The University of Western Ontario

Department of Computer Science


Computer Science 1032 Section 650, Information Systems and Design

Course Outline – Fall Distance Studies 2011

 

Course Description

Computer Science 1032 is an introduction to information systems and the roles played by these systems in business.

 

This course satisfies the Information Technology requirement for a Certified Accountant, a Certified General Accountant or a Certified Management Accountant accreditation.  The content of the course has been approved by The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Ontario, The Certified General Accountants of Ontario and The Society of Management Accountants of Ontario. The materials used in this course for the introduction to Microsoft applications software have been approved by Microsoft for use in the preparation for the Microsoft Office Specialist Certification exams.

 

Prerequisites

No prerequisites are required for this course.

 

Instructor:          Diane Goldstein

Office: Middlesex College 366
Office Hours: by appointment
Phone: 661-2111 ext. 82978
E-Mail: dianeg@uwo.ca

 

Course Required Material

Experiencing MIS, Updated Second Canadian Edition, with Access to MyMISlab

David M. Kroneke, Andrew Gemino, Peter Tingling (Prentice Hall)

 

Course Topics

  • Communications and Network Technology
    • Internet, WWW
    • Markup Languages: HTML, XML
    • Networks: LAN, WAN, VPN
  • Database Systems
    • Relational database concepts
    • Database design: Entity Relationship Diagrams
    • Query languages: SQL
    • Creating and using databases: Access
  • Information Systems
    • Enterprise Resource Planning systems
    • Reliability, availability, maintainability and integrity
    • Security
    • Systems Development Life Cycle
  • Spreadsheet applications
    • Designing and using spreadsheets: Excel

Course Units

Unit

Topic

One

HTML – HyperText Markup Language & Web Page Creation

Two

XML – eXtensible Markup Language

Three

Chapter 1, Information Systems and You

Chapter 2, Business Processes, Information and Decision Making

Four

Excel (Application Extension 2a)

Five

Chapter 3, Strategy, Information Systems and Competitive Advantage

Chapter 4, Hardware and Software

Six

Chapter 6, Networks and Collaboration

Seven

Database Design (Application Extension 5a)

Entity Relationship Models (ER Diagrams)

Eight

Chapter 5, Database and Content Management

Using Microsoft Access (Application Extension 5b)

Structured Query Language - SQL

Nine

Chapter 7, Information Systems for Competitive Advantage

Ten

Chapter 8, Decision Making and Business Intelligence

Chapter 9, Information Systems Strategy, Governance and Ethics

Eleven

Chapter 10, Understanding the IS Department: Operations and Projects

Chapter 11, Acquiring Information Systems Through Projects

Twelve

Chapter 12, Managing Information Security & Privacy

 

Online Resources:

Experiencing MIS Textbook:

MyMISlab (www.pearsoned.ca/mymislab), includes MyITlab resources.

Note:  Course ID will be posted on course website.

Individual Student Access Code included with textbook.

 

Teaching Assistant Consulting

Consulting will take place online during the scheduled weekly Virtual Labs.  Questions regarding assignments or lecture materials can be directed to a Teaching Assistants (TA) during the Virtual Labs or through the Assignment Discussions.  Questions requiring further information can be dealt with by contacting the course instructor.

 

Email Contact

Occasionally email messages may be sent to the entire class or to students individually. Email will be sent to your UWO email address as assigned to you by Information Technology Services (ITS).  It is your responsibility to read this email on a frequent and regular basis. You may wish to have this email forwarded to an alternative email address; see the ITS website for instructions on forwarding email. 

You should note that email at the university and thru other providers have quotas or limits on the amount of space that is dedicated to each account.  Unchecked email may accumulate beyond those limits and you may be unable to retrieve important messages from the university.  Losing email is not an acceptable excuse for not knowing about the information that was sent.

Email contact with the course instructor is encouraged, by sending brief and appropriate messages regarding lecture material or assignments.  However, please first check the course discussion area in WebCT to see if the information has already been posted.  If you contact the instructor via email or post a question on the WebCT discussion area, you can expect a response in a timely fashion, but not necessarily an instantaneous response.  Please use proper, appropriate and respectful English when sending an email message or posting on the WebCT discussion area.

NOTE: Email messages must be sent from your university account and include “CS 1032 650” in the subject line.

 

Computing Facilities

Students may complete their assignments on their own computer if it is equipped with the proper software or use the computers in the first-year Computer Science labs in Middlesex College or use the university’s General Student Computing Labs.

To use the Computer Science labs, each student will require an account on the Computer Science Department undergraduate computing facility, GAUL.  Computer Science account information will be forwarded to you via email.  In accepting the GAUL account, a student agrees to abide by the department's Rules of Ethical Conduct .  Details on this account can be found on the Computer Science Department’s web site, in the Computer Sciences Systems Group information on the Undergraduate Network.  Information regarding these labs will be posted on the website.

