C I S   4 1  -  Summer, 2002

                  INTRODUCTION TO COMPUTER INFORMATION SYSTEMS

TEXT:

Shelly, Cashman, & Vermaat: Discovering Computers 2002 (Brief): Concepts for a Digital World- Custom Edition (includes:  Parsons et al: Microsoft Windows 98 Brief;  Zimmerman et al: Microsoft Word 2000 Brief;  Parsons et al: Microsoft Excel 2000 Brief;  Zimmerman et al: Microsoft PowerPoint 2000 Brief;   (The package also includes a FREE guide for users who are switching from Office 2000 to Office XP.  The work of the class, however, assumes you are using and will become knowledgeable about Office 2000, not Office XP).  The ISBN for the whole package is: 0-619-17601-6.  There are other instructors' packages in the Bookstore that look very similar to ours but are not identical.  Please be sure to check the ISBN before you buy your package.  This will save you having to stand in more long lines to try to exchange your package for the correct one.

OTHER REQUIRED MATERIALS:

4 Form 882 Scan-Tron Answer Sheets   (NOTE: Keep your Scan-Trons in a place where they will not get wrinkled, folded, or torn.  A Scan-Tron that is not flat, smooth, and untorn, especially at the edges, may result in the destruction of the form instead of a score.  Please treat Scan-Trons with care!)

8 Form 815 Scan-Tron Answer Sheets  (Do NOT get the ones printed in brown!)

A #2 Pencil and a pen

7 Blank Floppy Disks - 3.5", High-Density (1.44 MB) + Stick-On Labels for Floppy Disks

INSTRUCTOR:  Ed Poindexter

CLASS HOURS & LOCATIONS:

Lecture: 0900 - 1105 Mondays through Thursdays - Room B-201 (10 AND 20 Groups)

Labs:     1110 - 1230 - Room GE-118, aka the Title III Lab, or the T3 Lab, or even the TSC (Technology Skills Center).   10 Group has Lab on Mondays and Wednesdays - 20 Group has Lab on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
(10 Group Lab formally ends at 1220, but feel free to stay until 1230 if you wish.)

OFFICE HOURS AND LOCATION:

There are no official office hours during the Summer Session.  I will, however, be glad to meet with you by appointment at a mutually convenient time.

TELEPHONES:

Open Labs - B6 Lab: (408) 288-3752     B4 Lab: (408) 298-2181 X3581     B7 Lab: 298-2181 X3826   Title III Lab-GE-118: 298-2181 X3951

Instructor's 24-Hour Voice Mail - (408) 298-2181 X3978
PLEASE DO NOT CALL JUST TO SAY YOU WON’T BE IN CLASS!

E-MAIL:
My e-mail address is:   cis41u02@mindspring.com

WEBSITE:

I will be maintaining a Class Website for communication with the class at the following URL:

supremo.tripod.com

This is my only means of communicating with all students in between class meetings.  All students can access this site from the GE-118 Lab, or, during Open Lab hours, from any of the Open Labs, or from any computer that has a Web Browser and an Internet connection.  It will be assumed that you keep yourself aware of the contents of this site.  To do this, you should check it at least once a day for changes and/or additions that may affect you.  Make watching for updates a regular habit!!

THINGS YOU SHOULD DO:

1.   An important aspect of this course is your ability to gain competency in performing a variety of common tasks involving several different kinds of software.  It will therefore be to your advantage to be able to use Lab computers during the “Open Lab” hours that are scheduled during the semester.  In order to do this, however, you MUST be registered in CIS 200.  Having a computer at home or at work may be helpful, but the experience of many other students in classes before you is that home or work computers, by themselves, will not be enough to let you gain the competencies you need for this course.

2.   Please familiarize yourself with the College's policy on attendance.  You can read the policy in the Schedule of Classes on Page G-4.

If, for any reason, you decide that you no longer want to continue the course, it is ultimately YOUR responsibility to go to the Admissions & Records Office and complete the necessary paperwork to drop the course formally.  Failure to do this can result in a grade of ‘F’ appearing on your transcript.    

3.   A detailed record of your performance throughout the course will be available on the Web both during the semester and after the course ends.  Your privacy will be protected by a Secret Word so that others will not be able to identify which scores are yours, unless, of course, you tell other people what your Secret Word is.

If you have any questions about the grade you received, please contact me no later than the end of the second week of Fall Semester, 2002.  After that time I will no longer have any of your original work that was collected during this semester.

