1 Course DescriptionIndex

From the Course Outline:

Students learn the basic concepts and core functions of the Linux operating system in a stand-alone environment. Students also learn basic command structures and capabilities of the Linux operating system, along with the skills required to perform common basic system configuration and management tasks. Typical tasks covered include, but are not limited to installing the operating system, working the command line shell, managing/mounting/creating file systems, file permissions overview, managing and troubleshooting the boot process, task automation, software management and customizing the operating system environment.

• 3 hours in classroom / 2 hours in laboratory / 4 hours homework (per week)

• The Timetable page has the full class schedule for all classes and sections.

• Midterm and Exam dates will be posted on the Course Home Page. Put them in your own personal calendar and agenda!

• Check the program map in your CST Home Room.
  • Note the number of hours for each course.
  • Note the number of hours of homework for each course.

2 Course Home PageIndex

The Course Home Page is located off-campus, on the public Internet. You can link to it slowly and indirectly via the Algonquin Blackboard system or quickly and directly via either link below:

• http://teaching.idallen.com/cst8207/14w/ – .COM domain
• http://teaching.idallen.org/cst8207/14w/ – .ORG domain

Make sure you find the page for this term, not previous terms! Bookmark both the .com and the .org page locations.

Read the Course Home Page carefully and note the important dates. Write down on paper the location of the Alternate Web Notes. (You won’t be able to load this page if the site is down!)

3 Course Documents on BlackboardIndex

• Blackboard will contain links to all online course materials, but most materials are stored on the Internet, not on Blackboard.

• Most links lead to content on public web servers, e.g. the Course Home Page, and these public materials will remain available forever in the Internet archives.

• Material that is only available on Blackboard will become inaccessible when the course ends. Keep copies of anything you need for future use.

4 Finding Course Documents on the InternetIndex

• Warning: Using Google to find course notes on the Internet will usually lead you to obsolete and outdated notes from previous years. To read the notes for the current year, start on the Course Home Page, don’t use Google.

• Google eventually indexes all public materials (which is almost everything) but not anything on Blackboard (which, for this course, is almost nothing). The indexing isn’t immediate.

5 Course Textbook and ReadingsIndex

There is no required textbook for this course. We have selected some recommended (not required) textbooks for this course; the titles and purchase information are given in the Course Outline. The recommended textbooks are a reliable, comprehensive sources of accurate GNU/Linux information. Motivated students may choose instead to discover and use free Internet resources instead of a purchased textbook. Additional web-based notes will be provided on-line.

You are expected to follow the course outline and keep up-to-date with the reading in the web notes even when specific reading assignments are not provided in class. Ideally, to optimize your understanding of the lecture material, corresponding material should be read prior to the class in which it is covered.

Note that just printing the class notes on paper is no substitute for actually reading and understanding them. Also, none of the web hyperlinks work in the printed copy, and in many cases the printed copy is missing text that is wider than the printed page. Print less and read more!

6 Course HandoutsIndex

• In general, in-class handouts are not common in this class since all such material will normally be posted to the web; students are expected to download and read such materials on their own.

• Some course files with publisher-restricted distribution may be stored only on the Algonquin Blackboard server. Make sure you get copies of these files before the course ends, otherwise you will lose access to them.

• Other than these restricted files, everything else is stored on a public web server and will remain available forever in the Internet archives.

7 Course Hardware and SoftwareIndex

Your fees have paid for a CST Level 1 Hardware Kit that includes a hard drive, anti-virus software, cables, etc. Take your Algonquin Student ID to the on-campus New Technology Store to get the kit. Get the kit before your classes and labs start!

Later in this course you will be using your caddy drive and/or laptop to create Linux virtual machines. You will first learn how to configure your caddy and your laptop and install VMware in your Windows course (Desktop/Network Operating Systems) this term.

8 Laboratory WorkIndex

An assignment isn’t like a job. It’s a completely artificial setup. But so is an elliptical trainer. No one criticizes gym equipment because it doesn’t mirror real-world situations. – Prabhakar Ragde, University of Waterloo

Labs are hands-on opportunities to experiment with the theoretical material that you have learned through reading and lectures. Laboratory assignments will be closely integrated with the theoretical material.

Students are expected to perform initial reading, analysis, and design before their scheduled lab, to take advantage of the limited lab time. You will not have enough time to do all the reading and the lab work in the same lab period. Most lab work will require additional time outside of scheduled lab hours – check the number of homework hours assigned to each of your courses.

