MWF 10:30-11:20    Plassman 100

Lab section:  W 1-3 or 3-5   DeLaRoche 123

Instructor: David Levine

Office: DeLaRoche 103

Phone: 375-2598

Email: dlevine@cs.sbu.edu

Office Hours: M 1-2, T 2-3, W 8:30-9:30, Th 9-10, F 11:30-12:30, and by appointment  

Text: David A. Patterson and John L. Hennessy, Computer Organization and Design – The Hardware/Software Interface, 2nd Edition, Morgan Kaufmann, ISBN 1-55860-428-6. 
 

Computer Science 231 introduces the student to the lower level abstractions upon which the field of computer science is based.  These include data representations, assembly language, hardware organization, and elementary circuit design.  Through a series of lab and homework exercises, students will become familiar with the standard implementations of each of these topics as well as with how they relate to concepts covered in previous courses. 

As mature college students, it is expected that all class members can make reasonable decisions about attending lectures, i.e. what constitutes a legitimate excuse for missing class.  Roll will not be taken in lecture (after the roster has stabilized), but students are reminded that a portion of their grade is determined by their participation during class. 

In ALL cases, if a student misses class or lab, it is the student's responsibility (and not the instructor's) to learn about pending work and to make arrangements for the timely submission of any assignments. 
 

Lab is held every week.  The laboratory exercises will be varied in nature, but you must be present at your assigned time each week.  Attendance at laboratory sessions is mandatory; it is not sufficient to complete the exercises in your room or at any other location/time.  Write-ups from a given lab are generally due in class on the Monday following the exercise.  You are allowed one absence from lab.  Each absence beyond the first one will result in a deduction of one half letter grade from the final average for the course.  Labs may be completed either individually or in pairs, but see the special note on final grades below.  

Note that there will be no lab (or class) on October 4 as that is St. Francis Feast Day.

The final grade will be determined by a combination of three items: performance on examinations, performance on written assignments, and performance in class.  In particular, there will be two exams during the semester as well as a comprehensive final exam.  Written assignments will consist primarily of problems assigned from the text as well as laboratory exercises.  Performance in class is a measure of the degree of engagement of a student as well as how much he or she contributes to the course.  (Note that the latter rating includes attendance as one component.)  The final grade will be determined approximately as follows: 

Special Final Grade Note: To pass the course, a student must have an overall passing average AND a passing average on that work that was completed individually (as opposed to collaboratively).

The final exam is Saturday, December 16 at 8:00 a.m., and will be comprehensive.  The bulk of the final will be of an "in-class" nature, but there will be some questions released in advance.

The department’s policies on collaboration are spelled out in its Academic Practices and Policies document. Unless you are otherwise informed, you may assume that homework exercises (i.e. non-lab assignments) are given under the following guidelines:

Individual Projects With Limited Collaboration. In particular, you may discuss the assignment and concepts related to the assignment with the following persons, in addition to an instructor in the course: any St. Bonaventure University student enrolled in CS 231, and any other person specifically approved by your instructor. You may use the following materials produced by other students: NONE.

  In addition, if you do collaborate with anyone other than the instructor, there must be a note to that effect (including the names of any individuals with whom you collaborated) at the top of the solution you turn in. 

Late work will be accepted without penalty only under unusual circumstances.  In general, if work is received the day that it was due, but after the deadline, the penalty will be 10%.  Work received on subsequent days will be penalized at a rate of 25% per day, subject to a maximum penalty of 75%.  Work over two weeks late will not be graded at all, however.

The goal of CS 231 is to introduce you to a variety of topics related to computer organization.  The syllabus will be revised if student performances indicate that core material is not being learned well.  With that in mind, a rough idea of the plan for the semester is given below: