CSC 600: DE Students
Graduate Orientation

F 12:50-1:40  1025 EB-II

Contact Information

• TA: Angela Zhang
  azhang25@ncsu.edu
  
• Instructor: Christopher G. Healey
  healey@ncsu.edu
  https://healey.csc.ncsu.edu

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. Topics like Ethics in AI and Professional Communication presented by faculty experts in the area who are external to the department.

During the first five CSC 600 lectures students will learn useful information about the graduate program in Computer Science, the department, and the university as a whole. Students will also meet the people responsible for managing these resources.

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

1. Reseach lectures, 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, and graduate courses.
2. External Topic lectures, made up of presentations by faculty from external departments. Each faculty member will introduce themselves, then discuss a topic of expertise that is relevant to students in the DE program. Examples include Ethics in AI and Technical Presentation skills. This is an excellent opportunity for students to learn about who the department collaborates with in preparation for choosing courses, committee members, or academic contacts related to their thesis or areas of study.

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.

DE students cannot miss more than three required 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 allowed absence and expect us to provide 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 available on the Moodle course web page, where students are asked to fill in short, simple answers to questions about each week's presentation. Summary sheets are available from 3pm on the day of the lecture until 12:45pm on the day of 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.

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 will open on Friday at 1:40pm.
• A lecture's summary sheet will open on Friday at 3:00pm.
• A lecture's summary sheet will close on the following Friday at 12:45pm.
• The Moodle course page provides access to a lecture's summary sheet during the available time window described above. You must fill in acceptable answers to each question on the summary sheet and submit it before it closes. This allows you the week of the lecture to view and complete your summary sheet. Apart from university-allowed extenuating circumstances, we will not re-open a lecture's summary sheet for late viewing or submission.

Because we will not have discussed in-class how attendance is marked, the first lecture on August 22 will not be graded.

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.

You can view email, contact details, and other personal information on the MyPack Portal Student Homepage Personal Information tile. Personal Information available to view and update is listed on the Student Services Center webpage.

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 and the research lectures.

Introductory Lectures

Research Lectures