Herbert J. Bernstein
Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science
Dept. of Mathematics and Computer Science, 1300 William Floyd Parkway, B205, Shirley, NY 11967
90466
CSC 1009N -- Introduction to Spreadsheets and Data Analysis -- Fall
2012
Online Course
Assignments
All assignments are to be submitted as text-only email or posted on
the web and submitted by email
containing the URL of the
assignment to:
with absolutely no attachments. Assignments will
in general not be accepted late.
No assignments will be accepted on paper. No assignments will be
accepted on diskettes or thumbdrives.
You may use a Google Sites or
Google Blogger
to post assignments on the web as a means of submission.
The grade for the assignment will be sent back to the email address from
which the
assignment email was sent. In the case of group assignments in which
multiple students
are involved, one student should be the sender of the email and the other
students should
be listed both in the email "CC:" list and in the body of the
message.
Students should check this page frequently for updates.
Assignments with an assignment date one week or more in the
future are subject to change.
Assignment #1, assigned Tuesday, 4 September 2012, due Tuesday,
11 September 2012.
If you have not already done so, sign up for Google Sites and
create your personal portfolio web page. If you are taking more than one CS course, you must use
the same personal portfolio web page for all CS courses.
In addition to the web page you will use for your portfolio, create an additional web page
to use to be able to post course assignments so you can send those URLs to the instuctor
instead of using email attachments.
If you have not already done so, sign up for
Google Blogger and create a blog to use as a public notebook
for this course. Be sure to record your experiences in doing this entire assignment
in your blog.
Based on what you have seen and read and/or by experimenting with Excel
or with Open Office Calc, if cell A1 contains 5, cell B1 contains 3.5 and cell C1 contains
1.25 and cell D1 contains the formula =SUM(A1:C1), what will show
on the spreadsheet in cell D1?
Do exercises 4-1 and 4-2 on pages 70 - 71 in Gips
Email your answers to the instructor no later than
noon on Tuesday, 11 September 2012.
Assignment #2, assigned Tuesday, 11 September 2012, due Thursday,
27 September 2012
In working on this assignment, please be aware that the instructor will
not be availble on campus 17 - 26 September 2012, and there will be no
Skype office hours in that period. Please submit questions by email.
If at all possible, form a study group for your work in this
class. You are free to work with others on the rest of this
assignment, but you must list all the people you work with on
your answers.
Read Gips, pages 99-206 and make notes.
Read all of Atymiak and make notes.
Do exercise 6-12 on page 121 and copy out the completed
windchill table (not the formulas, but the resulting numbers).
Try to do exercise 11-17, pp. 197 ff. If you are able to post files
to the web, post the workbook. If not, describe your solution
in detail and with formulae in the body of an email message
and arrange a Skype session with the instructor to resolve your
issues in posting on the web.
Remember that you are free to work with others, and, especially
for this problem, are encouraged to do so. It is very important
that you work on this exercise. You may use either Excel or
Calc.
Assignment #3, assigned Thursday, 27 September 2012, due Tuesday,
2 October 2012
By now you must have your Google Sites web site and your blog
fully operational. If you are still having trouble, be certain to
contact the instructor and get this resolved.
Once again, if at all possible, form a study group for your work in this
class. You are free to work with others on the rest of this
assignment, but you must list all the people you work with on
your answers.
Read Gips 207 - 310 and make notes.
Post your intial thoughts on what similation project to
do for your portfolio project on your blog.
Do and submit the pencil and paper exercise 15-1 on p 295 and make notes
Prepared a detailed, thoughtful proposal of an original spreadsheet
simulation project for your portfolio project for this course, post the proposal
to your portfolio project web site and email the URL to the instructor.
Assignment #6, assigned Tuesday, 16 October 2012, due Tuesday,
23 October 2012
If you have done the previous assignments to this point, you have now been
exposed to the basic tools you need in order to make serious use of spreadsheets.
Now it is time to apply those tools and start building your porfolio to
show future employers or graduate schools what you can do. Carefully
re-edit your portfolio web site to have a description of your current
best simulation project, and carefully update your blog with information
on your progress (or lack thereof and reasons) on your portfolio project.
The problems you have done up until now will be evaluated over the
next week. They are all important, but the one that is the best test of
how well you understand working with spreadsheets is probably Conway's game of life.
Prepare your best updated version and post it to your Google sites
assignments web site. Update your blog with information on your progress and problems with the
game of life.
