The course instructor is Dean Brock. The course lectures will be delivered on Tuesday and Thursday from 4:30 PM to 5:45 PM in Ramsey 011 on the UNC Asheville campus and will be transmitted over the distance education network to sites at Craven Community College, Lenoir Community College, and UNC-Wilmington.
Peter Gadford will be the teaching assistant for the course for students at Craven Community College and Lenoir Community College. Adam Dickerson will fulfill that role for students at UNC-Wilmington.
All class handouts, including homework assignments, can be found through the following URL:
In topics, assignments, exams, and schedule this distance education of ECE 109 will closely follow the large (100+ student) section of ECE 109 taught by Greg Byrd.
The textbook for the course will be Introduction to Computing Systems: From Bits and Gates to C written by Yale N. Patt and Sanjay J. Patel and published by McGraw-Hill (ISBN 0-07-246750-9).
See the Modified Grading Policy for how the weighted score will be computed.
The following numerical scale will be used in assigning grades based on Score, the weighted score computed using the preceding table.
Score ≥ 97 | A+ |
Score ≥ 92 & Score < 97 | A- |
Score ≥ 90 & Score < 92 | A- |
Score ≥ 87 & Score < 90 | B+ |
Score ≥ 82 & Score < 87 | B |
Score ≥ 80 & Score < 82 | B- |
Score ≥ 77 & Score < 80 | C+ |
Score ≥ 72 & Score < 77 | C |
Score ≥ 69 & Score < 72 | C- |
Score ≥ 65 & Score < 69 | D+ |
Score ≥ 60 & Score < 65 | D |
Score ≥ 57 & Score < 60 | D- |
Score < 57 | F |
There will be two in-class exams and one final exam. The in-class exams will be given in late September and late October. The final exam will be at 1:00 PM on Thursday, December 13.
There will be about four programming assignments this term. One of these will be a major LC-3 program.
The programs that you write are one way of telling the instructor about your mastery of this course. Because this is a course about writing programs you are expected to take these assignments very seriously.
Cooperation and exchange of ideas with other students are encouraged. However, you are responsible for your own work. Examples of cooperation that are OK: talking with someone about approaches to the assignment; showing someone what your error is, discussing a particular programming problem that you are having. Examples of cooperation that are not OK: taking someone else's program and modifying it, examining someone else's solution in detail, having someone type at your computer.
All completed assignments must include comments identifying the program author. Any "quoting" of program segments taken from reference materials, include on-line tutorials and programming examples, must be clearly identified.
Both sections of ECE 109 will complete the same homework assignments. There will be about one homework assignment a week. Homeworks will be submitted and graded through NCSU's WebAssign. You must purchase a WebAssign access code (at a cost $14.95 per semester) to complete the homework assignments.
Homeworks can be entered for up to 50 times but no feedback will be given until after the homework due date. Questions regarding the grading of homeworks on WebAssign should be directed via email to Peter Gadfort <pgadfor@ncsu.edu> for students at LCC and CCC, to Adam Dickerson <adamB.dickerson@ge.com> for students at UNC-Wilmington, and to Dean Brock for others. You will need to include your section number with your email.
The first homework assignment will become available at 12:01 am August 24 and due August 31 at 11:59 PM.
Problems are similar to homework except (1) they are generally graded for completion rather than correctness and (2) they are performed as the problem sessions. Students in the distant education session will do the same problems as those done in the problem sessions in Raleigh. Problem sessions may also include brief quizes.
Peter Gadford will direct the problem sessions at CCC and LCC, and Adam Dickerson will direct them at UNC-W. Arrangements for problem sessions at UNCA are under development.
The Director of Distance Education Programs at NCSU has told instructors that all "information about classes" sent via email should be sent to the official email address. This will be your address as listed on NCSU (or UNCA) class registration rolls.
This policy is particularly pertinent for any email regarding information protecting by the federal Family Educational Right to Privacy Act, such as recorded grades on assignments or quizes,. Your official email is the only account I will use to send legally protected information to you.
The best way to get in touch with me is to send email to brock@cs.unca.edu. If you need to see me, send me email to arrange an appointment.