The students’ ability to successfully complete the assigned exercises will directly correlate with their level of success on tests and the final exam. Much of the Test and Exam material will be based on the skills developed doing the lab work.

NOTE: Knowing the specific answers to lab questions is never as important as knowing how to generate the answers. Copying answers will not enable you to pass the tests and exams. You need to know how things work! Assignment answers that are found to be copied from other sources will be penalized.

9 Classroom is a Work EnvironmentIndex

Generally, the use of mobile computing devices in the classroom is limited to note taking, accessing course materials, and performing a variety of independent or collaborative exercises assigned by the professor. Unless approved by the professor before the class starts, the use of mobile computing devices for personal surfing of the web, downloading of non-course related material, use of messaging software, or gaming is not to take place. – Algonquin College Directive AA32

10 Course Marking SchemeIndex

Tests and exams will be based largely on modified assignment questions. A majority of the material for each test will come from material covered in the immediately preceding weeks, but material is cumulative and many questions (especially on the final exam) will be based on material covered earlier in the course.

Midterm and Exam dates will be posted on the Course Home Page. Put these dates in your own personal calendar and agenda! For full mark credit, read the Test Instructions for important directions on how to enter your answers on the mark-sense forms.

The following marking scheme is from the Course Outline:

Assignments and Homework – 40%

Laboratory work is assigned weekly. It will be made available online and you will submit your finished work electronically. Assignments that are not submitted by their due dates may not be marked.

Final Exam – 30%

The Final Exam is cumulative, with emphasis on material covered after the last Midterm Test. For full mark credit, read the Test Instructions for important directions on how to enter your answers on the mark-sense forms.

Two Mid-Term Tests – 10% + 15% = 25%

Each Mid-Term Test is cumulative, with emphasis on material covered after the previous Midterm Test. For full mark credit, read the Test Instructions for important directions on how to enter your answers on the mark-sense forms.

Quizzes – 5%

Short quizzes based on previous lecture and assignment material.

For full mark credit, read the Test Instructions for important directions on how to enter your answers on the mark-sense forms.

11 Instructor Contact Info and TimetableIndex

• Ian! D. Allen – idallen@idallen.ca – www.idallen.com – use EMail to reach me, not Facebook or other social media.

• Make sure you add idallen@idallen.ca and alleni@algonquincollege.com to your email white-list, or you may not receive important email from me, especially email with your marks in it. Whitelist idallen@idallen.ca now!

• The Timetable page has Contact Information, Office Hours, and my full Class Schedule. Know how to set up an office appointment with me by email.

• The fastest way to email me is via the idallen@idallen.ca address. I forward my Algonquin alleni email to the above address, but the forwarding doesn’t work well. Email idallen@idallen.ca directly.

• Did you remember to whitelist my two email addresses?

• Use your Algonquin College email address to contact me, otherwise your email may be thrown away or ignored as unsolicited email spam. Do not send me email from Gmail, Yahoo, or Hotmail accounts.

12 Attendance, Attention, and Success FactorsIndex

This course contributes to your CST program by helping you achieve the following provincial Vocational Learning Outcome (#10):

Conform to workplace expectations found in information technology (IT) environments.

Workplace expectations include the ability to to keep commitments (hand in assignments on time) and show up for work (attend classes and labs).

Regular attendance is critical to course success (and to job success). If you know the material and don’t need to come to classes, ask for a Prior Learning Assessment. If you paid to be here, please be here.

If you are in class, shut your laptop, turn off your phone, and pay attention to your lecturer. The person at the front of the room cannot compete with the entire Internet and your personal phonebook for your attention – he doesn’t have the budget. If you’re bored or falling asleep, take notes.

13 Take Notes in ClassIndex

You will need to take notes in class. Not everything I say ends up in these online files. Passing the information through your brain onto paper or into a computer helps you remember it, even if you never read the notes later.

If you have a question about course content, the first thing I will ask is to see your notes, to see what you wrote down about the topic. Often the answer is there!

14 Plan your WorkloadIndex

The overall term workload usually overwhelms students who try to leave everything to the last minute. You need to put in approximately an extra hour per day, per course, to keep up. There aren’t enough hours in a day to catch up in mid-term.

