67-272 – Application Design and Development

Information Systems Program

Course Outline
General Policies
Important Dates
Text Books
Project
Labs
Exam Help
Resources / This course provides students with the concepts and techniques to design and develop software applications, and to understand the design process. Students will learn the importance of user-centered design and will develop a prototype of a web application as a course project. In the process of developing the application, students will learn how to design and create relational databases, how to acquire competency in new programming languages quickly, how to use the Model-View-Controller pattern to develop software applications, how to ensure technical quality in agile software development, and most importantly, how to apply principles of user-centered design. /
* Thanks to Prof. Heimann for course specification and content *

Syllabus

Scope:

This course is a required professional core course and is open only to sophomores and juniors in the IS major who have completed 67-250 or equivalent. It needs to be stressed to students that this course is not a programming class or a database course designed to make them fluent in a specific language or a development platform. The goal of this course is to help students develop competency with several key technologies used in application development (particularly web development) and to provide them with the principles needed to make effective use of these technologies. We will give students an overview of the keys points of the programming language or development tools as needed for each upcoming project, but expect students to follow up on these presentations with reading and self-directed study to fill in any gaps in learning. Our goal is to enable students to be effective learners and compete in an industry where life-time learning is the norm.

Instructor / Prof. Divakaran Liginlal (Lal)
Office & Phone / Room 2142 - Phone: 454-8627
Office Hours / Tue 8:00 am-12:00 noon. Also, Mon/Wed 8-10am/1-2pm by appointment
Class Time & Location: / MW 02:30 pm -03:50 pm Room: 2052 (Lectures) and 2035 (Lab)
Course URL / http://qatar.cmu.edu/~liginlal/67-272

Grading Policy:

Overview: Grades in this course are determined by student performance in four areas: course projects (3 phases, worth 25% total), three examinations (three midterms, worth 15% each), weekly labs (worth 25% total) and attendance, short in-class assignments, and quizzes (periodically; worth 5% total). Any grading curves, if deemed necessary, will be applied only to the final course score and not to individual assignments.
Being able to deliver work products on-time is important in the world of information systems, and for that reason we will be firm on the deadlines associated with class assignments. For electronically submitted assignments, any project turned in after due date will receive an automatic 10 percent penalty. Assignments more than 24 hours late will not be accepted without a special exemption from the professor. Exemption will be granted only for documented emergencies (you need to submit a letter from the Assistant Dean for Academic Affairs). Opportunities for make-up or extra credit, if any, will be announced in class. Any questions or concerns about grading must be directed to the professor. An entire statement about regrading for IS courses in general can be found in the general policies section and will be implemented here. Do not labor under the mistaken impression that you are somehow special and therefore are exempt from this policy!

Attendance: Students are responsible for attending the classes in which they are officially enrolled. The quality of work will ordinarily suffer from excessive absences. All cases of illness and emergency shall be promptly reported to and verified by the instructor. If you miss a lecture, it is your responsibility to obtain materials from a fellow student. Office hours are not meant for individual lectures. However, you are encouraged to read the related lecture materials and meet the instructor during office hours. Frequent absence from class may result in receiving a Fail grade in this class. For all major action, the instructor shall consult with the students’ Academic Advisor and the Assistant Dean for Academic Affairs. Attendance will be taken in class with credit awarded for class activities. In case of absence due to university approved activities, the concerned student will obtain an absence authorization signed by the Director of Student Activities and by the Assistant Dean of Student Affairs. The student will present this authorization to the instructor. This is not an excuse for work missed. No student shall leave a scheduled exercise because of the absence of the instructor until a reasonable time has passed. By tradition and as a matter of courtesy, a student should wait 10 minutes before checking with Laila Pinto at the Department office for any information about cancelled classes. If you are in doubt about the procedures to be followed regarding attendance, please consult the Assistant Dean of Student Affairs.

In-class work: We will have small in-class assignments to do on a periodic basis. These assignments will not be announced in class before hand; since regular attendance is the norm, this should not be an issue. (FYI: attendance is taken until 5 minutes after class starts. After that time a student is considered absent. Students have two excused absences before any grade penalty is applied.) A major purpose of these in-class assignments is for both students and faculty to be certain that key concepts are understood and can be applied to basic problems. There will be no make-up for missed in-class assignments but you can be excused with prior permission. About seven to ten class activities are anticipated over the entire semester. Each class activity will be assigned a grade of * (full credit - 100%) or a '-' (partial credit - must be turned in after correction).
Exams: Exams and the course assignments are designed to be completed by individuals without the assistance of classmates or other students. In this class, students may NOT look at the code of other students or show their code to other students. We have made a separate statement regarding the honesty and integrity policy in this course and require that students review this policy as soon as possible. The IS program consider academic integrity to be of great importance, we actively scan for cheating policy violations, and will take swift and appropriate measures against those who fail to abide by these standards.
Projects: Programming projects will be graded based on their correctness, completeness, and their quality. We expect very high quality work and attention to detail at all times in this course - it is up to you to see that this is so. We never want to see low quality or mediocre work from any student. Carefully verify that your projects meet all stated specifications under a variety of test conditions and that they are eye appealing. Penalties will be assessed for errors, defects, and omissions based on their severity. Be aware that errors may cascade. Programs that are missing, substantially incomplete, do not load, do not run, or more than 24 hours late will be assessed penalties of 100%. Details on the course projects can be found in the Projects page.

