Covid-19

This page will be kept up to date with information and resources related to how CS courses are handling impacts due to covid-19 (in particular online instruction and potential student/faculty illness).

For Students in CS Courses

S/U Grading

For each of your courses in Spring 2020 you were able to choose whether you are given a standard final letter grade (A-F) or S/U (Satisfactory / Unsatisfactory). See - https://www.indstate.edu/academic-affairs A few FAQ's...

Will S/U be an option again in summer or fall 2020? No, this was a one-time only option because things changed rapidly during the semester. Going forward we are all aware that things will be different and should plan accordingly.

Can a student change their choice from S/U to A-F or vice versa? No, the choice cannot be changed now.

If a student chose S/U but would have earned a C or higher, can they register for the next class? For example, if would have earned a C or higher in CS 151 but chose S/U, can they register for CS 201. If you are in this situation, get in touch with the associate chairperson so that we can let you register.

University and College Info

• Announcements from the university - https://www.indstate.edu/covid-19
• Generic online course/learning info from the university - https://www.indstate.edu/fcte
• College of Arts and Sciences (has links to resources) - https://www.indstate.edu/cas/
• Student relief fund, apply for assistance - https://today.indstate.edu/announcement/disaster-relief-fund-application-available/
• Contribute to help students, faculty, staff in need - https://www.indstate.edu/giving/relief
• University Dean of Students - https://www.indstate.edu/student-affairs/dean Dean of Students

Lab Hours

The online lab is normally only open during the academic year. For the summer, be in touch with your instructor for help.

CS Online Lab uses Microsoft Teams. To get help, do the following.

• Make sure you are using the latest version of Chrome or Edge (the software we will use is fully functional only in these browsers).
• Go to https://teams.microsoft.com or https://portal.office.com and login with your full ISU email address on the initial login and then using your ISU portal Id when asked for that. If you login at portal.office.com, Teams is one of the apps that shows up (along with Word, etc.).
• Request access to the CS Online Lab team - by going to this link and clicking to request access. One of the faculty or GAs will approve your request to join.
• Once part of the team, you can check on the General channel whether a GA / lab assistant is currently on duty. You can post questions in the chat, or you can ask to talk. With the video call you can share your screen to show your code and talk through debugging it.
• There is also a Microsoft Teams app that can be installed on phones and tablets. That should work as well.

Course Policies

Attendance Students should plan to keep their calendars clear for when they would normally have lecture. Some instructors will meet online with their classes during the regular lecture time. Courses should have at least some points each week that are easy to earn, play the role of attendance or participation, give students enough hope to keep working.

For courses where attendance is part of the grade, each instructor will determine how to count attendance during online instruction. The policy should be reasonable. Students should not be penalized for illness, and if there are other impacts related to covid-19 students should be in touch with their instructor and the associate chairperson of CS.

Lecture and Office Hours Each course instructor can choose how to deliver the content of the course - offline videos to watch, tutorials to follow, interaction using chat, synchronous video conferencing, or something else. Your instructor will let you know what to expect. You can see the possibilities that faculty are choosing from at Online-Instruction.

Programming Assessment For those who were unable to pass the programming assessment (CS 202, 500) in spring 2020, some remediation is being planned for May and June so that you can improve your C programming and data structures in order to pass the assessment. If you are able to pass the assessment you earn at least a C, and a change of grade will be put in for the course and you will be able to register for the next courses. The programming assessment is given online using the Lockdown Browser from within Blackboard. A by-phone option can be requested if needed.

Grades - Should be kept mostly up to date in blackboard.

Other See CS Online Teaching for other thoughts on good policies for online teaching.

Admissions / Prospective Students

We are aware that students hoping to attend ISU will have additional challenges in securing all required documentation, etc. in a timely manner.

For those applying for the CS MS, if our normal Graduate Admissions process is not feasible (e.g., you could not do a Skype interview but could do a phone interview due to internet issues, etc.) please be in touch with the associate chairperson. We will also be glad to defer Fall 2020 admissions to Spring 2021 for those who are admitted but end up unable to get to ISU in time for Fall 2020. Note that our normal admissions deadline for Fall is June 15, and for Spring is Nov 15. At this time the university-required documents for admission (4-year degree or equivalent transcript, English language scores if not from the US) remain the same, and the process for obtaining a student visa for international students remains the same. If there are any changes we will let all applicants know and post details here.

For international students, we are aware that many US consulates have put a hold on taking new appointments for visa interviews. At this time we just have to wait to see how this situation develops. As noted, we will be glad to take students for Spring 2021 entry if needed.

Administrative Things

Signatures

Anything that normally needs signature on a physical piece of paper should be emailed instead. These can be submitted by completing them electronically and sending along with an email approval.

