COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE

CS Colloquium Spring 2001

CIS 5920
Friday 12:20-01:10 pm
Dirac Science Library
Room 499 / Seminar Room

Requirements

50%	Attendance
50%	Weekly Summaries Expected length: 200 words. Create your own Web page in a readable directory ~/public_html/colloquium/ in your CS account. Copy the file summaries.html to that directory. You will also need the stylesheet in its parent directory ~/public_html ; I copied mine from xi:/home/httpd/share/htdocs/academics/style.css. Create individual text files for each week's colloquium and link to them from your file. Do not simply copy and paste the speaker's own abstract. Instead summarize, in your own words, the content of the talk. See the university policy concerning plagiarism. You commit plagiarism if you use words from another source but do not cite the source. The penalty for plagiarism is zero credit for attendance and zero credit for the weekly summary for the week of the offense. Put your name on the summary. Summaries are due (on your CS Web page) by 12:20pm each Thursday, the day before the colloquium. To limit access to your Web area, place a .htaccess file there. Be sure to allow access from CSIT IP addresses (144.174.143) so that I can find your page.

Grading

What is the minimum work I must do to pass this colloquium?

  int   numMeetings;           // Number of times the class meets. Probably 14.
  float attend[numMeetings];   // 1 if I attend; 0 if I don't.
  float summary[numMeetings];  // Scores on the summaries I write, between 0 and 100. 
  bool  satisfactory;          // True if total >= 0.8.

  float total = 0.0;
  for (int i = 0; i < numMeetings; i++ )
    {
    total += attend[i] * 0.5  + summary[i] * 0.01 * 0.5;
    }
  total = total/numMeetings;
  satisfactory = (total >= 0.8);

  

So, for example, if I attend all 14 meetings but receive a score of 0 for 4 of the summaries, I need to average at least 84 on the remaining 10 summaries in order to get a satisfactory grade. Or if I get a 0 on 5 of the summaries, I need to average a 94 or better on the remaining 9. If I write all 14 summaries, I only need 60 points on each in order to pass.

These numbers will be different if any of the meetings are canceled.

Florida State University Commission on the Future

In 1998, the FSU Commission on the Future made certain recommendations that are relevant to students in this course. Below are some highlights taken from the report by Mr. Thomas Petway III, 1999-2005 chairman of the Florida Board of Regents.

There is a need for increased emphasis on writing and speaking skills that will be needed for successful careers in the future. ... Further, students should be required to defend their written and spoken word in the classroom experience. Students will rise to higher expectations, therefore, standards should be risen. With the quality of today's FSU student, the "raising of the bar" will challenge them and will result in an even better graduate and perspective employee.

... [In the group concerned with graduate education,] their discussions led them to conclude that FSU needed to focus more attention on the communication skills needed for the future graduate.