CTS 2106 General Notes

Method of participation:

CTS 2106 is offered in a two formats:

• Classroom - Face-to-Face (or "F2F") participation in regularly scheduled classroom meetings.
• Internet - Online participation, requiring no attendance except for proctored exams.

Typically, Professor Gibson allows students registered in an Internet section to attend any of his F2F sessions provided that there is space in the room. However F2F students have priority access to the limited number of computers available in the classroom during those meetings.

All methods of participation typically make use of the college's to submit assigned work, take assessments, and communicate with your instructor. Many instructors also employ additional web-based resources to post notes, study guides and practice exercises. Professor Gibson posts such materials on his own web site at:

In case of access problems, he also maintains a backup (duplicate) of this web site at:

The can serve as a main portal to all of these sites, as they all contain links to each other. You are advised to frequently review the posted class syllabus for your section of the course to ensure that you have not forgotten any important course requirements and to view the class schedule of textbook and online readings, assignments, and assessment dates.

Hardware and Software Issues:

• IMPORTANT NOTE: Students are not required to buy any hardware or software for this course! Linux is free, and a distribution of it comes bundled with your textbook on a DVD. However, that disc is only one of many options for accessing Linux in this course. Read the instructor's web page describing Linux access options available for this course before taking any action regarding hardware or software. If you have any questions after reading the recommend page, contact your instructor.
• Linux runs on many hardware platforms, so you sould be able to find a distribution that will run on almost any computer you might have, or on a USB memory stick.

How to learn in this course:

The amount of time each student spends studying course material is dependent on the skills, experience, and learning styles of each student. You are encouraged to explore and employ a combination of the following learning methods:

• Students enrolled in Face-to-Face sections of the course are expected to attend each full class meeting to observe classroom demonstrations and participate in discussions of course content and are STRONGLY encouraged to take notes in class. The act of writing concepts down helps you to remember them. You are welcome to use a voice recorder for this purpose if you prefer. Re-writing and reorganizing your notes helps you to set the concepts firmly in your mind.
• Read the textbook(s) and try to reproduce textbook examples until you develop proficiency using the software. One way to determine proficiency is to set a personal design goal and then see if you can accomplish it. Understand that the course projects represent just a bare minimal amount of practice needed to recognize new concepts. Practice is required to master them.
• Explore and use the multitude of Supplemental Reading Online related to the the chapter(s) being covered in class each week.
• Review the exam study guide posted on the class web site and ask any questions at the class review.

F2F Students: When working on hands-on exercises and projects:

• Remember that the objective of these is to gain knowledge and experience. It is not to simply get through each one as quickly as possible. First read about the steps that you are about to perform. Then try them. Then stop and consider what you've learned.
• You might discover that the computers in our classrooms and labs are configured differently than other computers that you use to practice. Therefore, you may find that some of the exercises in the book do not work on college computers. If this happens, you will have to adapt to the situation and derive what you can from the experience.
• Although the author has gone to great lengths to eliminate any errors in his textbook, you might encounter one occasionally. If you think that you have, review your previous steps and try them again. If they still don't seem to work, record the problem in your notes and skip ahead to the next steps that do seem to work.
• Please restrict your printing. Let's save some trees.
• When practicing or working on a project away from home, be careful to save your work on your own storage media rather than on a remote computer. Storage locations such as the "Documents" folder are on Fixed Disk (C:) on the college computer and are likely to be written over by other students during other class sessions. If you do save your file to folder on a college computer, remember to copy them to your own media (such as a USB Memory stick) before you leave class. If you do not have any media with you, copy your work to the free [WindowsLive^™ SkyDrive^®] or use a free Web-based email service (such as [Gmail^®] or [Hotmail^®]) to send a copy of your work to yourself. If you need to attach more than one file to an email, then you should copy them into a compressed ("zipped") archive and attach it instead.
• F2F students: Don't forget to separately switch-off the monitor screen of your computer system when you are done. It does not turn off automatically with the processor.

Course Textbook

The textbook serves as a framework for the course curriculum and bare minimal reading. Students are expected to also make use of the plentiful online tutorial and reference resources such as those listed on the Supplemental Reading Online page and the Linux Resources on the Internet page.

