COMP3000 Operating Systems 2023W

Note: this page's purpose is to host publicly available material linked from Brightspace. Please use Brightspace as the primary source of information to stay updated.

Course Outline

Aside from in Brightspace, you can also find it here.

⚠️ For all submissions (regardless of whether collaboration is allowed), the answers must be your own words. Any answers copy-pasted or rephrased from someone else with high resemblance are identified in your submission, you are subject to being reported to the Dean for plagiarism.

Office Hours

Join the office hours meeting here. You'll need to be signed in to Zoom with your cmail account. Follow the office hours schedule in Brightspace or the updated course outline. Alternatively, if you can't make it, you may also contact the instructor or TAs by email, on MS Teams or booking an appointment.

Tutorial Instructions

Submit the work by the deadline indicated in Brightspace. You can work on the tutorial until the deadline. What is submitted is not graded for correctness but effort showing your attempts and thinking. After the submission, you should continue to study it if there is still anything you do not understand well, for the assignments and exams.

Tutorial 1

Jan 11, 2023 -- Jan 16, 2023: Instructions

Tutorial 2

Jan 18, 2023 -- Jan 23, 2023: Instructions

Tutorial 3

Jan 25, 2023 -- Jan 30, 2023: Instructions

Tutorial 4

Feb 1, 2023 -- Feb 6, 2023: Instructions

Tutorial 5

Mar 1, 2023 -- Mar 6, 2023: Instructions

Tutorial 6

Mar 8, 2023 -- Mar 13, 2023: Instructions

Tutorial 7

Mar 15, 2023 -- Mar 20, 2023: Instructions

Tutorial 8

Mar 22, 2023 -- Mar 27, 2023: Instructions

Tutorial 9

Mar 29, 2023 -- Apr 3, 2023: Instructions

How to Do Well in This Course

The goal here is to establish a conceptual model to understand how operating systems work to serve applications. It is not a course like math or data structures. To succeed, you need to be more hands-on and focus on figuring out how to find the answers (like learning to fish) instead of the answers alone (like being given a fish). Memorization of answers and algorithms are NOT the focus of this course. As you progress, you should be gradually able to imagine how various pieces of the OS fit together to function.

If you are asking a lot of "why"s, you are on the right track. Use all available resources (including the course material) as references, like a dictionary, to help answer your "why"s. For example, when you are asked about some information, based on your knowledge, think: 1) which part of the OS should have this information? 2) is it supposed to be available at the point in question? 3) then how do you retrieve that information? e.g., any tool/command/funcion call? For sure, this would not be possible if you are just getting started, so a bit of confusion at the beginning is normal. As you move on, the conceptual model will become clearer as the basis for your thinking.

Reading the textbook is encouraged but not mandatory, and not all of it will be covered (involved chapters will be posted along with the lectures in Brightspace). The exams and assignments are based on lectures and tutorials. So, make sure you have sufficient understanding of both.

Course Delivery Method

Lectures will be in person and recorded. Recorded lectures will be posted in Brightspace. Course discussions will be on Microsoft Teams. Such discussions may include but are not limited to assignment clarifications, lecture polls, ad-hoc announcements, and tutorial discussions. All work submissions (tutorials, assignments, and exams), as well as important (e.g., grading-related) announcements, course material and grade posting, will be through Brightspace.

Online Submission of Course Work

Assignments/tutorials submissions are handled electronically (i.e., through Brightspace) and there is no "grace period" with respect to a deadline - an assignment submitted even one minute after the deadline is late and will not be accepted by the system. Technical problems do not exempt you from this requirement, so if you wait until the last minute and then have issues with your connection, you will still receive a mark of zero. Consequently, you are advised to attempt to submit your work at least one hour in advance of the due date and time. Contact the TAs/instructor in case of any problems.

Format errors, missing files, and other technical/non-technical upload issues will not constitute the justification for another attempt. Only what has been uploaded by the due date and time will be graded. Consequently, after you upload your submission to Brightspace you should re-download it immediately for verification and ensure that all needed files are there in the right format.

Collaboration

Collaboration on all work is allowed except for the midterm and the final exams. Collaboration, however, should be clearly acknowledged.

For assignments, while you may get help from others and even collaboratively solve technical problems, the code and answers submitted should all be your own work. For example, you may not divide an assignment into parts, give a part to another student or anyone else to solve, and then submit that work as your own. You have to have participated in the creation of every part of your submitted work. An easy way to make sure this happens is to never share files regarding coursework or copy and paste answers. Instead, only meet together (virtually) to work on an assignment (e.g., to discuss your understanding/confusion) and then separate to write up your own solutions.

Similarity between submitted assignments that has not been appropriately documented will be treated as plagiarism - the same as copying on a midterm or a final - and will be submitted to the Dean for disciplinary action.

Sharing assignment or exam specifications or posting them online (to sites like Chegg, CourseHero, OneClass, etc.) is considered academic misconduct. You are never permitted to post, share, or upload course materials without explicit permission from your instructor. Academic integrity offences are reported to the office of the Dean of Science. Penalties for such offences can be found on the ODS webpage: https://science.carleton.ca/academic-integrity/.