Covid-19 Data and Analysis

Many will be interested in examining the data related to the spread of Covid-19. Some resources.

• Time series of number of cases each day broken down by country/region/state - https://github.com/CSSEGISandData/COVID-19
• Analysis of growth in cases, quantity of testing - https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus
• Checking if there is exponential growth or not - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kas0tIxDvrg
• Using that approach in R - web app
• List of cases (with age, gender, etc.) - https://www.kaggle.com/sudalairajkumar/novel-corona-virus-2019-dataset
• US by state, including pending tests - https://covidtracking.com/
• Nice animation plotting average new cases versus previous number of cases - https://aatishb.com/covidtrends/ and video explanation - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54XLXg4fYsc
• Basic model for disease transmission - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6nLfCbAzgo
• Simulations with different mitigation strategies - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxAaO2rsdIs
• Effectiveness of strategies to slow the spread - https://spiral.imperial.ac.uk:8443/handle/10044/1/77482
• Collection of research articles, with goal of using AI techniques for data mining - https://www.kaggle.com/allen-institute-for-ai/CORD-19-research-challenge/data
• What is known about covid-19 (as of March 14) - https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/14/health/coronavirus-covid-19-flu-comparison-frieden-analysis/index.html
• Mining social media to look for trends - https://www.tribstar.com/news/local_news/data-firm-says-vigo-might-be-a-potential-covid-19-hotspot/article_f6041d88-d566-57a4-8d37-234df24ee393.html
• UW IHME projections per US state - https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america
• Simulation scenarios, advice, what is going to happen - https://ncase.me/covid-19/
• State-by-state restrictions - https://www.huschblackwell.com/illinois-state-by-state-covid-19-guidance
• How is transmitted, some outbreak stories - https://www.erinbromage.com/post/the-risks-know-them-avoid-them?fbclid=IwAR23jRvKsCX5X6Gl8AIR7T1Q3Yu9aV-GWZx-sRFG580X09rErUJ4Wx2Hpoc
• Proposal to group test every household in the US every week - https://www.forbes.com/sites/kotlikoff/2020/05/03/dr-fauci-heres-a-way-to-contain-covid-19-and-reopen-the-economy-in-as-little-as-one-month/#6d6caf181c7a
• ISU Library's guide to info/research - https://libguides.indstate.edu/CoronaVirusResources
• NIH Coronavirus info (place to check for results from new research) - https://www.nih.gov/health-information/coronavirus
• Clinical trials with keyword covid-19 - https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/results?cond=&term=covid-19&cntry=&state=&city=&dist=
• Does the virus remain viable on clothes, etc. - https://ohsonline.com/articles/2020/04/22/where-does-the-virus-live-not-on-your-hair-clothes-or-shoes.aspx?admgarea=news
• State and county level trends on cases and other data - https://covidcast.cmu.edu/
• Sampling from Indiana for coronavirus - https://news.iu.edu/stories/2020/05/iupui/releases/13-preliminary-findings-impact-covid-19-indiana-coronavirus.html

Communications

March 12

Head's up message from associate chairperson of CS

Cheers students enrolled in CS courses. As expected, we will be online-only starting next week. CS faculty met earlier in the week to discuss common expectations across all CS courses.

We will likely meet again tomorrow or this weekend to pin down the details. I will be in touch again after that, and will likely put up a website with information/resources related to your CS courses.

A few things to give you a head's up on already are below. Please read through that, and if you have any questions be in touch with your instructors and/or myself.

Note - face to face classes /will/ meet today and tomorrow as usual.

Reliable internet - you will need a reliable internet connection to view lectures and/or participate in synchronous sessions. If you will not have a reliable internet connection, please notify your instructors and myself ASAP.

Normal class meeting times - faculty may choose to hold synchronous online class sessions/lectures during your regular meeting times (everyone would connect to a video conferencing system at the same time). Until you hear otherwise you should keep your regular class meeting times blocked off on your calendars.

Lectures - faculty will choose between synchronous lectures, videos that can be viewed asynchronously, tutorials to follow, detailed powerpoint slides. Each faculty member will choose based on (a) their own preferences, and (b) what is likely best for the course.

Assignments - will likely continue on the same schedule. You should expect to continue working on your courses.

Unix lab - is likely to become an "online lab". We are working out the details, but we will have online hours where you can connect with one of the lab assistants to share screens, look at code, etc.

Quizzes and exams - faculty can choose whether to give quizzes/exams online or not. If the university resumes face to face eventually, faculty may choose to delay quizzes and exams until then.

Delay in startup - you may experience a delay in some courses getting up and rolling online. Faculty who have never taught online courses before will be getting up to speed early next week.