As practice in doing simulations, prepare a spreadsheet that simulates
two possible investments for the next 20 years. One investment is to put
your money into a bank that will pay you interest each year at some interest
rate uniformly distributed between 0.5 percent and 5 percent per annum,
using the rand() function once per year to pick the interest rate for that
year. The other investment is to put your money into numbers tickets
that have one chance in 1000 of hitting your number and will pay you $500
on a 1 dollar bet if you win. You always bet on your lucky number 007. Use
randbetween(0,999) to pick the winning number. Whether you are simulating
the bank or the lottery, you have 1 new dollar available to invest each day,
plus whatever dollar you have earned up to that point. Be sure to do the
simulated 20 years at least 100 times. Post your spreadsheet on your Google
sites assignments web site. Update your blog with information on your progress and problems
with this assignment.
Assignment #7, assigned Saturday, 27 October 2012, due Thursday,
1 November 2012.
Hurricane Rescheduled to 13 November 2012.
Having looked as your assignments to date, it would seem a good idea to
back up to a simpler assignment. You still need to do a simulation
as your portfolio project, but for right now try this ...
Write a spreadshhet to be used to manage the grade for a class of
17 students. The spreadsheet should allow for up to 30 assignments
or quizzes, compute averages grades and use some reasonable algorithm to
assign letter grades on the basis of this averages. Post your spreadsheet
on your Google sites assignments web site. Update your blog with
information on your progress and problems with this assignment.
Do Quiz 7Hurricane Rescheduled to 13 November 2012.
Note: There will be no office hours for this course nor Skype office hours on
election day, 6 November 2012.
Assignment #8, assigned Thursday, 1 November 2012, due Thursday,
8 November 2012.
Hurricane Rescheduled to 20 November 2012.
Continuing the simpler assignments of last time, now write
a spreadsheet to keep track of all your school assignments
by course, due date, completion date and grades. Include in
your spreadsheet formulas to warn you of the number of assignments
dues on any given day and your running averages to that day for
all assignments by course. Post your spreadsheet
on your Google sites assignments web site. Update your blog with
information on your progress and problems with this assignment.
Do Quiz 8Hurricane Rescheduled to 20 November 2012.
Assignment #9, assigned Tuesday, 20 November 2012, due Tuesday,
27 November 2012.
Hurricane Adjustment. The registrar has agreed to permit
delayed grading for this course for those students who do not need
a grade by the regular completion of the semster. For those who
need grades within the regular semester should complete all
assignments and quizzes, as well as their portfolio project
and the final exam by Monday, 17 December 2012. For these people
the final exam will be via Skype from 8 to 10 pm on Monday, 17 December 2012.
For those who do not have such requirements and are certain of no adverse
impact on financial aid, employer reimbursements, registration
for Winter semester courses, or other issues, they should complete
all assignments and quizzes, as well as their portfolio project
and the final exam by Monday, 14 January 2013. For these people
the final exam will be via Skype from 8 to 10 pm on Monday,
14 January 2013. People needing alternate arrangements should
discuss their needs with the instructor no later than by Friday,
30 Novermber 2012.
The remaining assignments and quizzes for this course all related to completion
of the portfolio project. Students are advised to fill in earlier missing
assignments and quizzes promptly both to be ready for the final and to free
time to work on a good portfolio project.
In all cases, your portfolio project is to be a simulation. Even if you
do not have all aspects of the simulation itself working, you are to
prepare a complete and coherent user manual for the simulation explaining
in detail what it is that your similation simulates with examples of
runs and explanations of what the various outputs from the simulation
are and how the user can start, stop or otherwise control the simulation.
This user manual is to be posted to your google sites portfolio web site
(not just to google docs, and certainly not sent as an email attachment).
Assignment #10, assigned Tuesday, 27 November 2012, due Tuesday,
4 December 2012.
Prepare a detailed system design document that expands the user
manual for your portfolio project with a complete explanation of
the way it works. Each and every sheet and formula should be
explained. Do not replace your user manual with the
system design document. They are intended for different audiences.
Both are important.
Assignment #11, assigned Tuesday, 4 December 2012, due Tuesday,
11 December 2012.
Clean up your portfolio project web site. Add a brief description
of yourself to the site and other features that would help to
make it useful in a job hunt. Remove anything extraneous from the
site. If there are things you need to keep, but that are not
appropriate to a portfolio, move them to your course web site.
Do Quiz 11. This is the
last quiz for the semester except for the final.
All assignments, quizzes or other materials to be considered
for your grade other than the portfolo project and the final
must be submitted no later than noon on Tuesday 11 December 2012
if you need a grade within the semester. The alternate time limit
for those choosing delayed grading is Tuesday, 8 January 2013.
Assignment #12, assigned Tuesday, 11 December 2012, due Monday,
17 December 2012.
Complete your porfolio project and send the URL to the instructor
by email.
The final will be help online via Skype from 8 to 10 pm on
Monday 17 December 2012. You will need a computer with a good
network connection and a web cam. For those who do not need
a grade within the semester, the alternate date for the Final
will be from 8 to 10 pm on Monday, 14 January 2013