GRADING:

Letter grades are based on the number of points that you accumulate by the end of the course.  The minimum expected elements on which grades are based are:
1)  A Midterm Exam worth 100 points;
2)  A written Final Exam worth 200 points;
3)  2 Hands-On (i.e., sitting at the computer) Final Exams (one for Word 2000 and one for Excel 2000) worth 100 points each.
These expected activities add up to a possible 500 points for the course.  Both the Midterm and Final Exams may be made up of multiple-choice and short-answer questions based on the text and lab assignments, including any Internet-based assignments, specifically given to you by the instructor.  There will also be questions based on material presented during the Lecture sections.

Practice tests will be made available to you during the semester so that you can assess your own progress and judge for yourself when you are ready to take the Exams for a grade, which may be done anytime after June 24th.  Read the next paragraph for details. The last date on which you can take the Midterm Exam will be Thursday, July 11th. The last date on which you can take the Final Exam will be Thursday, July 25th. The last dates for the Hands-On Word 2000 Final Exam will be July 17th (10 Section only) and July 18th (20 Section only).  The last dates for the Hands-On Excel 2000 Final Exam will be July 22nd (10 Section only) and July 23rd (20 Section only). 

I am providing an option for those who, because of previous experience or education, might want to take their Exams as early as after June 24th.  To do this, you will need to discuss with me the reasons that you think you are ready to take the Exams early.  You must take all four Exams (the Midterm, the 2 Hands-On Exams, and the Final Exam, in that order) within 5 lecture class days from the time you take the Midterm Exam.  You must give me at least 3 lecture class days' advance notice before you take the first of the four Exams.  If you take the Exams early, you should understand that you will be given each Exam only once for your grade, so you should be sure you are well prepared before committing yourself.  Appointments for taking early Exams will be arranged at our mutual convenience.

No makeup exams will be given after the last date listed above for any of the expected exams.  If you know you will not be able to take an expected exam, be sure to make arrangements with me beforehand, not afterward. 

Bonus point opportunities will be made available at my discretion during the semester.  These may take various forms, including, but not limited to:  announced and unannounced ("pop") quizzes, group work projects, an examination of computer work which you have saved on your floppy disks, or, in some cases, student-designed projects.  Announced activities leading to bonus point credit will be posted on the Class Website at least one class day before they occur.  No makeups will be given for any of the bonus activities.

Letter grades will be awarded according to the following schedule based on the sum of all (i.e., "expected" PLUS "bonus") points earned:

A = 450-500    B = 400-449    C = 300-399    D = 250-299    F = 0-249

AIMS OF THE COURSE:

This course is a transfer-level course intended for the beginner.  It is a chance for you to gain an introductory foundation in CIS which will permit you to build further skills and expertise if you choose to continue learning more about computers in more advanced courses.  Even if you do not so choose, it will provide you with an understanding of the most essential vocabulary in the field as well as an introduction to elementary concepts in CIS as used in almost any business or organization which depends on managing information for its ongoing operations.

Because the technology surrounding computer work of all kinds is changing so fast, you can be sure that much of what you learn about specific hardware or software this semester may well be almost obsolete by next year or sooner.  My concern as your instructor will be to help you build the work habits that will help you in the future, no matter how hardware or software may change.  Some of the more important ones are:

a) to learn to attend to and follow written and/or oral instructions accurately;
b) to plan your time schedule effectively so that you don't take on more than you can do well;
c) to prioritize your activities so that those most important to you will be sure to get done first;
d) to make real contributions to your team when the members share responsibility for completing a job;
e) to learn to communicate with others effectively, both orally and in writing;
f) to take personal responsibility for getting the information that you need to accomplish your goals;
g) to deal with setbacks in an effective manner that permits improvement of your skills and abilities.

The above characteristics are not only the ones most frequently mentioned by area employers as being important when applicants are being considered for industry positions, but they also have been urged on us by an agency of the Federal Government (SCANS Competencies developed by the U.S. Secretary of Labor) as critical in preparing people for entering and remaining in the workforce successfully.

The importance of skill in 2-way communication via such tools as e-mail and the Internet (especially the World Wide Web, or WWW) will also be a substantial part of your learning in this course.  Your text and Lab Manuals will provide many opportunities for gaining skills in these areas.