• Dilbert: Work-Life Balance http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2006-02-24/

15 Read All The WordsIndex

When you are given an assignment, read all the words. Read all the words of a question, including the hints, before you answer a question. Read all the words before you ask anyone for help. Years of students have passed before you; the answers to most of the questions you might ask are already written in the assignment. Read all the words.

Please do not ask your instructor to respond to questions whose answers are obviously given in the assignment, e.g. “When is this due?”

HappleTea Web Comic

16 Redirect or Forward your Algonquin EMailIndex

• EMail is a critical part of course delivery for this course. You must have a working Algonquin EMail address for this course. You must read your Algonquin EMail regularly (daily) during the school term.
• Add both idallen@idallen.ca and alleni@algonquincollege.com to your EMail address book and White Lists, or you may not receive important email from me, especially email with your marks in it. Whitelist idallen@idallen.ca now!
• Please ensure that your EMail messages to me always originate from your Algonquin EMail address or else my spam blocker may throw away your unknown mail address as junk. Your “From:” address must be your Algonquin EMail address, not a Hotmail, Carleton, or other off-campus address.
• If you don’t read your Algonquin College email account daily, make sure that your forward your College email to an account that you do read. See the ITS link on the Course Home Page. Test to make sure that your forwarded Algonquin email works! Send yourself a test message.
• You can redirect or forward your Algonquin EMail to any other EMail address you wish. Since Algonquin EMail is outsourced to Microsoft “Live@edu” (“LiveAC” using domain algonquinlive.com), the terms redirect and forward have specific Microsoft meanings that you must understand first. To learn how to redirect or forward, go to Use Rules to Automatically Forward Messages to Another Account and look under the heading “What else do I need to know?”. Here are instructions that will forward (not redirect) your EMail courtesy of Denis Latremouille (September 5, 2012):
  1. Log in to your AlgonquinLive e-mail account
  2. On the right side under options choose “create an inbox rule”
  3. On the Left click “account”
  4. On the right side of this page choose “Forward your E-mail”
  5. In the text box under Forwarding (half way down the page) put in your personal EMail including the domain eg. myEmail@example.com
  6. Click “Start Forwarding”
• You are responsible for keeping your own forwarding address accurate during the term. During the term, I will only send your marks to your (possibly forwarded) Algonquin EMail address.
• You may wish to set your “alternate” EMail using Algonquin ACSIS while on campus. I may use your alternate EMail to inform you that your main Algonquin EMail account has a forwarding error; no personal data will ever be sent to the alternate EMail address.

17 Find the AnswersIndex

My job is to help you find answers, not to give you answers. Many answers I might give you now will be obsolete by the time you graduate. Helping you find the answers is my job; I do it for you as part of the salary paid to me by the College. Actually giving you answers is called “consulting”, and my fee is $250/hr. See me after you graduate.

18 Right the First TimeIndex

http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/2012/01/30

Assignments are only marked once. You don’t get a second chance. In the real world, if you don’t get it right the first time, your business (or your employer’s business) suffers. You try not to make the same mistakes again, but you can’t take back the fact that you made them in the first place. Do your best the first time.

My job (your boss’ job) is not to find and correct all your mistakes for you. Finding and learning from your mistakes is your job. The better you do it, the more useful you are as an employee.

19 Late and Missed Assignments; Submit on TimeIndex

The College will not grant you extra time for assignments due to your work commitments. If your work interferes with your schooling, either reduce your course load or reduce your work load.

If your boss asks you to deliver to him a product before he walks into a client meeting, having the product ready after the meeting is not useful. Assignments submitted after the due date are given the same consideration.

Late or missed assignments and tests are penalized, usually resulting in a mark of zero. In this course (but not other courses) missed assignments and/or tests do not need to be completed; they are simply worth zero and do not need to be submitted. (Other courses treat missed assignments differently; pay attention.)

Not every assignment is due on the same weekday or at the same time; pay attention and record each due date in your weekly calendars. The due date for each assignment is given in the assignment. Due dates for assignments and tests are also posted on Blackboard and on the course web pages.

I give extensions for assignments or test delayed due to illness or accident. Contact me before the due date to get an extension. It is usually too late to ask for an extension after the due date has passed. You can read the details on Deferred Evaluations.

