One of the most useful sources of help when you have a problem is to ask a fellow student. There are, of course, limits to what you should ask of your peers; or to what you should answer if asked. The communications skills and teamwork experience gained from working with your fellow students is of great value, but so is the learning that takes place from figuring out something for yourself.
When it comes to assignments you should be careful when discussing problems with your colleagues. The department takes a very dim view of plagiarism. You should avoid any detailed discussions of algorithms for use in assignment solutions with your peers as this can lead to implementations that are not sufficiently original to be considered your own work. Obviously you should never ask to see, nor show anyone, the actual source code of an assignment solution.
One easy way to get a question about this course answered is to use the class discussion group (when it is set up). You may also find some answers to FAQs, and messages that may already answer your question, on the Course Bulletin Board, so it is worth looking there first. Note that the bulletin board, which is a news group, is available only on the ANU news system. Which is to say, you need to set your NNTP server to newshost.anu.edu.au if it isn't already. The discussion group uses Phorum.
Email contact for all matters relating to COMP1120 is (from mid week 1 onwards) comp1120@iwaki (.anu.edu.au).
For matters relating to course content in one of the modules (eg. lectures, tut/labs and assignment), that cannot be reasonably resolved by the means above, contact the lecturers concerned, eg.:
Your tutors are not paid to spend time helping you out of class, so please don't ask them to.
That said, your tutor is the one who marks your assignments. If you have a problem with the way your assignment has been marked, then take it up with your tutor. You can always talk to one of the lecturers about it, if you were unable to resolve the matter with your tutor.
John Ulhmann is the tutor for your class; he will advise you on out-of-class hours contact.Probably the only reason you will have to contact the office staff in relation to COMP1120 is to collect an assignment. Assignments are normally returned to you by your tutor at your laboratory or tutorial class. Only those assignments that remain un-collected at the end of semester will be available from the office.
The department office is located in room N340 on the third floor of Computer Science and Information Technology Building. This is building 108 in quadrant 2 of the campus map. The office is open at the following times on week days.
0900-1100 1130-1230 1330-1600
If you have a problem that relates to your use of the computing facilities provided for COMP1120, then you should consult the Technical Support Group (TSG). On any given day one member of the group is designated as the consultant programmer, it is this person's job to deal with the daily problems that tend to crop up with the computing system. Please don't bother the other members of the group, they are working on important longer term projects. You can contact the consultant programmer by sending mail to consultant@cs.anu.edu.au.
Of course, if your problem is such that you can't log in or send mail then that last bit was just a cruel joke. Take heart, you can also visit the consultant programmer. The TSG is located on the second floor of Computer Science and Information Technology Building. This is building 108 in quadrant 2 of the campus map. As you enter the TSG area you should see a sign showing which member of the group is the presently acting as the consultant programmer. It shouldn't take you long to find the right office once you pass the sign.
Feedback & Queries:
Peter Strazdins
