CSCI 330: Unix Operating System
Course Syllabus, Spring 2007

Course Description (catalog)

An in-depth laboratory course in the UNIX operating system. Applications to a wide variety of problems in computer science. Extensive laboratory work.

CSCI 330 is an introduction to the UNIX operating system. In this course, you will become familiar with working under the UNIX environment. You will also learn UNIX user-level commands, UNIX file system and special utilities such as grep, egrep, sed and awk. In addition, you will write programs using the C shell and the Bourne shell.

Course Prerequisite

Undergraduates must have completed at least one of the following courses:

CSCI 230 - Computer Programming in FORTRAN, or
CSCI 240 - Computer Programming in C, or
CSCI 250 – Computer Programming in COBOL.

Texts

Attendance/Class Participation

You are responsible for all material presented in class and during recitation. During some of the lectures, your instructor will log onto either the mp or the ux machine to perform command demonstrations. Occasionally, your instructor will record the demonstrations in text files; these files will be made available for you to review. The location of these files will be announced in class. If you miss a class or a recitation, be sure to obtain notes from another student (or two) and review related demonstration files before the next class. Your instructor or your teaching assistant will not repeat a lecture for you.

If you must miss a quiz or exam due to illness, you are expected to notify the instructor or leave a message with the Computer Science secretary prior to class time.

Requirements

Quizzes and Exams

Quizzes may be given daily and cannot be made up.

The final exam is comprehensive and must be taken on the scheduled date, time, and place. Make-up exams will not be given.

Assignments

There will be eight to ten UNIX computing assignments. All computing assignments must be coded, debugged, and run on the NIU computer science’s Sun machine (mp or ux), which runs the UNIX (Solaris) operating system.

Note: Your instructor will not debug your code via e-mail or over the telephone. This means you must not telephone or e-mail command syntax or program code and ask your instructor to help you debug your code.

For each assignment that you hand in, make sure the following three steps are taken.

  • You must include the following information on each assignment that you hand in for grading:

  • All UNIX assignment solutions are due at the beginning of the class, on the due date.

  • Submit two copies of each assignment: one electronic (e-mail) copy and one hard/printed copy. E-mail a copy of your programming assignment to your instructor before the class, on the due date. This step does not apply to written assignments. Also, turn in a copy of your assignment before the class, on the due date.

    Note: You are responsible for keeping a backup copy of each assignment that you hand in. The backup copy should be run at the same time as (or earlier than) the copy you hand in to be graded. If I do not have a program from you for a particular assignment, it will be assumed that you did not hand it in unless you can produce your correctly dated backup copy.

    If you are not satisfied with your grade, bring your graded assignment to the instructor. On reviewing your assignment, your instructor may assign a grade that may be the same, lower, or higher to the original grade. You have one week from the time the graded assignments are returned to you in order to dispute your grade. Late Assignment Policy

    In order to receive full credit for an assignment, it must be handed in by the stated due date and time. Your grade will be reduced by 10% for each six hours (or a fraction of a six hour period) past the due date/time. Note that we will not accept late assignment submission for the last assignment!

    Grading

    The following scale will be used to assign letter grades:

    92+
    A
    84 – 91.99 B
    76 – 83.99 C
    68 – 75.99 D
    Less than 68 F

    The letter grade assigned for this course at the end of the semester will be based on a scale of

    60% from the quizzes and exam, and
    40% from the assignments.

    In addition, the following requirements will be applied:

    1. You must receive a passing grade in both the exams and the assignment components.
    1. Your course letter grade will be lowered by one letter for every two assignments that you DO NOT HAND IN.

    If you assume that your final will reflect your quiz scores, you can determine your letter grade standing in the course by using the following formula:

    N = ( AAG * 0.4 + AQG * 0.6 ) * 100

    Where:
    AAG = Average Assignment Grades


    AQG = Average Quiz Grades

    N will be a number between 0 and 100, inclusive. Once N has been computed, find your letter grade on the letter grade scale listed previously. Then take into account the additional requirements 1 and 2 mentioned above.

    If you have any questions regarding your assignment and quiz grades, you must contact your instructor. You must resolve any grading issues at least two weeks before you take the final exam.

    Cheating

    Everything that you do in this course must reflect your own work. If you copy all or part of another student’s work, it will be considered an act of cheating. Cheating of any form will not be tolerated. Any student who is caught cheating will receive an automatic F in the course along with possible disciplinary action from the university.