Dr. MaryAnne Egan
Professor of Computer Science

Some of the courses Dr. Egan has taught over the last 25 years at Siena include Introduction to Computer Science, Web Design, Introduction to Programming, Diversity in Computer Science and Web Programming.

Required: zyBooks Web Programming online textbook

For a complete list of topic covered see the Course Schedule

None

This class is being taught in person. Attendance is required and there is no option for remote attendance, unless explicitly stated by the instructor, such as you may have experienced during the past year because of COVID restrictions. Please pay attention to the attendance policy (below in syllabus) which outlines policies that apply to absences. In addition, deadlines for assignments will be enforced.

Design and implement functional web sites using HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) and CSS (Cascading StyleSheets). The book covers JavaScript, but we may or may not get that far during the semester. I left it in so that it was available if you would like to learn more about it on your own.

Integrate open source components into new and unique web page designs that follow the best professional practices for presentation on mobile and tablet devices.

Web design concepts and principles including the importance of semantic markup, accessibility, meta information, separation of content and style, and document standardization/validation in order to create web pages that are widely accessible and highly extensible.

Learn practical skills to help identify, download, install, and effectively use software for authoring web content, and creating web graphics.

Enhance abstract thinking skills by learning how to create page layouts, interactive data forms and web site navigation menus.

Final grades will be based on the following weights:

Any indication of a final course grade automatically calculated by Canvas should be considered an estimate and does not represent your final grade in this course. I will update the penalties column before midterm grades and before final grade. This is the value that will be subtracted from your overall grade for this course.

Letter grades will be assigned based on your numeric final average:

An average grade is typically B- to B. To earn a grade of B+ or higher requires consistently scoring above 85% on exams and quizzes and completing project work that is high quality and demonstrates effort beyond just completing the basic requirements. Earning an A requires consistently scoring above 90% on exams and quizzes and completing project work of exceptional quality, i.e., going way beyond the basic requirements.

On the Midterm and Final exams:

• 50% of the questions are knowledge and fact-type questions based on information presented in the textbook and reinforced in lecture and lab.
• 25% of the questions are concept-type questions based on material covered in lecture and lab that is not adequately explained in the textbook. Thus, students should attend lecture and lab, take notes, and review lecture material prior to the exams.
• 25% of the questions are based on the reading (textbook and web sources) and the material may NOT be directly presented in lecture. Thus, it is particularly important to do the reading and not rely entirely on your lecture notes.

There will be three major web site projects due throughout the semester each requiring 20 or more hours of work outside of lecture and lab.

Project descriptions will be posted at least two weeks before the due date (see the project page). Due dates will be announced on Canvas and put on the course schedule.

All projects are individual projects and late projects will not be accepted and will be given a grade of zero. Thus, it is important that you submit all your work prior to the deadline even if you have not completed the entire project.

Projects will be submitted though Repl.it and Canvas.

The Final Exam will be given during the designated final exam week, which is the week after the last day of class.

Though the end of the semester may seem far off, I advise you not to purchase a ticket to return home until you know the dates of all your final exams.

If you cannot attend the scheduled Final Exam and do not provide a serious documented excuse, you will receive a zero.

While the final exam will focus on material from the second half of the semester, it will also include material covered on the Midterm Exam.

Students must prepare for lab by reading assigned material (book and web sources) and completing an online material in either Canvas or ZyLabs.

Lab Grading

Pre-lab Online Work

Online work will be posted on Canvas at least 4 days before each lab session. The work must be completed before the start of the lab period, otherwise students will be given a grade of zero.

In-lab

During lab, students will be asked to complete activities and submit a deliverable, which is typically one or more documents (HTML, CSS, and images). Students are expected to complete work during lab. This allows the instructor to verify that students are completing the lab work and collaborating appropriately. Thus, students are not allowed to complete lab work before the lab period.

Lab Deliverable

It is common for a lab activity to take more than the allotted time (2 hours). Thus, students are expected to complete the lab activity on their own and each individual must submit the deliverable before the start of the next lab period, otherwise they will receive a zero on the lab deliverable. After the lab session, students are not permitted to collaborate or share work done outside of lab.

A student is expected to attend every lecture. It is the student's responsibility to be aware of this policy.

Students can receive up to a 10% penalty toward their final average for excessive absences, lateness, or disruption during lecture. Students who are more than 10 minutes late will be marked absent and absence penalties will be incurred.

Students can have two unexcused absences without any penalty. But after two, students will receive a 1% penalty for each unexcused absence (maximum of 10% total penalty).

Students are required to attend all lab sessions. There is a 10% penalty toward the individual lab for arriving late. Students who are more than 10 minutes late will be marked absent. In addition, there is a 10% penalty for leaving early, i.e., leaving before the 2 hour lab period is over unless a student has completed the lab and submitted the deliverable.

