CSC 600
Graduate Orientation

F 12:50-1:40  1021/1025 EB-II

Introduction

CSC 600 is a required course designed to introduce new graduate students to three important topic areas:

1. Information about the graduate program, the department, and the university that is relevant to all incoming graduate students.
2. A description of research projects being conducted by faculty in the Computer Science department.
3. An introduction to industrial partners, their companies, and their interactions with graduate students in our department.

During the first four CSC 600 lectures students will learn useful information about the graduate program in computer science, the department, and the department's IT infrastructure. Students will also meet the people responsible for managing these resources.

Following these introductory topics, the remaining lectures will be split into one or two parts, depending on volunteer presenters' availability.

One part is a Research Component, made up of presentations by department faculty. Each faculty member will introduce themselves, discuss their research interests, and describe one or more research projects they are conducting. This is an excellent opportunity for students to learn about ongoing research in the department in preparation for choosing thesis topics, supervisors, or graduate courses.

A second part is an Industrial Partners Component, made up of presentations by representatives from companies that partner with the department. Each company representative will introduce themselves, then discuss their company and its vision, goals, and ongoing projects that overlap with topics of interest for graduate Computer Science students. This is an excellent opportunity for students to learn about companies the department collaborates with in preparation for choosing courses related to these projects. It also offers an opportunity to learn about possibilities for internships and full-time employment after graduation.

Attendance

Although there will be no assignments or tests, a specific level of attendance in CSC 600 is MANDATORY. Any student who does not meet this minimum level of attendance will not receive credit for the course, and will be required to re-register during the next fall semester. You cannot graduate without successfully completing CSC 600.

Students cannot miss more than three lectures total during the semester. These absences are provided to allow students to manage other responsibilities while still maintaining appropriate attendance in CSC 600. Here are some examples of situations where students might need an allowed absence from CSC 600:

• attending a course-related group meeting during a CSC 600 lecture
• attending a conference or workshop during a CSC 600 lecture
• attending a work-related or research-related meeting during a CSC 600 lecture
• attending a personal function during a CSC 600 lecture

Note:  In none of these cases would we provide an exception to the attendance rule. Therefore, if you anticipate these types of situations arising during the semester, DO NOT "use up" your three allowed absences and expect us to allow additional absences because you "have to do X" but you don't have any allowed absences left. Your only recourse in this situation will be to drop CSC 600, and re-enroll the following academic year.

Attendance will be taken through an online summary sheet, where students are asked to fill in short, simple answers to questions about each week's presentation. Summary sheets will be made available at the end of a lecture, and be open for submission until the beginning of the next week's lecture. Receipt of a summary sheet with acceptable answers will be used to confirm a student's attendance for the given class. Note that one common example of unacceptable answers is an answer sheet where some questions are left blank, or include a single word answer that has no relationship to the lecture that was given. We don't expect (or want) long answers, but we will not mark you as having attended for summary sheets that are answered in an incomplete or irrelevant manner.

Virtually Attending Lectures

Due to the ongoing COVID-19 situation, CSC 600 will be run in a hybrid fashion this year.

• The first four lectures of the semester will be held in-person for students registered for EB-II 1025. The lecture will be recorded via synchronous Zoom, and live-streamed to the other lecture hall.
• Although students are strongly encouraged to attend the Zoom meeting in person, the lecture will be recorded and available on the Moodle web site until 12:49pm August 27.
• Industry partner lectures after the fourth lecture of the semester (starting Friday, September 24, 12:50-1:40) will be presented either in person or using asynchronous Zoom based on the preferences of the ePartner presenters.
• Faculty lectures after the fourth lecture are still being organized, but will most likely also be presented either in person or using asychronous Zoom based on the preferences of the faculty member.

Students will view lectures online, with access to a particular lecture made available through the CSC 600 Moodle web page as follows:

• A lecture's recording and summary sheet (see below) will open on Friday at 12:50pm, exactly as though it was a synchronous lecture.
• The lecture's recording will remain open until the following Friday at 12:49pm. At that point, access to the lecture and summary sheet will close, and access to the following lecture will open at 12:50pm.

This allows you the week of the lecture to view it and complete your summary sheet. Apart from university-allowed extenuating circumstances, we will not re-open a lecture or its summary sheet for late viewing or submission.

The first five lectures of the semester will be presented in-person in EB-II 1025 and synchronously using Zoom. All industrial partner lectures will be presented asynchronously using Zoom. As noted above, faculty lectures are still being organized, and will be presented either entirely in-person, or entirely asynchronously using Zoom.

Updating Your EMail Address

For all students, your Unity email address is your official university address. You are responsible for monitoring email sent to this address. In particular, course-related email messages are automatically sent to your Unity email account.

It is possible to have Unity email forwarded to a different account. See this page for a link that describes how to do this, and for other important information about your university email account.

Computer Science Graduate Student Association

If you'd like to participate or learn more about the department's Graduate Student Association, they maintain a web page with information about current and future graduate student events.

Academic Integrity

All students at the university are expected to understand and agree to the university's code of student conduct. This document explains the various types of behaviour that are not allowed, including cheating, plagiarism, aiding and abetting, disorderly conduct, and so on.

For CSC 600, common examples of academic integrity violations include (but are not limited to):

• claiming attendance for a lecture you did not fully attend
• knowingly assisting another student to claim attendance for a lecture he or she did not fully attend
• being disruptive during a lecture in a way that impacts the presenter's ability to present material, or that impacts other students' ability to follow the lecture
• willfully disregarding instructions from the presenter or professor during the lecture (e.g., being told to stop talking in class, but continuing to talk; this would also fall within the class disruption academic integrity violation above)

For confirmed cases of academic integrity violations, in addition to any university-mandated sanctions, students will receive a failing grade in CSC 600.

Tentative Schedule

Below is the tentative schedule for topics and presenters, split into the introductory lectures (which all students attend as a single group), and the research/industrial partner tracks (where students choose which track to attend each week).

Introductory Lectures

Research and Industrial Partners Lectures