As many of you know, CIS 41 is a prerequisite course for many of the courses in our Degree and Certificate Programs.  The reason for this is to try to establish a base of information that instructors of the more advanced courses can assume that you already know before you take their courses.  When this does not happen, those instructors must slow down the progress of their courses to try to get unprepared students "caught up" with the other students who have met the prerequisite requirements.  This situation is hardly fair to those students who have prepared themselves, since they must now be delayed because of students who are not prepared.  Also, because a class is slowed down when this happens, the prepared students often feel that they have lost valuable instructional time when the instructor tries to assist the unprepared students.  Obviously, this is an unhappy situation for the instructor and the students alike.

In an effort to reduce these problems, there are some specific "skill sets" which other instructors have identified as being important for students to have when they enter CIS classes beyond CIS 41.  These skill sets will be an important part of your work in this course.  A good deal of lecture material will be aimed at helping you to build your skill sets.

Because this is a transfer-level course, we must also meet the expectations of the 4-year institutions that the course will follow curricular standards consistent with the equivalent courses at such institutions.  These standards are embodied in our text materials and lab work.  Thus, by looking at the schedule of assignments listed below, you can see what topic areas are included in the standard curriculum.

STATEMENT OF PHILOSOPHY

The coming of computers and, especially, of the WWW, has drastically changed the model by which higher education is delivered.  For centuries, the instructor has been viewed as the essential source of knowledge for his/her students.  The instructor’s job was to communicate that knowledge to the students, just as the students’ job was to absorb that knowledge. 

To put things in perspective, one should consider that more new knowledge is generated in a single week than our ancestors would have been exposed to in their whole lives.  This rapid explosion of knowledge has an important after-effect: nobody will live long enough to learn all that there is to know about a single field, let alone many fields.  Even if one could, it is almost certain that the knowledge would have become obsolete long before it was all learned.

What does this mean in the classroom?  It means that students can no longer assume the instructor will know everything about the field he/she is teaching.  It is not unusual to find a few students who will be much more expert in some areas of computers than their instructors.  Thus, the instructor becomes more like a coach, helping you to find out what to do when you don’t know what to do.  It also means that you, as students, will, in large part, have to take more responsibility than ever before for your own learning.

The fact that you are here suggests that you want to learn.  Why do you?  Many reasons, I’m sure, but probably you want to improve yourself and get ahead financially.

If you are new to college, you’ll soon discover that college is very different from most high schools.  More is expected of you, the workload is greater, and more of what you learn will depend on your own efforts, since, unlike high school, you are not required to be here.  Being here is YOUR choice!  I hope you’ll make the best of it.  If you find that it is not for you at the present time, think about making some other choices that will save you money, time, and hassle now.  You may well find that you are more ready to handle your higher education at some later time in your life, when you are not as occupied with other concerns.  Some of my best students have been people in their 30's, 40's, or older, who discovered later in their lives what it was they really wanted to do for themselves educationally. 

Putting in your time, memorizing facts, and passing tests will not give you the benefits of an education, even if they might get you a degree.  Employers these days are not just looking for degrees.  They are looking for, and will pay good money to, people who can (a) solve problems, (b) take initiative, (c) work well with others, and (d) communicate effectively, both orally and in writing.  You’ve all heard the stories about people with a Ph.D. who are driving cabs, and people who dropped out of the first grade and made their first million by the time they reached junior high school age.  Let’s get real!  The odds that you will be one of the unlucky Ph.D.’s or one of the lucky dropout millionaires are very slim.  The averages tell a very different story: college-educated people earn nearly twice as much over their lifetimes as do those with only a high school education.

Besides the money, consider this: a career you’ve chosen will usually be far more personally rewarding to you than a job you were forced to take just to survive!  Don’t get me wrong - there’s nothing wrong with flipping burgers - IF that is your choice.  I just hope you will make sure that, if you flip, it IS your choice and not something that you felt forced to do because you found no alternative that you would have liked better.  Read the papers and newsmagazines - high paying industry jobs, especially in manufacturing, have been dwindling for some years.  On the other hand,  low-paying service jobs and high-paying technological jobs during the same period galloped ahead.  Although there have been some declines because of the bursting of the dot-com bubble and the 9/11 attacks, the signs are hopeful that there will be many more new jobs in the high-tech area, especially in security and bio-informatics areas,  sometime in the next couple of years. 

The world is getting more complicated by the minute, and the high-tech is getting even higher by the minute as well.  This is your chance to prepare for tomorrow’s reality.  Whether that reality is attractive or ugly will, in many respects, depend on what YOU did (or did not do) to get ready for it.  I wish you all the best in your efforts toward success.

C I S   4 1 - TENTATIVE Schedule - Summer, 2002