Online Web Resources

Two primary web sites will be used in this course:

• One belongs to your instructor. It can be found on the Web at . It contains reference material related to the course that is used both by distance learning students and F2F students in a typical computer classroom setting. The page that you are now reading resides on that site. An emergency duplicate of the instructor's site has also been established in case the first site is inaccessible. It can be found at . Students are advised to bookmark both sites in their web browser software's Favorite Places list. For help with this, see the web page "HowTo: Find your way back to valued locations on the Web".
• The other primary web site belongs to the college. The college located at provides an online "virtual classroom" (or "eLearning environment") to allow students to access college and course resources 24 hours-a-day via the Internet. It contains links to the instructor's web site, a course calendar, a closed email system, and a discussion forum to allow student-to-student/teacher interaction. The system also provides online quiz capabilities and student grade reporting features.

Interaction

Because the college prefers that all classes be delivered through a common system, your instructor has linked many of the instructional resources on his web site to the college online server, which is controlled by a software package named As such, students will encounter frequent links between the college online server and pages on the instructor's web server. These links are written in such a way that they open a new browsing window to view the alternate site, leaving the starting site in the original window for easy return.

Student Access

Every student registered in this course is given an account on the . Accounts are established for students on this server automatically based on their college course registration information. Students who register late or add a course should expect a delay (of a day or two) before their account is active. Instructions related to accessing these password-protected web-based accounts can be found on the page. This page includes instructions for contacting IRSC support personnel for assistance using the system. If you need assistance with course content rather than using the online server, contact your instructor instead.

Student Activities Online Using the Virtual Classroom

Students should login to the regularly to perform class activities and check for messages from their instructor. After logging in, students should see a list of links to the home pages for each IRSC course that they are taking that has a page on the server. Typically, a student will click on the link to a course to retrieve its home page. All of the features mentioned above will be accessible from a simple menu of icons representing system features (called "course tools") displayed on along the top of that home page.

Understand that each instructor defines which features will be available in each class, so you might notice differences from other online classes. Web-based help is available from any screen by clicking on the "?" (question mark) icon located on the left side of the screen.

Attendance (for Face-to-Face Students Only)

The has a system for tracking student attendance based on their entry of a PIN code announced by the instructor during each class session. You should login to the Course page on the and enter the PIN code in the Attendance textbox at the bottom of the page. If you fail to record your attendance or miss class, contact your instructor.

Email

One of the major advantages of using the online server for communication between students and instructors is offered by its closed email system. Only users' accounts on the online system can send and receive email. This effectively eliminates spam (unwanted clutter or junk mail). It also restricts users from receiving any mail from outside of the online system. The fact that everyone uses the same Web-based email system makes it easier to provide technical support to users. As such, all email sent to you by your instructor will be sent via the online server (unless it is "down" for some reason). Similarly, you are requested to send all email related to this course to your instructor via the Communicate tab on the rather than to his college email address (unless the online server is inaccessible). Whenever new unread email is waiting for a student, a icon will appear under the course link on the Home screen. Any unread message subject titles will appear listed in boldface.

Course Calendar

The normally includes a calendar tool that instructors can populate with assignment deadlines and quiz dates. In Professor Gibson's courses, the "Calendar" tab at the top of the screen servers as a link to a complete course schedule accessible through the Syllabi and Schedules page on his web site.

Discussion Forums

The provides a group conferencing tool that it refers to as "Discussion Forums" similar to an old electronic bulletin board system (BBS). It allows class participants (students and instructor) to post questions or comments that can be viewed by all other participants. Readers can either post public replies or email private ones to the authors. This tools allows "threads" of discussion to take place, based on each original message posted. The posted threads are organized into a few named groups called "forums" that will be used in our class for different purposes as follows:

• Instructor's Notes to Students - used by your instructor to post class announcements or notes intended for all students. Replies are not expected, but will be accepted if students want clarification.
• Question & Answer Forum - used by students to ask questions of the instructor that might benefit the entire class. This topic acts like the typical classroom forum for questions and answers available in most F2F classrooms. Students should check this area regularly to see if any answers have been posted that would benefit them.
• Required Postings - Students registered in Internet (Online Only) Sections will see this additional forum in which your instructor will post messages that must be answered as a minumum requirement for passing the course. Due dates for these required posting activities will be listed in the course schedule.
• Other topics (discussion groups) may be added as necessary or requested, so watch for them.