Students who miss lab must still submit the pre-lab work and the lab deliverable before the next lab period, otherwise they will receive 0s for any missing lab deliverables. In addition, students who miss two or more labs (unexcused), will receive additional penalties describe below:

Lecture: Students can be excused (and not penalized) from lecture for illnesses, job interviews, and serious commitments such as athletic or academic trips/competitions. However, students must inform the instructor as soon as possible, provide proof/documentation, and take responsibility to acquire notes and information from other students.

Lab: Missing lab is more serious than missing lecture because labs involve activities that cannot be easily duplicated outside of the lab session and these activities are essential to the learning goals in the course. Students can be excused (not penalized) from lab and allowed to submit late deliverables but the following rules will be strictly enforced:

• Job interviews will NOT be considered a valid excuse for missing lab. Do not schedule job interviews during your lab time unless you are willing to accept the penalties.
• Practices (athletics), regularly scheduled extra curricular activities, and weekly obligations in other courses will NOT be considered a valid excuses for missing lab. Students should not register for this class if such activities conflict with the lab session.
• Traveling to athletic games that are documented by the Athletic Department are a valid excuse. However, if you are going to miss more than three labs due to games, it is recommended that you drop the course and take it in the off season.
• For illness or medical emergencies, students should show documentation (a doctor's note, release form, receipt or equivalent) that verifies the excuse.
• For family emergencies, funerals, or other serious commitments, students should contact the office of Student Affairs or Academic Affairs. If the emergency is serious, ask an authorized school official to contact all your instructors regarding your absence. If an excuse is not serious enough to contact an authorized school official then the excuse is not serious enough to be accepted by the instructor.

The instructor makes the final decision to excuse or not to excuse an absence. If you are concerned that an absence will not be excused, you should contact the instructor as soon as possible.

• receive a zero on the exam
• be penalized a full letter-grade in the course
• have a letter describing the student's actions sent to Siena's Vice President of Academic Affairs

During an exam period, students cannot share information, look at each other's tests, or use unauthorized materials.

Students must complete pre-lab work independently.

Students should not work with any other students to answer pre-lab questions. Students may use the textbook, notes, or other sources to help answer questions.

Only collaborate during the lab session:The two-hour lab period is the only time that students are allowed to share code and collaborate, but they can only share lab deliverables, not project work. The lab session is supervised by the instructor who can provide guidance and feedback on what constitutes an appropriate level of help.

After lab, students are expected to work on their own. In seeking help outside of lab, it is natural to want to share code. However, students should not share code written outside of the lab session. Instead, students who wish to help each other should talk about their problems in general or abstract ways, which is an important cognitive process in becoming a better, independent coder. This instructor considers plagiarism to be instances where a student submits lab deliverables where they cannot explain the purpose, function, and details of the submitted code.

Your goal is to become an independent problem solver: An important goal in this course is for students to learn strategies for becoming more independent with respect to problem solving, coding, and debugging. Towards the end of the course, students should not need excessive help from classmates, tutors, or even the instructor.

Cite your sources: It is very easy to copy code from other sources and claim it as your own. This is academically dishonest and considered plagiarism. However, in web design, it is considered professionally acceptable to use open source code (HTML, CSS, Javascript, etc.) and non-copyrighted design components (layouts, menus, etc.) as long as such usage is documented by giving the original author credit via citation/footnote in the newly published document. Documenting sources should be done by using HTML citations and by using comments in other source files (CSS and JavaScript).

Only use open and public sources: In this course, integrating code from open sources is considered an acceptable practice as long as the integration is non-trivial and leads to a design that is significantly different when compared to the original open/public sources. Students will not be penalized for using other authors' code as long as the source is cited and as long as the code comes from an open source or public domain. In lecture, the instructor will teach students strategies for identifying open and public domain sources vs. protected, commercial and copyrighted sources.

Do not share your code: While it is natural for students to help each other outside of lab, students retain more knowledge if they attempt to write and debug code on their own. It is acceptable for students to help each other understand general concepts, but students are prohibited from sharing their code or writing code for another student.

Do not seek excessive help: It is appropriate to ask for or provide help solving a coding problem as long as it is done in a general or abstract way. Appropriate examples include: helping a peer understand an error message, sharing debugging strategies, or explaining a concept related to a specific problem. But, it is inappropriate to have any other students (including tutors) solve your problems directly. Seeking excessive help is a form of cheating. Inappropriate help includes:

• Asking a peer or tutor to write code for you
• looking at another student's working solution
• receiving excessive (step-by-step) help in directly completing a project or lab

If you do not cite code, you better understand it: Integrating code from multiple sources into a new, unique design often requires great effort to get all the parts to work together properly. However, it is important that you can point to the parts of your code that you wrote yourself and the parts taken from other sources. If a student cannot explain the purpose, function, and details of the code that they claim to have written themselves, the code will be considered plagiarized.