The General Student Computing Labs at the university are currently located in:

  • HSB13, HSB14 & HSB16 - Health Sciences Building, rooms 13, 14, and 16
  • NCB 105 - North Campus Building, room 105
  • NSC 110 - Natural Sciences Centre, room 110
  • SH 1310 - Somerville House, room 1310 (lower level)

·         SSC 1000, SSC 1012 & SSC 1032 – Social Sciences Centre rooms 1000, 1012 and 1032

Student Evaluation

·         Midterm Exam: 2 hours (worth 28%)

·         Final Exam: 3 hours (worth 32%)

·         4 Assignments (worth a total of 30%)

·         Online Exercises (worth a total of 10%)

To be eligible to obtain a passing mark in the course, the weighted average of the midterm and final exams must be at least 45%.

Note:  weighted average = (total of weighted marks/sum of the weights) and weighted mark = (weight*mark))

Academic Accommodation for Medical Illness

If you are unable to meet the course requirement due to illness or other serious circumstances, you must provide valid medical or other supporting documentation to your Dean’s office as soon as possible and contact the instructor immediately. It is the student’s responsibility to make alternative arrangements with the instructor once the accommodation has been approved and the instructor has been informed.  For further information please see:  http://www.uwo.ca/univsec/handbook/appeals/accommodation_medical.pdf.

A student requiring academic accommodation due to illness should use the Student Medical Certificate when visiting off-campus medical facility or request a Record’s Release Form (located in the Dean’s Office) for visits to Student Health Services.  The form can be found at: https://studentservices.uwo.ca/secure/medical_document.pdf.

Accessibility

Please contact the course instructor if you require material in an alternate format or if you require any other arrangements to make this course more accessible to you. You may also wish to contact Services for Students with Disabilities (SSD) at 661-2111 x 82147 for any specific question regarding an accommodation.

Exam Schedule

No electronic devices are allowed during exams (no calculators, iPods, cell phones, laptops, etc)

Note: Computer-marked multiple-choice exams may be subject to submission for similarity review by software that will check for unusual coincidences in answer patterns that may indicate cheating.

Midterm Exam

  • The midterm exam date, time and location will be announced.
  • Students requesting to write the deferred midterm for religious reasons, must notify the instructor and file documentation with their Dean’s office at least 2 weeks prior to the exam.
  • If you miss the Midterm Exam for any other reason, follow the procedure for Academic Accommodation for Medical Illness as given above. If the accommodation is approved by the Dean’s office, you will be granted permission to write the scheduled deferred exam.

Final Exam

  • The date, time and location of final exam will be announced by the Registrar’s Office.
  • The final exam will be held during the Distance Studies examination period (Dec 14 - 17).
  • Students requesting a deferred final exam prior to the final exam must supply their Dean's Office with written documentation at least 2 weeks prior to the Final Exam.
  • In the event of serious medical or compassionate grounds, a student must follow the procedure for Academic Accommodation for Medical Illness as given above.
  • A “Recommendation of Special Examination” form must be obtained from the Dean’s office, to be eligible to write the deferred final exam.

Assignment Schedule

Students are expected to view the lecture materials and complete the online exercises to prepare for the assignments. Once the assignment is completed, all of the parts of the assignment must be submitted on the WebCT site. It is the student’s responsibility to ensure that all parts of each assignment are correctly uploaded and submitted in WebCT, to ensure that the assignment can be marked accordingly.

Note:  Assignments emailed to the instructor will not be accepted, unless there are extenuating circumstances. 

The following is the tentative assignment schedule:

Assignment

Weight

Due Date (by 6:00 pm)

1

7%

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

2

8%

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

3

7%

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

4

8%

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Note:  Where possible, the instructions for each assignment will be posted on the course website at least 2 weeks in advance of the due date.

If for any reason the assignment schedule given above cannot be adhered to, the assignment marks will be pro-rated. The 4 assignments are worth 30% of the overall mark for the course. If an assignment has to be cancelled for any reason, the remaining assignment weights will be prorated to add up to 30%.

Assignment Marking:

  • Assignments will be marked by the TAs within 2 weeks of the assignment due date.
  • Marks and a detailed marking scheme will be posted in WebCT.
  • Questions regarding the marking of assignments should be directed to the course instructor.
  • Requests for mark adjustments will only be considered if they are made within 1 week of receiving the assignment mark.  Assignment marks will be final after that date.
  • Requests for mark adjustments will only be considered when the request is detailed and is for an adjustment of 5 marks or greater.

Late Policy for Assignments:

·         Late assignments will have a penalty of 25% of the maximum mark for the assignment deducted for each day (24 hours from the due time) that the assignment is late. Thus, if a student would have received 90% on an assignment, if it was submitted one day late the student would receive 65%, if it was submitted two days late the student would receive 40% and if it was submitted 3 days late the student would receive 15%.

