Roll Calls - CSCI 402, Spring 2018, All Sections

Roll Calls - CSCI 402, Spring 2018, All Sections

Roll Calls

You can earn 4% extra credit for "class participation". For this class, it simply means coming to classes (i.e., lectures and discussion sections) early AND stay in classes until you are dismissed starting from the 4th week of classes. Remote students (who are registered in section 29946D) get this extra credit for free.

Starting with the 4th week of classes, a roll sheet will be available on the table in front of the class (i.e., lecture or discussion section). Please sign in as soon as you get into class if you plan on staying for the rest of the class. If you arrive way too late, you will receive no credit for the day. If you cannot stay till the end of class, please do not sign the roll sheet and you will not receive credit for the day.

IMPORTANT: Some students misunderstood and thought that the extra credit is for "signing" roll sheets. No! You earn extra credit by performing extra work. Clearly, just "signing" roll sheets is not much "work" at all. In order to "earn" this extra credit, the work is to stay in class until you are dismisses.

Some students don't want to follow lectures (especially since they can watch DEN lecture videos at the time of their choosing). They would argue that this is a dumb way to earn extra credit and a total waste of time (since they won't be listening to lectures). Well, the choice is yours. You can choose not to come to class since this type of extra credit is not for you. Or, (which is what I hope that you will choose), you would learn to listen to lectures and try to get as much out of it as you can. Please understand that you are not entitled to any extra credit. The only way to "earn" extra credit is to perform the "necessary work".

Details

If you do not arrive late and you stay till the end of class, you will receive full credit for the class. If you arrive late, you forfeit half of the credit. Please check the late box on the roll sheet. There may be cases where class is dismissed before you even arrive to class. In that case, you won't get credit at all. The bottomline is that if you want extra credit, you should come to lecture early.

If you have to leave before the end of class for any reason, you must come to the front of the class and remove your signature from the roll sheet before you leave (and you will not get credit for that class). If you don't do that, you risk forfeiting all roll sheet signing extra credit points (please see the section about "cheating" below). It doesn't matter if you just want to go to the bathroom or make a quick phone call. (Of course, if you want to risk that the TA or I will not ask everyone to sign out while you were out of the classroom because you know that you will be back right away, you don't have to remove your signature and you need to make sure you return right away. But please understand that you would be doing this at your own risk. If you don't want to take risks or you don't know how long you will be out, the safe thing to do is to remove your signature from the roll sheet and forfeit the credit for the day.)

Arriving way too late means that you arrive 30 minutes beyond the official start of class time.
Arriving late (but not way too late) means that you arrive 10 minutes beyond the official start of class time but not way too late.

Clock is based the time on instructor's cell phone.

Since class participation is extra credit, if you miss a class, you will not get credit for that class (unless you send me a documented proof of sickness or family emergency). If you miss one or two signatures in the entire semester, it will most likely not affect your class letter grade. Therefore, you don't need my approval to miss a class (unless you want credit for not attending that class and you have documented proof of sickness or family emergency).

Cheating

You need to read what you are signing. The roll sheet says, "Sign if you promise to stay till end of class." This means that if you don't stay till end of class, for any reason, you have broken your promise and it would be considered cheating for roll sheet signing.

Please understand that these extra credit points need to be earned. No one is entitled to these extra credit points. If you do not plan to stay through the class, then these extra credit points are not for you.

From time to time, right before class ends, the TA or I will ask everyone to "sign out". Since signing the roll sheet at the start of class is a promise that you will stay through the entire class, if your signature is on the "sign in" sheet but not on the "sign out" sheet, it will be considered proof that you have cheated for roll sheet signing. (If you asked someone else to sign you in or out, both of you will be considered cheating.)

IMPORTANT: Since cheating is a violation of the USC Student Conduct Code (i.e., academic dishonesty), if you cheat on roll sheet signing, I will USC report the cheating incident to USC Student Judial Affairs and there will be severe consequences. The standard punishment is an F in the class. It would be really foolish to risk an F in the class for a 4% extra credit! So please don't cheat!

Please also understand that cheating on roll sheet signing is a more serious offense than cheating on programming assignments! I can understand why people cheat on programming assignments when people get desparate. But cheating on roll sheeting signing is the same as stealing and there is absolutely no justification for stealing. This is a really really big deal!