Know the penalties: Students who present other authors' code, documents, images, or designs as their own will receive a grade of zero on the entire project or lab. Students who commit plagiarism a second time will again receive a zero, but will also be penalized a full letter-grade in the course and a letter describing the student's violation will be sent to Siena's Vice President of Academic Affairs

Siena College offers many services to help student success. If you are need of additional assistance, please reach out to your instructor, faculty advisor, or another Siena College community staff member.

Additional information about the types of services Siena College offers and how you can access these services can be found on the Student Resources webpage.

The Student Academic Success and Engagement (SASE) office serves as a key point of reference for students:

• in transition to Siena
• in need of academic advising/assistance/tutoring
• navigating College policies, procedures, requirements, and standards
• requesting late course grading options and late course add/drop/withdrawals
• seeking (along with their parents and faculty) assistance in reaching resolution of academic progress issues

SASE Contact:

• Email: studentsuccess@siena.edu
• Phone: 518-783-2341
• Office: Siena Hall, Room 215
• Website: SASE website

Siena is very supportive of students facing additional challenges. The resources that Siena provides can be found online. If you require additional support to succeed in this class, please make sure you register with the Disability Services Office and inform that you have registered with them.

The following services are provided, when appropriate, to students with disabilities:

• Faculty Notification
• Alternative testing arrangements, including extended time
• Advocacy
• Note Taking Services
• Informal counseling
• Information for obtaining taped, Braille, or large print text
• Other accommodations tailored to your specific needs

If you have a documented disability needing academic adjustments or accommodations, please speak with me during the first two weeks of class. All discussions will remain confidential. You should also contact Julia Gold, Director of Services for Students with Disabilities.

Contact: Julia Gold, Director of Services for Students with Disabilities

• Email: jgold@siena.edu
• Phone: 518-783-4239
• Office: Foy Hall, Room 109
• Website: Siena College, Office of Accessibility

The Computer Science Department Tutoring Schedule is available here.

In our Franciscan community, diversity is an invitation to celebrate the uniqueness of each individual, as well as the cultural differences that enrich us all.

In this course, I will do my best to ensure that students from all backgrounds and perspectives will be served equitably. The diversity that students bring to this class will be viewed as a resource, strength and benefit. It is my intent to present materials and activities that are respectful and inclusive of the many identities of students in terms of gender, sexual orientation, disability, age, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, race, culture, perspective, and other background characteristics.

Your suggestions about how to improve the value of diversity and inclusiveness in this course are encouraged and appreciated.

For any number of reasons, you may become overwhelmed during your time at Siena. It is very common to experience symptoms of anxiety, depression or other mental health conditions.

Fortunately, the Counseling Center, located in Foy Hall Room 110, is a resource to help overcome those potential challenges. You can make an appointment by stopping by, calling 518-783-2342, or requesting one online on the Siena Counseling Center webpage.

In addition, for urgent matters after 4PM, there is an on-call therapist who may be accessed by calling Public Safety at 518-783-2376.

In any case of possible bias or sexual misconduct, either in the classroom or anywhere on campus, you are encouraged to file a report online or in person with Lois Goland. Any Siena community member, who experiences or observes an incident of bias or misconduct, including faculty, staff and students, can file a report through this system. More information and resources around procedures dealing with sexual misconduct and discrimination and harassment are available online.

Contact: Lois Goland, Title IX / Title VII Officer

• Email: lgoland@siena.edu
• Phone: 518-782-6673
• Office: Sarazen Student Union, Room 235
• Report an Incident Online: Siena College, Title IX / EEO Office

The College may be forced to close in certain extraordinary circumstances, such as a pandemic outbreak, including but not limited to COVID-19.

You are instructed to bring all texts and notes home with you in the event of a College closure. The Academic Calendar will be adjusted upon reopening; so be prepared for the possibility of a short mini-semester; rescheduled class/exam period; and/or rescheduling of the semester, depending on the length of the closure.

You should continue with readings, lecture videos, and assignments to the best of your ability, per the course schedule.

Office hours days/times will remain the same but moved to Zoom only.

Lectures and labs will be moved to remote via Canvas and Zoom.

Finally, stay connected with information regarding the status of the College’s status and reopening schedule by monitoring the Siena web site, www.siena.edu.

Masks are required for all unvaccinated individuals in this classroom/laboratory. The instructor reserves the right to require masks at any time of any/all students, regardless of vaccination status.

   Academic integrity policy

   Office of Accessibility

   Emergency preparedness

   Severe weather policy

   Attendance policy