The course instructor is Dean Brock. The course lectures will be delivered on Tuesday and Thursday from 4:35 AM to 5:50 AM in Ramsey 011 on the UNC Asheville campus and will be transmitted over the distance education network to sites at North Carolina State University, Craven Community College, Lenoir Community College, and UNC-Wilmington.
ECE 109 will also have a weekly one-hour problem session for all reception sites. In Asheville, the problem session will be led by Dean Brock and will be held on Thursday from 9:00 AM to 9:50 AM in Ramsey 011. Students at other sites should already be enrolled in an ECE 109P problem session.
All class handouts, including homework assignments, can be found through the following URLs (which ultimately all link to the same page):
In topics, assignments, exams, and schedule this distance education of ECE 109 will closely follow the large (200+ student) section of ECE 109 taught by Thomas Conte.
The required textbook for the course will be Introduction to Computing Systems: From Bits and Gates to C (2nd edition), written by Yale N. Patt and Sanjay J. Patel and published by McGraw-Hill (ISBN 0-07-246750-9). This textbook will also be used in ECE 209.
Students will also need to purchase a subscription to WebAssign to complete the ECE 109 homework assignments.
This course introduces students to the fundamentals of computer engineering from both the hardware and software points of view. It serves as a "roadmap" for the rest of the computers that you will take at NCSU. After taking this course, you will have a better understanding of how a program is translated into commands for execution on hardware, and how the hardware executes those commands using, ultimately, electronics to do the work.
Grades will be based on points earned from two in-class exams, one final exam, homework, problem sessions, and programming assignments using the weights given in the following table.
Two in-class exams | 40% |
One final exam | 25% |
Homework | 15% |
Problem sessions | 10% |
Programming assignments | 10% |
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 no "rounding-up" in computing the final grade. A score of 68.8 is less than 69 and results in a grade of D+.
All exams will be closed book and closed notes. Often, a "reference sheet" will be provided which lists detailed information, such as the LC/3 instruction set or C programming language syntax.
Attendance at all exams is mandatory. Only University-approved excuses will be accepted, provided that they are accompanied by the appropriate official documentation. Makeup exams may be given for excused absences, at the discretion of the instructor. If you miss an exam without an acceptable excuse, you will receive a zero for that exam.
Many students in the distance education sections of NCSU ECE 109 will be taking courses at their receiving institutions and may find it difficult (or even impossible) to take the final exam at NCSU's regularly scheduled slot. Within the first few weeks of class, ECE 109 students will be polled to determine if there is a need to modify the final exam time to avoid these conflicts.
Do not ask for permission to take the final exam early or late because of family travel plans. These requests will not be granted.
All 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.
Problem sessions will meet most weeks of the semester and will be led by a on-site problem session leader. Normally, small assignments will be given that are to be completed during the scheduled problem session time. If the problem session leader allows the assignment to be completed "off-line", the assignment must be turned in before the beginning of the next problem session or in-class exam.
In computing the average grade for problem sessions, the lowest grade will be dropped.
There will be three or four programming assignments during the semester. Each programming assignment must represent your own individual work. It is acceptable to talk with another student about approaches to the assignment or to discuss a particular programming problem that you are having with another student. It is not acceptable to modify the problem of someone else and submit it as your own or to submit a solution "found" on the Internet. If two (or more) students turn in an assignment with trivial differences, such as variable names, the students will be asked to explain the similarities of their submitted programs before the assignment will be graded.
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 class registration rolls or your official email address at your "home" campus.
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 quizzes. 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.