Course Outline for COMP1631 : Winter 2010

Calendar Description
An introduction to computer science providing a broad survey of the discipline and an introduction to programming. Survey topics will be chosen from: origins of computers, data representation and storage, Boolean algebra, digital logic gates, computer architecture, assemblers and compilers, operating systems, networks and the Internet, theories of computation, and artificial intelligence.

Prerequisite: University preparatory level course in Mathematics

Course Format: Three hours lecture presentation material + three hour lab per week

Moodle Course Page: http://moodle.mta.ca
(Choose "Computer Science", then "Introduction to Computing Science")

Textbooks

Brookshear, J. Glenn (2009). Computer Science: An Overview. Addison-Wesley, tenth edition. ISBN 978-0-321-52403-4.
Guzdial, Mark (2002). Introduction to media computation: A multimedia cookbook in Python. Draft textbook version, Georgia Tech.
http://coweb.cc.gatech.edu/mediaComp-plan/uploads/26/book-Sp2003.pdf

Evaluation Scheme

5% - Surprise Quizzes (based on homework exercises)
10% - Labs
10% - Assignments
15% - Lab Test (week of March 15-19)
60% - Midterms (February 17 and March 31)

Course Objectives: Students will be able to:

discuss several important application areas of computer science;
construct programs in the computer language Python to accomplish a variety of tasks;
think algorithmically, recognizing problems that can be solved iteratively through looping and branching, and phrasing solutions to such problems in a logical and precise way;
structure data representations using lists, scalars and trees, and evaluate and defend their choices;
classify problems into the following types, and choose an algorithmic approach suitable for each: searching, sorting, storage;
compare the complexity of two solutions involving lists and branching and accurately evaluate the relative costs of the two solutions.

Course Topics
The following is an approximate list of major topics presented in this course.

Computer Systems
Computational Ethics
Introduction to Programming (using Python)
Programs and Data
Iterative Thinking: Loops and Branches
Functions
Strings and Data Encoding
Computer Graphics
Networking and Internetworking
Data Security and Cryptography
Data storage and Databases
Object-based Representation
Complexity and Speed
Computational Advances and the Future of Computing
Artificial Intelligence

Important Policies

Surprise quizzes (some of which will be based on the suggested homework problems) will be given during class time. You must be present for at least 80% of the surprise quizzes in order to receive a passing grade in the course.
Plagiarism and other forms of academic misconduct are dealt with very seriously at Mount Allison University. You must read and be familiar with the Academic Calendar Section 6.13: Academic Offences to be clear on the concepts and your responsibilities in representation of your work.