CS 112  Course Information

Course Overview

CS112 is an introduction to computer programming that provides valuable skills that will allow you to use computers effectively in scientific work, including in the natural and physical sciences, biological sciences, medicine, mathematics, psychology, and economics. You will learn to write software to solve problems, visualize and analyze data, perform computer simulations, and implement and test computational models that arise in a wide range of scientific disciplines. The course introduces MATLAB, a powerful and widely used technical computing environment with advanced graphics, visualization and analysis tools, and a rich high-level programming language.

More specifically, you will learn computer programming skills that are valuable for carrying out computational tasks such as the following:

• creating two-dimensional and three-dimensional graphical displays of data
• performing statistical analyses of data
• solving equations
• fitting functions to data
• implementing models to solve problems
• performing simulations of physical processes and models
• processing textual or symbolic data
• processing one-dimensional signals and two-dimensional images that arise in scientific applications
• building graphical user interfaces to programs

Prerequisites: None. No prior programming experience is expected.
Distribution Credit: Students can receive Mathematical Modeling distribution credit for one 100-level Computer Science course: CS110, CS111, CS112, CS199
Units: 1.0

Instructors

Feel free to come to either of us for help. Faculty meetings and seminars sometimes conflict with scheduled office hours, so we will keep you informed each week about changes in our office hours.

Sharon Kotz will be the tutor for CS112 this spring. Sharon will hold weekly drop-in hours on Thursday evenings from 6-8pm in room SCI 160A, starting the second week of the semester.

Class Meetings

There are two 70-minute lectures each week on Tuesday/Friday at 9:50-11:00 in SCI 264. In addition, students must register for and attend a weekly 110-minute laboratory section. There are two laboratory sections to choose from, on Wednesday 10:30-12:20 or 2:15-4:10 in SCI 160A. The lectures will introduce the main content of the course. The lab classes provide hands-on experience with new material through group work and individual programming exercises, and also provide an opportunity to address questions related to assignments and exams.

Textbook and Other Resources

The following required textbook is available at the Wellesley College Bookstore:

A copy of the textbook and additional books on MATLAB are available in SCI 160A, including the following reference book:

Hanselman, Duane & Littlefield, Bruce (2005) Mastering MATLAB 7.

Please do not remove any books from SCI 160A!

Grading

Your final grade will be based on a weighted average of the following components:

All submitted work will be counted toward your final grade.

Exams

There will be two in-class exams, both open book and open notes, scheduled on the following dates:

Please mark these dates in your calendar, and let us know as soon as possible if you have a scheduling conflict. There will be no final exam in this course.

Assignments

Weekly assignments will help you develop a working knowledge of the concepts presented in class. Assignments will typically be distributed in Lab on Wednesday and due on Friday of the following week, and will include exercises that you will begin in Lab, as well as extended programming problems. Some assignments will also include questions about MATLAB that you will explore through online and print documentation sources. Assignment handouts will be posted in the course syllabus. You should always submit both a hardcopy of your assignment solutions and a softcopy (i.e., electronic copy) of all of your code to the appropriate drop folder. More detailed instructions for submitting assignments will be presented in Lab and included on each assignment.

Many of the extended programming problems will be challenging. Please keep in mind that programming often consumes more time than you think it will. Start your assignments early so that you have time to think about the problems and ask questions if you hit an impasse. Also keep in mind that computers and networks do break down, and you may sometimes need to wait for available computers or an available copy of the MATLAB software. Please plan accordingly!

Final Project

During the last few weeks of the semester, you will have the opportunity to work on an extended, individualized programming project in an area of interest to you. After choosing an interesting application or problem, you will design and build a substantial MATLAB program from scratch. This project will enable you to integrate all of the programming and problem-solving skills that you have learned, and to build a program that is connected to your particular interests in the sciences. During the last lab class of the semester, each student will give a short presentation about her project. The final project will be due at the end of the Final Exam period.