Whenever new unread discussion messages are posted, a icon will appear under the course link on the Home screen. After a student has entered a Discussion forum, new unread message subject titles will appear listed in boldface.

Projects

Course projects are described in detail on the instructor's web site and are accessible from either the or the course home page or the Course Schedule section of your course syllabus. You are expected to have developed proficiency using the course software prior to attempting each project by practicing the textbook examples from the related chapter(s). The includes screen objects called "drop box" that can be used to access each project's instructions and to submit any required files. The project drop boxes are listed under the Lessons tab within your course page. Step-by-step directions for using Angel drop boxes can be found at:
http://howto/onlinesubm.html. See the course projects page for instructions related to submitting class projects.

Assessments

The manner and schedule of assessments (quizzes and/or exams) will depend on each student's method of participation in the course. (See above). Assessment results are typically posted the following day.

Classroom (F2F) or Blended Class Students:

All assessments will be taken online using the in the classroom on the day indicated on the Course Schedule and can be found listed under the Lessons tab on that server's course pages. Students may not use any study aids during assessments except for a single sheet of 8.5"x 11" cut paper contain notes on both sides, which must be signed and submitted with the exam papers.

Internet (Online Only) Students:

Quizzes will be available online using the on the days indicated on the Course Schedule and can be found listed under the Lessons tab on that server's course pages. Because the quizzes will have a time limit, students are encourage to prepare a few sheets of paper notes to refer to while taking the quiz, rather than wasting time searching the textbook or Web while taking the assessment.

The final exam will be administered by proctors at an on the campus indicated by the student in an initial contact email sent to the instructor the first week of class. The exams are not open-book, but students are allowed to use a single sheet of 8.5"x 11" cut paper contain notes on both sides, which must be signed and submitted to the exam proctor after the exam.

Students must know their usernames and passwords to take each assessment and should have successfully logged into the server at least once before taking the first assessment. Be sure that you set aside enough time to take each quiz in one sitting, as you will have only one attempt. There is typically a 90 minute time limit on each quiz. If you have not taken an online assessment using Angel before, you are advised to review the "Taking an Assessment" section of the Angel Student Reference Guide at:

     http://elearnhelp.irsc.edu/sramos/Student_Guides/pdf/Taking%20an%20Assessment.pdf

During each quiz availability period, click on the Lessons tab and select (click on) the title of the assessment (such as "Quiz 1" to open a new window containing the quiz. Review this window and click on the button labeled Begin Now. NOTE: You must have pop-up blockers disabled in you web browser to take an assessment. Because the assessment has a time limit, you will first see a screen advising you of this. Click the Continue button to proceed. A new window will open displaying each question one-at-a-time. Maximize this window. For each question, select the best answer by clicking in the circular radio push button in front of it AND then press the Next > button below that question. You will be able to back up to view previously answered questions until your quiz is submitted. When you have answered all of the questions, press the button labeled Submit found at the bottom of the window.

Don't worry if technical difficulties arise. We will deal with them. Be sure to notify me immediately if you have any problems. Most students say that the quiz interface is fairly easy to understand and use.

Checking Grades

To view grades in Angel:

1. Click on the Report tab.
2. Find the Category drop-list under the Choose Report area and select: Grades
3. Click the Run button in the lower right-hand corner.

A report showing all assignment and assessment scores should appear. Quiz scores should appear automatically after the quiz period has expired, but the system does occassionally require manual attention by the instructor. So, if your quiz score has not appeared shortly after the end of the quiz period, notify your instructor.

Account Termination

The high storage demand required on the online server each semester might require the college to terminate class accounts near the end of the standard college final exam period (which can be found listed on the ). It is important that you complete end-of-term assignments and preserve (print or copy) any information that you want from the server before this time.

You are advised to review this page periodically to avoid mistakes and maintain effective control over your online course. For more information, contact your instructor.