Computer Science and Information Processing (CSIP) course

Computer Science is like Magic: you do everything exactly as in your books and, if nothing comes out you, try and retry from the beginning until it works. Many times nothing works even if you did everything correctly, sometimes something works even if you did nothing correct.

Lecturer: Prof. Paolo Coletti
Teaching assistant: Dr. Alessio Brutti

Email: Paolo.Colettiunibz.it
Email: Alessio.Bruttiunibz.it
Website: www.paolocoletti.it/computerscience

Course

CSIP course presentation A.Y. 2009/10.
CSIP syllabus A.Y. 2009/10.

For Prof. Coletti complete office times, click here.

Prerequisites

In order to correctly follow this course each student is required previous knowledge on these topics:

• English understanding and reading: you must be able to read and understand spoken English at Cambridge FCE level. If, for example, you have problems reading this website, you will not follow the course correctly.
• Basic Microsoft Windows: you must already know how to use Windows in its basic aspects
• File handling: you must have a good practice on how to move, delete, rename, copy, compress, uncompress files and directories. These are activities with which many students have problems.
• Basic Internet: you must be able to navigate, send and read email, use basic UNIBZ network features and download files.

A detailed list of prerequisites is here. In any case, the teaching assistant will dedicate its first lessons to a precourse on these prerequisites.

Course content

• Basic computer skills, Windows overview and computer networks. This part is both thoretical and practical, and we will see topics which are of everyday use in a typical office environment.
• Microsoft Word. In this part we will see Word features in a very detailed approach, exploring tools that are rarely used.
• Microsoft Excel. In this part we will see the basic graphs, formulas and functions of Excel. This part contains also a section on financial Excel applications.

Organization

The first 4 hours of Prof. Coletti are unique. Each other lesson hour and each exercise hour is repeated twice in exactly the same way.

Prof. Coletti is in charge of:

• Basic computer skills, Windows overview and computer networks (4 unique hours in a standard classroom and 2 repeated hours in a standard classroom),
• Word (approximately 8 hours in lab A518),
• Excel and financial functions (approximately 16 hours in lab A518).

The teaching assistant is in charge of:

• precourse on Windows and file handling (approximately 4 hours in lab A518),
• Word exercises (approximately 7 hours in lab A518),
• Excel exercises (approximately 15 hours in lab A518).

Books

• The Basic Computer course book on computer introduction, computer networks and Windows.
• The PDF files course book on PDF files.
• The Financial Functions course book on basic finance and Excel's financial functions.
• Word 2007 for Dummies (Chapters 1-16, 18-25, 27-28, 33 (pages 279-380))
• Excel 2007 for Dummies (Chapters 2-7, 8 (pages 261-263), 9, 10, 11 (329-332))
• Excel 2007 Data Analysis for Dummies (Chapters 2 (pages 37-44), 3 (66-74), 4-7, 9 (185-187, 195-201, 215), 10 (223-231))

Exam

Exam time is one hour. You will enter the lab in turns of 25 students each, which will appear on this website as soon as enrolment is closed. If you have specific time needs, please write an email to Prof. Coletti as soon as possible, before the timetable appears.

The exam is partially open books: you may use any written or electronic document (including books, previous exams with solutions, your personal handwritten or electronic notes and my slides). You may not, however, use any communication program or device. Exception: you may not use the Basic Computer course book, neither printed nor photocopied nor on your hard disk space. You may use the other course's books.

The exam consists in:

• practical test on computer and Windows knowledge (approximately 10% of the grade), especially file handling;
• questions on computer, Windows, networks (approximately 25% of the grade). This consists in a set of true/false sentences. For each one, you may choose not to answer getting 0 points, answer correctly getting 1 point or answer wrongly getting -1 points. However, the total score of this part cannot be negative;
• practical test on Word (approximately 25% of the grade);
• practical test on Excel and financial functions (approximately 40% of the grade).

Warning: the crucial point of this exam is time. If you never practice with Word and Excel, you will still be able to do the exam but you will waste a lot of time looking for the commands and you will not finish it in time. Only with exercises will you be fast enough to complete it in one hour. It is a good idea to practice with a clock on the previous exams that you find below.

Differences with A.Y. 2008/09

Please, if you followed the course in A.Y. 2008/09 take note of these important differences.