Labs: To help students master the material covered in class, we will have a series of hands-on lab assignments for students to complete. These hands-on lab assignment must be completed during a scheduled lab session. All labs are graded on a credit/no credit basis, depending on whether students completed the lab. (Come to lab each week, follow the instructions, and you get full credit -- very easy points to earn.) Students are allowed one missed lab with no penalty (students who complete all labs get extra credit).

Disability: If you have a specific disability that qualifies you for academic accommodations, please notify the instructor and provide certification from student affairs.

About the Instructor:
Divakaran Liginlal (Lal) is an Associate Teaching Professor at Carnegie Mellon University. He holds a BS in Telecommunication Engineering from CET, MS in Computer Science and Engineering from the Indian Institute of Science, and a Ph.D in Information Systems from the University of Arizona. Before joining academics, Lal worked as a scientist for the Indian Space Research Organization (as a member of the Inertial Guidance System team for India's Satellite Launch Vehicle program) and in the steel industry in Saudi Arabia developing application software. He has developed and taught courses such as Building E-Commerce Systems, XML and Web-Services, Writing Secure Code, Information Security Management, Information Security Technologies, , Communication Technologies, Enterprise Networking, Data Structures and Algorithms, Management Information Systems, and Introduction to Computing. He received the Mabel Chipman Award for excellence in teaching from the School of Business, University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2007, the University of Arizona Foundation Award for meritorious teaching in 1998, and the Larson grant award for innovation in curriculum design from the School of Business, UW-Madison in 2001 and 2004. Lal has received funding support for his research and teaching from Microsoft Corporation, Hewlett Packard, CISCO, DOIT at UW-Madison, and the ICAIR at the University of Florida.


IS Program Statement of Expectations

Study Skills and Time Management

Planning and effective time management are essential skills for survival as IS students and as IS professionals. While the requirements of the IS core courses may not appear difficult at first glance, you will find them challenging and, at times, time consuming. It is essential that you make every effort to keep up with the readings and assignments.

Buy and read the assigned textbooks. If you want help from us, you will have to show us what books (and what pages) you have used for guidance in answering your question or solving your problem.

You should come to class prepared, since class time will not be used to read to you from the texbooks, but will primarily be used to answer questions and to clarify difficult or challenging material and concepts.

Manage your time effectively and bear in mind that you are ultimately responsible for your own performance in these courses. Plan to start each project or assignment early so that you finish on time and at high quality. This is your best strategy to have time for questions and to react to any problems. We do not want to hear excuses for failure to complete your work on time or at low quality. Your procrastination or failure to manage your time effectively is not the instructor's fault or the instructor's problem and will never be considered as an extenuating circumstance for poor performance.

Allow plenty of time to finish your projects and assignments - you know that things can and do go wrong. Debugging a programming assignment can take some time; allow for it. Last minute emergencies or crises due to poor time management or poor study habits on your part do not constitute emergencies for your instructor or any teaching assistant designated to help you. Do not expect us to grant extensions, special exemptions, waivers, or other considerations that give you breaks not available to the others in the class.

Regrades

Although we strive for consistency and accuracy in grading, we know that grading mistakes can occur. These mistakes can help you or hurt you. You should focus on the overall quality of your work, and not waste energy in minor grading arguments that ultimately have no significance or material consequences. Since you will be evaluated on your achievements throughout the semester, your overall performance will be accurately assessed.

No regrades will be considered if the resultant change in score is expected to be 5% or less, unless there is an obvious error in tabulation or overlooked material. We will gladly correct all errors in tabulation. Beyond that, however, it is not our responsibility or intent to guess your intentions or to imagine how your unstated assumptions, ambiguities or omissions are to be interpreted. We only grade what is given to us; not what is to be inferred or assumed. Regrades will not be considered on the basis that the faculty or graders did not divine or understand your unstated assumptions or intentions, or did not interpret your words or your work or fill in gaps or omissions as you imagined they would.

All regrading requests must be submitted to the professor and accompanied by a written statement carefully highlighting and explaining the items you feel were misgraded within one week of when the assignment or examination is returned. You must explain how the contested items meet both the spirit and the letter of the assignment or effectively answer an examination question, and propose a revised score. When we receive your request for regrading, we may review the entire project, assignment or examination. Your ultimate score on the project may therefore increase, decrease, or remain unchanged when we review it. Be advised, however, that it is not our policy to grant regrade credit for your failure to make the original items unambiguous, complete, correct and clear. Lengthy or complex statements and explanations of how we should have interpreted your work are generally prima facie evidence that the work was appropriately graded in the first place.

Missed Work and Examinations

There will be no make up opportunities for unexcused absences from any examination. If your personal circumstance requires you to miss an exam, you must make arrangements with your instructor at least 24 hours prior to the scheduled date and time of the examination. Last minute emergencies will be accommodated, at the instructor's discretion, with authentic, substantial, written documentation of your situation. Expect that any makeup examinations or other accommodations will be different, and more difficult than the original examination. If you arrive late for any examination, you will not be given extra time to complete it.

There will be no penalty-free make up opportunities for projects that are too late without authentic, substantial documentation of your situation. There will no make up opportunities for graded in-class projects, exercises or quizzes.

Use of Email

Please be advised that sending email to your instructors does not create a responsibility or obligation to respond to it. Sending us email does not shift any responsibility from you to us; you are still responsible for the on-time, high quality completion of assignments and projects. Please reserve your email for matters that actually require our attention. In any case, do not expect a response to non-emergency email in under 48 hours.