CPTR 448W  Advanced Design and Development - Syllabus

August 28, 2007

 

Instructor:            Dr. Eileen M. Peluso, D307 Academic Center, Extension 4135

Email:                    pelusoem@lycoming.edu

Office hours:        See web page www.lycoming.edu/~pelusoem

Webpage:              WebCT page for CPTR 448 and e-Reserves http://lycoapps.lycoming.edu:8900

 

Objective:  This course will provide a Capstone experience for computer science students.  Drawing on experience gained from their computer science curriculum as well as writing and interpersonal skills gained throughout their academic careers, students will work in teams of 2 or 3 students to develop and document a real-world system.  Class lectures will provide theoretical techniques in the area of software engineering upon which the students will draw during the stages of system design and development.

 

This course is a W (writing intensive) course.  It has been approved by the Writing Committee and will satisfy part of your W graduation requirement.  Specifically, it means there are at least 10 pages of formal writing and at least 15 pages of informal writing.  Details of the writing component are given below.

 

Text: Stephen R. Schach, Object-Oriented and Classical Software Engineering, 7th edition, McGraw-Hill, 2007.

 

Additional material:  Selected readings available through Moodle from Richard Epstein, The Case of the Killer Robot, John Wiley and Sons, 1997. 

 

Grading: 

·         Take-home exams (3): 30%

·         Informal writing component / class participation / attendance: 15%

·         Project: 55%

·         Inception Phase presentation: 5%

·         Elaboration Phase presentation: 5%

·         Individual unit demonstration: 15%

·         Complete system and documentation: 20%

·         Evaluations: 10%

 

Grade scale: If you earn the following average, you will receive at least the grade indicated.

·         90 or above                   A-

·         80 – 89                            B-

·         70 – 79                            C-

·         60 – 69                            D-

·         59 or below                    F

 

Attendance Policy: Attendance signature sheets will be circulated at the beginning of each class period.  It is the student's responsibility to make sure that they have signed the day's attendance sheet.  It is also the student's responsibility to obtain details about any missed work, announcements, and any information disseminated during the missed classes. 

 

It is unfair to your teammates to miss class time.  When in-class team activities are skipped, you will likely miss out on details of the key components that will make up the team project.  Missing team meetings will significantly impair your team’s ability to function, and cutting class on a presentation day would be a significant hardship for the other team members.  Class attendance is a key component in “carrying your share of the load.”  As such, cutting classes will be reflected in the project quality (and hence the grades given at various stages of development) as well as your evaluations.

 

Remarks:  This course will require students to work collaboratively to a great extent. As with all students taking computer science courses, priority access to lab A3 from the hours of 7-10 PM on Sunday through Thursday evenings will be given.  It will be advantageous for team members to establish regular meeting times and places.

 

Informal writing component:  The informal writing component in this course has two parts.  After each regularly scheduled team meeting (see attached term planner), each team member will submit, as an email attachment, a meeting summary (MS Word, Times New Roman, 12 point, one-half page minimum, double-spaced).  It is to contain the following:

·         your name, date, and who attended

·         what was discussed in the meeting

·         what goals were set for each team member

·         any concerns you personally may have about the project, team, etc.

All email submissions will remain confidential.

 

The second informal writing component will focus on Richard Epstein’s The Case of the Killer Robot.  Small portions of the text, available online and/or on e-Reserve in the library, will be assigned as reading.  Along with the assignment, questions will be posted on the course web page’s bulletin board.  You are to submit answers to those questions on the bulletin board.


Informal writing component submissions will be graded on a 0 – 3 basis with a grade of 3 being “exceeded expected effort,” a 2 being “expected effort,” 1 being “below expected effort,” and a 0 for non-submissions.  Since these are informal, grades will not be based on grammar or punctuation, but rather on content (amount of thought put into it, appropriateness, relevance, etc.).  An average score of 2.00 on informal writing assignments will equate to an 85% on the grading scale.

 

Formal writing component:  The formal writing component in this course has two parts.  The first is in the form of system documentation consisting of a collection of artifacts.  As these are team deliverables, they will be produced collaboratively.  Although these documents fall under the broad category of technical writing, each will have a different audience.  As such, they will be significantly different.  The content and style of each will be discussed over the course of the semester.  Due dates can be found on the term planner, however corrections and additions, as well as changes that result from project implementation are to be incorporated and the documents will receive a final grade at the end of the semester.

 

The second part of the formal writing component consists of three take-home exams.  Most questions will be essay questions, and as formal writing they will be graded on form as well as content.