• basic computer: little modifications to update it to 2010 technology (Windows 7, RAID backup systems)
• Excel: monthly interests added

Lessons

Slides

Excel function translation

Topic	Last updated
Computer introduction	12 February 2010
Windows	12 February 2010
Computer networks	12 February 2010
Word	12 February 2010
Excel	21 August 2008

Exercises

A.Y. 2009/10

Exam

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Where can I get Windows, Word, Excel, Access, Acrobat, PASW-SPSS, IZArc?
A: You can download IzArc from www.izarc.org for free. For Windows Vista Enterprise Multilanguage, Office 2007 and PASW-SPSS you should open a ticket on https://support.unibz.it and fix an appointment with the network administrators: they will give you the installation disks and you have the right to install these programs on your notebook. Remember to select also Access when you install Office. Adobe Acrobat licence is unfortunately not available, but to produce and protect PDF files you can install alternative free programs such as PDFCreator http://www.pdfforge.org/products/pdfcreator .

Q: How can I have Windows, Office, PASW-SPSS in English?
A: For Windows Vista, if you have installed the university version Control Panel -> Click, Language and Region -> Change Display Language. If you instead have your own version, probably you have a sigle language version and you may not change the language.
For Office, if you have installed the university version, in the Start -> All Programs -> Microsoft Office -> Microsoft Office Tools -> Microsoft Office 2007 Language Settings. If you instead have your own version, depending on the version you may or may not have this tool.
For PASW 17 or SPSS 16 you can change the language inside the program Edit -> Options -> General.

Q: When will the next exam be?
A: I am sorry but the exam date is not decided by me and therefore I do not know it until it is officially published on the university online calendar.

Q: The exam's date is very close to our other exams. May you move it?
A: The exam date is not decided by me, so redirect your request to the secretaries. However, before advancing your request prepare yourself to find 6 consecutive hours where there is no exam of Agrar old, PPE old, EM, EM old, BS, BS old, nor any language's exam or master's exam.

Q: What if I may not enroll online for technical or burocratic reasons?
A: Please write an email to me so I may put you in some turns. In any case you must ask the secretary what to do, since not enrolled students may not attend the exam.

Q: May I do the exam with my computer?
A: Yes. But beware: (1) you must be able to navigate the Internet and to enter directory \\ubz01fst\Courses\Course_Coletti (an alternative can be being able to navigate the Internet and producing a CD). Do not wait for the day before the exam to check it. (2) You are responsable for your different programs' versions and configurations and for the absence on your computer of specific programs. In particular, check that you are able to produce PDF files. (3) Remove my PDF books from your hard disks. (4) If you use another operative system, you are responsable if your files do not open correctly on my Windows Vista.

Q: May I do the exam using Windows in a different language?
A: Yes, sure. However pay attention that Excel functions which will be very different. I suggest you to study them directly in your Windows version and, in any case, to take the conversion sheet with you during the exam.

Q: Will the exam be "open books"?
A: During the exam you may use any written or electronic document (including previous exams with solutions, your personal handwritten or electronic notes, the financial functions book and my slides), except my Basic Computer course book, which you may not have neither printed nor photocopied nor on your hard disk space. You may not, however, use any communication program or device.

Q: How do questions work?
A: In every exam there is a set of true/false sentences. Each single sentence can be either true or false, without any relation with previous sentences. For any sentence, you may choose not to answer getting 0 points, answer correctly getting 1 point or answer wrongly getting -1 points. However the total score of questions cannot be negative.

Q: Will the exam be similar to the previous ones?
A: Sure, but every year I add the new topics and do not ask topics which were removed from the syllabus.

Q: I am a student of Agriculture enrolled in A.Y. 2006/07. Which exam do I have to take?
A: You have to take this exam, the Computer Science and Information Processing exam at the School of Economics and Management, so this is the right web page for you. You do not have to take the similar exam at the Faculty of Science and Technology.

Q: Help me! I can not save my files.
A: Before the exam you must empty your email folders of all the big stuff you have inside. Moreover go to \\ubz01fst\students, locate your directory, and searching through all your subdirectories delete all the big or not necessary files. In this way you will have enough space to save everything. If you cannot save due to a shortage of disk space, we can not and will not do anything to help you.

Q: I lost a file during the exam because I did not save it correctly. What may you do?
A: Absolutely nothing. With time spent on exercises you should know the unrealiability level of your programs, and how often you have to save.

Q: My files were not copied correctly at the end of the exam. What may I do?
A: Checking that the copy is correct, and practicing file copy even during the exam, is your task and is official part of the evaluation for this course.

Previous exams

Warning: from exam 18 "form","questionnaire", "drop-down menu", "combo box", "text field" have been removed from the course, but you still find them in the previous exams.

This page is mantained by Paolo Coletti.