with interactive quizzes, and the students will be expected to answer a few questions about the lecture.

• Students will be assigned an article or a video for which they will submit their reflection on the discussion board and follow up on another student's reflection.

Midterm Exam: Take-home analysis paper (30%)

The midterm exam will be a take-home paper between 3 and 5 pages long. This paper will provide in-depth analysis and synthesis of 2 or more news articles. At least one of the articles must be one that we discussed in class. This paper will be submitted on Blackboard. It should be in Times New Roman font, with 1.25” margins, double-spaced.

Final Project: Individual website development (40%)

Students will design a website to showcase their academic and/or personal development. This may be achieved by HTML and CSS coding. The students may choose whether or not to host the site live on the internet; static files hosted locally are also acceptable.

Late Submission Policy

Any unexcused work received past the due date will receive a deduction on the following scale:

• Less than 1 day late: 10 points

• More than 1 day late: 20 points * number of days.

So, an assignment with an original grade of 100 will receive 90 if it is submitted a few hours later than the deadline, 80 if it is submitted the next day (>24 hrs past deadline) until it receives no credit after the 5th day.

Academic Integrity and Cheating Policy

Any student submitting somebody else’s work as their own, or copying their own old work (whole or in part) to a new submission, will receive a grade of 0 for the assignment and potentially the entire course. In particularly drastic cases, plagiarism can lead to expulsion from the University. The instructor will not tolerate dishonesty and make no exceptions to this policy. Please protect yourself and the instructor from this unpleasant business by being honest and submitting only your own work. It is perfectly acceptable to cite and quote other authors, but you must clearly identify these parts as citations or quotes. If you do use quotes, you will be graded on your own synthesis, not on the quality of the work you are citing or quoting. Assignments with evidence of plagiarism cannot be resubmitted.

Students are required to adhere to the University Policy on Academic Standards and Cheating, to the University Statement on Plagiarism and the Documentation of Written Work, and to the Code of Student Conduct which is available online at: https://www.umb.edu/life_on_campus/policies/academics/academic_honesty

Disabilities

Section 504 of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 offers guidelines for curriculum modifications and adaptations for students with documented disabilities. If applicable, students may obtain adaptation recommendations from the Ross Center for Disability Services, M1401 (617-287-7430). The student must present these recommendations and discuss them with each professor within a reasonable period, preferably by the end of Drop/Add period.