Homework 0

Welcome to CS171! This initial homework intends to get you acquainted with the structure and set-up of CS171 to ensure that everything goes smoothly moving forward.

To complete this homework, you will have to do the following steps (which will be explained in more detail below):

Get acquainted with the general course structure. (There are slight differences for on-campus students and Harvard Extension school students.)
Take the initial programming quiz.
Introduce yourself on Piazza.
Set-up Webstorm.
Fill out our enrollment survey.

1. Course Structure

Please take a look at our weekly schedule overview on our webpage.

We will always post all materials and assignments for each week as a single module on Canvas (by Friday of the preceeding week).

In-class time:

####On-campus students (e.g., Harvard college):

Labs are on Mondays 3:00-5:00pm.
Lectures are on Wednesdays 3:00-5:00pm.
Classes start at 3:00pm sharp!

####Harvard extension school (DCE) students:

Labs are on Mondays 8:00-10:00pm ET.
Lectures are on Thursdays 8:00-10:00pm ET.
Classes start at 8:00pm sharp!

Lab note:

Labs are mostly self-guided programming tutorials. Labs are intended to be completed during class time. If you cannot finish it in time during class, please finish it at home. It is also a good idea to get started with the lab before actual class time. Labs always have to be submitted together with that week’s homework.

Work done at home:

For every lecture and lab you will have to complete a short pre-reading (~20 min).
At the beginning of each class, you will have to submit a short quiz about that pre-reading.
Homework assignments are handed out on Mondays and are due the following Sunday at 11.59pm.

Important: For the lab on Monday Sept 10, there is already a pre-reading and quiz to complete. Pre-readings, and pre-reading quizzes are accessible on the weekly modules in Canvas.

Help, questions, feedback:

If you have any questions (administrative or visualization-related), there are several ways to reach out. Please follow the order below:

Use our online message board Piazza. Your message can be published either just to the teaching fellows, or the entire course.
If you can wait until the next class meeting, ask course staff at the end of class.
Attend office hours. Office hours will be posted here: http://www.cs171.org/2018/schedule/
Email course staff, either the TF that is mentoring your project team, or staff@cs171.org.

2. Programming Quiz

Please fill out our programming quiz on Canvas (under HW 0 of Week 1 module). This quiz covers very simple programming concepts and should only take you a couple of minutes. If you have trouble with this quiz, we strongly encourage you to take a programming class like CS50 prior to taking CS171.

3. Piazza

Go to Piazza and sign up for the class using your Harvard e-mail address.

We will use Piazza as a forum to: discuss, find team members, arrange appointments, and ask questions. Piazza should be your primary form of communication with the staff. Use the staff e-mail only for individual requests, e.g., to excuse yourself from a mandatory guest lecture. We will also use Piazza to announce important information like room changes, etc.

Introduction

Once you are signed up to the Piazza course forum, please read the posting guidelines and then introduce yourself to your classmates and course staff. Please post as a follow-up in the ‘Introduction’ thread and include your name/nickname, and tell us something interesting about yourself (e.g., an unusual hobby, past travels, or a cool project you did, etc.).

4. Set up Webstorm

JetBrains WebStorm is a JavaScript IDE that we encourage you to use for D3 development in this class. You can download WebStorm here.

You can claim a free student license for use in this class here. Make sure that you use your university email address for this step!

5. Enrollment Survey

Please complete the enrollment survey on Canvas (week 1). It should only take a few minutes to complete and it will automatically enter you into the CS171 lottery.