From Claude Brulé, Vice-President Academic, memo of October 21, 2013:

College Academic Council has endorsed the following policy statement on student absences and this is supported by Deans Council:

Addressing student absence from class requires a common sense approach, assumes honesty, and allows faculty to exercise judgment while keeping student success foremost in mind.

1. The student is asked to contact the course professor before the class takes place to indicate that he/she is ill. If the student does not make the attempt, then they may be subject to whatever penalty is outlined in the course outline.
2. For prolonged illness, or where more than one assessment is missed, the course professor can request the student to provide a doctor’s note in order to help accommodate the situation.

Frivolous cases of abuse are to be avoided, yet not make the environment such that students who are clearly not well feel the need to still come to class for assessments for fear of negative consequences on their academic progress.

As always, faculty retain the responsibility and right to manage their classes in a way that ensures students demonstrate the learning outcomes of each respective course.

20 Plagiarism and Working TogetherIndex

You must develop your own answers to assignments.

No unauthorized copying! Restricted group work! Restricted working together!

Group work and Working together is not permitted except in assignments specifically labelled by the instructor as group assignments. Share your ideas, never your answers.

Do not help other students do their assignments. When you do the work for another student, your mark goes up (because you practice the commands twice) and their mark goes down (because they did nothing and can’t remember anything on the tests and exams). Make sure you are not helping another student to fail the course!

For the modern student, plagiarism isn’t all it used to be. In fact, many don’t see it as an issue in the least. According to the New York Times, technology has fostered a laissez-faire attitude towards the practice. Many students plagiarize – and many don’t think they’re doing anything wrong. More Students Misunderstand The Fundamentals Of Plagiarism

Copying-and-pasting an answer from someone else is not solving a problem. Do your own thinking and type your own answers. No copying-and-pasting. Assignments containing cut-and-paste answers from other people will be penalized.

Even where using another person’s material is permitted (from other students, books, the Internet, or even from the blackboard or posted course notes), copying material from other sources and submitting it without proper credit to the author is an academic offence called plagiarism. You must credit the source of material that you did not write yourself, no matter from where it comes!

Students working together without authorization or submitting work containing cut-and-paste or plagiarized material will be charged with academic fraud under Algonquin Academic Regulations. Read the plagiarism document for details.

See also: Algonquin College Directives and Algonquin College Policy AA20 – Plagiarism

You may not copy material from anywhere else without clearing the copying with me and identifying the source, in writing or by email, first. If your submission resembles that of another person, anywhere in the class or anywhere on the Internet, I am required to inquire whether you are the actual author. Copying-and-pasting from someone else is not solving a problem. Do your own thinking and write your own answers. No copying-and-pasting.

If I authorize copying, and only if, you must attribute the source of copied material that you use that isn’t yours. Most coursework does not permit copying, group work, or working together on a common answer. Do your own work unless the assignment permits group work.

You earn marks for the new material that you write, not material that comes from other people and other sources (e.g. from me, your friends, or from the Internet). opying-and-pasting from an existing answer is not solving a problem. Do your own thinking and write your own answers. No copying-and-pasting.

A fun tutorial on how to use the Internet to find answers and avoid plagiarism is here: http://www.vts.intute.ac.uk/detective/

See also: More Students Misunderstand The Fundamentals Of Plagiarism, Universities need to tell students the rules about plagiarism, Internet plagiarism rising in schools

A warning not to give your your answers, from a previous student:

From: xxxxxxxx@algonquinlive.com
Subject: RE: CST8207 lab plagiarism
We were talking on facebook and he was having trouble with lab 7 and 8. I tried explaining them to him but was unsuccessful. I offered to put lab 8 on Dropbox as a reference, which I completely forgot about as it’s not something I normally do. When I confronted him he said he didn’t have time to complete the work himself and handed in my answers.

Both students received zero and were charged with academic fraud (plagiarism). Share your ideas, not your answers!

21 Your Security and the USA Patriot ActIndex

From http://www3.algonquincollege.com/its/files/2012/10/Revised-Terms-of-Use.pdf?file=2012/10/Revised-Terms-of-Use.pdf:

USERS ARE ADVISED THAT SOME OF THE COLLEGE NETWORK’S RESOURCES ARE PROVIDED BY THIRD PARTIES, WHO MAY BE LOCATED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA OR OTHER JURISDICTIONS. BY USING THE COLLEGE NETWORK, USERS ACKNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTAND THAT, ANY CONTENT OR INFORMATION POSTED OR SENT THROUGH THE COLLEGE NETWORK MAY BE HOUSED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA OR OTHER JURISDICTIONS AND THEREFORE SUBJECT TO THE USA PATRIOT ACT AND OTHER APPLICABLE LEGISLATION AND THAT THERE MAY BE REQUIREMENTS TO DISCLOSE SUCH CONTENT.