·         An assignment that is more than three days late will not be accepted.

·        No extensions will be given for assignments.  However, in the event of serious medical or compassionate grounds, a student must follow the procedure for Academic Accommodation for Medical Illness as given above. If an academic accommodation is approved by the Dean’s office, the weight of the assignment will be moved to one of the two exams.

Online Exercises

There are twelve assigned online exercises.  Each online exercise is worth one mark when correctly completed by the due date.  In total the online exercises are worth 10 marks, so one would only need to complete ten of the twelve assigned online exercises to obtain all 10 marks.

 

The online exercises are due weekly throughout the course to provide ample time to complete them.  In some cases, the skills covered in the exercise that is due will not yet have been covered in the lecture materials and for some of the online exercises it would be beneficial to complete the online exercise in advance of the due date to assist in the learning of the material required to complete an assignment.  Multiple attempts are available for each of the online exercises.

 

The online exercises are all assigned with appropriate due dates in myMISlab.  The exercises can be found in the myMISlab course content in the myITlab folder.  Your individual student Access Code is provided in the myMISlab documentation that is included with the textbook and the CS1032 650 course ID will be posted on the course web site.


 

Online Exercise

Due Date (by 6pm)

Excel, Chapter 1, Exercise 2: Jake’s Gym

Friday, September 16

Excel, Chapter 2, Exercise 1: Hospital Department Payroll

Friday, September 23

Excel, Chapter 2, Exercise 2: Completing Hospital Department Payroll

Friday, September 30

Excel, Chapter 2, Exercise 3: Gradebook

Friday, October 7

Excel, Chapter 2, Exercise 4: Purchasing a Van

Friday, October 14

Excel, Chapter 4, Exercise 2: Marching Band Revisited

Friday, October 21

Access, Chapter 2, Exercise 1: Table Design

Friday, October 28

Access, Chapter 2, Exercise 2: Imports and Relationships

Friday, November 4

Access, Chapter 2, Exercise 3: Multiple Table Query

Friday, November 11

Access, Chapter 3, Exercise 1: Calculated Query Fields

Friday, November 18

Access, Chapter 4, Exercise 1: Introduction to Access Reports

Friday, November 25

Access, Chapter 4, Exercise 3: Report Wizard

Friday, December 2

 

NOTE: It is highly recommended that when taking CS1032 as a distance online course that the above online exercises be used as an excellent resource for learning both Excel and Access.  But due to the fact that these online exercises are graded and can only be accessed with the a personal student access code included with the purchase of a new textbook or purchased separately from the textbook publisher, students have the option to opt out of completing these online exercises and have the 10% of their grade associated with the online exercises equally distributed to the two exams in the course (an additional 5% weight applied to their mid-term exam mark and an additional 5% weight applied to their final exam mark).  It will be assumed that students registered in the course will wish to complete the online exercises and have their mark calculated as shown in the section related to Student Evaluation above.  If a student chooses to opt out of the online exercises they must notify the instructor in writing via an electronic mail message sent from their university email account prior to Friday, October 14, 2011.

 

Ethical Conduct

Scholastic offences are taken seriously and students are directed to read the appropriate policy, specifically, the definition of what constitutes a Scholastic Offence, at the following Web site: http://www.uwo.ca/univsec/handbook/appeals/scholastic_discipline_undergrad.pdf.

 

Plagiarism: Students must write their essays and assignments in their own words. Whenever students take an idea, or a passage from another author, they must acknowledge their debt both by using quotation marks where appropriate and by proper referencing such as footnotes or citations. Plagiarism is a major academic offence (see Scholastic Offence Policy in the Western Academic Calendar). The University of Western Ontario uses software for plagiarism checking. Students will be required to submit their programs in electronic form for plagiarism checking.

 

All assignments are individual assignments. You may discuss approaches to problems among yourselves; however, the actual details of the work (assignment coding, answers to concept questions, etc.) must be an individual effort.

 

The role of tutoring is to help students understand course material.  Tutors should not write part or all of an assignment for the students who hire them.  Having employed the same tutor as another student is not a legitimate defense against an accusation of collusion, should two students hand in assignments judged similar beyond the possibility of coincidence.

 

Academic dishonesty in assignments includes (but is not limited to): unacceptable collaboration, copying of another student’s assignment, allowing another student to copy, using code from an external source where a student’s own code is expected.

 

Assignments that are judged to be the result of academic dishonesty will, for the student's first offence, be given a mark of zero for the assignment, with an additional penalty equal to the weight of the assignment also being applied. You are responsible for reading and respecting the Computer Science Department's policy on Scholastic Offences  and Rules of Ethical Conduct .