Course Scheduling Announcements

This page contains announcements of changes from the normal scheduling of courses.

Note that when a course substitutions needs to be made because a regularly offered course is not offered, you should choose a CS course that is at the same or higher level.

2022-2023 Academic Year

Dr. Sternfeld is retiring with his last term being Spring 2022. Steve Baker is also leaving ISU. So we will be down from 7 full time CS faculty to 5. We have plans to run a faculty search to replace one or both of them, but for 2022-2023 we need to make do with fewer full time faculty. To make the schedule work we are making the following changes.

• Part time lecturers - increase the number of courses taught by part time lecturers.
• Canceling a few courses - the following courses would normally be offered but will not be for the upcoming academic year - CS 305 Computer Science Teaching Methods, CS 452/552 Software Engineering, CS 619 Trends in Computer Science, CS 658 Algorithms II, CS 671 Operating Systems II. If your concentration requires any of these courses, please consult your advisor to decide on substitutions.

Changes made after the schedule was originally released...

• 5/20/2022 - It appears that the math department will not be offering MATH 503 Linear Algebra and Modeling for Data Science" and MATH 540 Statistics for Data Science during the next academic year. These courses are required for the data science concentration. If you are completing the data science concentration you can choose two different MATH or CS courses to substitute for these; ask your advisor for approval.
• 4/11/2022 - Changing CS 417 Machine Learning to be in the spring rather than the fall. A section of CS 459 Topics in CS: Big Data / Data Mining is being added to the fall schedule (should show up within a day or so). The prereq for that will be CS 401 and can be used in place of CS 417 if you cannot take CS 417 in the spring; write to the associate chairperson to ask to be granted an override to register for the course.
• 4/11/2022 - CS 473/573 Computer Networks in the fall has been changed to be a synchronous online course with meeting day/time of Tuesday 6-8pm.

2021-2022 Academic Year

Lab sections - New this year, the following courses have required lab sections - CS 401, 456, 457, 458. These are required as co-requisites regardless of what your MySAM says (i.e., your MySAM does not list CS 456L as a requirement, but you need to register for it to take CS 456). These extra lab sections can count as electives of substitutions for those who need 400 level CS credits.

Credit hours - A few courses have had their number of credit hours: CS 303 is not 4 hours, CS 499 is now 2 hours. If your catalog year was for the smaller number of hours, then the additional hour can be counted towards electives or substitutions.

Courses not offered - In order to offer required courses in the revised BS and MS programs every year, the following courses will not be offered for the foreseeable future: CS 420/520 Theory of Computation, CS 421/521 Formal Methods. Current students who have this listed as required should consult with your advisor to decide on substitutions. After substitutions are decided, your advisor will submit a petition so the substituted courses will show up in your MySAM (for undergrads) or plan of study (for grads).

Courses not offered - Due to staffing changes this year, the following courses that are required in the CS MS data science concentration are not being offered: Math 503 Linear Algebra and Modeling for Data Science, Math 540 Statistics for Data Science. Consult your advisor to decide on courses to substitute for these. We expect these courses to be offered again in the next academic year.

Courses online - CS programs are now offered completely online. For each required course in any of the CS programs, it will be offered at least once per year online. Most courses are offered in hybrid fashion - a combined section that has face to face students in the classroom, online synchronous students participating via Zoom or Teams, and asynchronous online students watching recordings and scheduling meetings as needed. Some courses are offered with a single asynchronous online section where all students participate asynchronously.

Help lab online - The CS help lab (aka the Unix Lab) is now available completely online. Lab assistants with hours during the day are in the help lab and also available online. There are normally evening hours that are available online only. For more, see Labs and Office Hours