In other words, anything you disclosed and disclose to the College – before, during, or after registration – may be sent to the Government of the United States. This includes all your College email, which is hosted by USA corporation Microsoft.

22 Install LibreOffice or OpenOffice into WindowsIndex

When you have your Windows base system Installed (in your Desktop Operating Systems course), go to the private Algonquin URL http://cstech/ on campus (it only works on campus) and find and download LibreOffice (or OpenOffice) for Windows and install it on your base Windows system, so that Windows can read and print the Open Office lab documents used in this course.

To find the office software on the local Algonquin http://cstech/ web site, click on any room in the left side-bar and look under Drivers and Downloads.

23 Put Your Name On All Your StuffIndex

Students often leave behind laptops, power cables, and hard drives.

Put your name and contact information on all your books and hardware, including your external hard disks and power supplies. The name has to be clear enough that the office can contact you to give you back your hardware when you leave it behind somewhere.

• Put your Name and contact information on your laptop.
• Put your Name and contact information on your power cable.
• Put your Name and contact information on your external drive.
• Put your Name and contact information on your USB thumb drives.
• Put your Name and contact information on everything.

Your instructor may have some masking tape that you can use to write on.

24 AODA AccommodationIndex

From the College AODA training materials (PDF):

Professors may make a general announcement at the beginning of each semester to:

• inform students that Algonquin College provides services to students with disabilities who require individual academic accommodations.
• direct them to contact the Centre for Students with Disabilities (CSD) if they require this assistance.

For more information on arranging academic accommodations for students with disabilities, contact Toni Connolly at connolt@algonquincollege.com or 613.727.4723 ext. 5509.

Students with College-documented disabilities and Individual Student Plans should arrange private office appointments with their instructor in this course to present and discuss their individual accommodation plans.

25 Term Start ChecklistIndex

You must find the answers to these questions if you don’t know them yet:

1. Are you registered in exactly one lecture and one lab section?
2. Have you obtained your CST Level 1 Hardware Kit from the Algonquin store?
3. Do you know how to read your Algonquin Live email?
4. Have you forwarded your Algonquin email address to your personal account?
5. Do you know how to log in to ACSIS?
6. Do you know how to log in to Blackboard?
7. Can you find the CST8207 Blackboard Page?
8. Can you find the EXTERNAL (Internet) Home Page for CST8207?
   • Record two web URLs for this EXTERNAL Home Page, so you can find it.
9. Do you know what a Plain Text file is, and how to create one?
   • what program(s) create plain text files in Windows? in Mac OSX?
10. Do you know where and how to submit your assignments on Blackboard?
11. Can you follow the directions to log in to the Course Linux Server (CLS)?
    • You will need to get your server password from your instructor, first.
12. Can you do a File Transfer between the CLS and your local machine?
13. Have you turned on Show File Extensions in Windows?
    • Failure to do this may make your assignment uploads invalid.
14. Do you have a regular backup plan for your mobile device?
    • What happens if the disk fails in the middle of term? Will you lose all your assignments and have to start over?

See your instructor for help with any of the above items, or with anything else here at Algonquin College.

26 Appendix I: Blackboard BugsIndex

• If you submit an assignment to Blackboard before the due date, and then the due date of the assignment is extended, Blackboard will incorrectly claim that the assignment is late. Ignore the message; it is a bug in Blackboard; it can’t be fixed. As long as you submitted the assignment before the final due date, it isn’t late and your uploaded mark will confirm this. Do not submit a second copy of the assignment.

• Blackboard has never lost a submitted assignment, but many students have failed to complete the submission process. Follow all the directions when you submit an assignment, and keep a screen capture of the submitted assignment page as proof.

Author: 
| Ian! D. Allen  -  idallen@idallen.ca  -  Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
| Home Page: http://idallen.com/   Contact Improv: http://contactimprov.ca/
| College professor (Free/Libre GNU+Linux) at: http://teaching.idallen.com/
| Defend digital freedom:  http://eff.org/  and have fun:  http://fools.ca/