Late Assignment Policy

All assignments are due in class on the advertised due date, which will usually be a Friday. An assignment due on a particular day will be accepted until 5:00pm on that day without penalty. After the due date, the assignment can still be submitted, but will lose 20% credit for each calendar day after the due date. In extenuating circumstances (e.g. sickness, personal crisis, family problems), you may request an extension without penalty. Please try to contact an instructor before the due date.

Collaboration Policy

It is never acceptable to present someone else’s work as if it were your own. This violates the basic principles of academic honesty. Unless explicitly instructed otherwise, assume all work you hand in is to be yours and yours alone. While you are working on a homework assignment, you may collaborate with other students by talking about the problem or your solution in a natural language like English, but you should not be looking at another student’s code and you should not show your programs to another student. You are encouraged to use the course FirstClass conference to discuss assignment problems, but the same rules apply: discussions should be in English and should not include code that is part of the problem solution.

When you turn in an assignment, you must list other students with whom you collaborated. Academic honesty requires this. If you are not sure what constitutes collaboration, err on the side of caution. You may consult public literature (books, articles, the web, etc.) for hints, techniques and solution strategies, but you must reference any sources that contribute to your solution.

When you use a public computer, save your work, remove the local copy when you are done, and log out. If you find someone else has forgotten to log out, then log them out without looking at any files or work in open windows. Please do not leave printouts of assignment solutions at public printers.

Software

MATLAB 7.0 is available on all Wellesley public computers, including both Macs and PCs. Installation CD’s are available at the Knapp Media Center that can be used to install MATLAB onto personal computers (Macs or PCs) for use on the campus network. For more information about this option, see the Wellesley Desktop Computing webpage. The MATLAB software is key-served, so there are a limited number of copies that can be used at one time. Please be sure to exit MATLAB when you are done using it! A student version of MATLAB can also be purchased at the journeyEd website for $100 (type MATLAB into the search box at the top right).

Specific course software can be downloaded and uploaded to and from personal computers using Fetch (for Macs) and WinSCP (for PCs). We will introduce you to these programs in class, and more information is available at the the Wellesley Desktop Computing webpage. Course software is stored on the CS department file server called puma , described at the CS112 file server page. Each student will have an individual account on puma that can be requested by submitting an electronic account request form. This form is only accessible from the campus network.

FirstClass

The class conference on FirstClass is Wellesley Conferences/Courses/CS/CS112-S08. There are two folders of interest in the conference: Announcements and Q&A. You should check these folders regularly. In the Announcements folder, the instructors will post important announcements about assignments, changes to office hours, and CS department events such as seminars and parties. You are encouraged to post questions or comments in the Q&A folder that are of general interest to students in the course. Feel free to respond to questions posted by other students. In addition, the instructors will read this folder on a regular basis and post answers to questions found there. This is a good place to find people to join a study group or ask questions about the course or about homework (please do not post MATLAB code here — homework discussions should be at a high-level English description).

Finding Help

If you have any questions at all about the class (whether big or small, whether on lectures, labs, assignments, reading, or whatever) please contact one of the instructors. That's what we're here for! Simple questions can often be answered via the FirstClass conference Q&A folder or via e-mail. When sending e-mail questions to an instructor, it is OK to cut-and-paste segments of MATLAB code into the body of the message. Questions of general interest (e.g. clarifying ambiguities in an assignment, wondering why posted programs do not work as expected) should be posted to the Q&A folder. If you have a complex question or need help in understanding the material, please try to meet with us in person. The best time to see us is during our scheduled office hours listed at the top of this document. If these times are not convenient, we can schedule an appointment for some other time. You can schedule an appointment in person, via phone, or via e-mail. Also remember to visit our CS112 tutor during her drop-in hours each week! Finally, when looking for help, do not overlook other students. Get to know your classmates early in the semester so that you can help each other out!

Students with Special Needs

If you have special needs of any kind, please meet with us to discuss accommodations that may be helpful to you.