A290/A590
Android
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A290/A590
Tools for Computing/Topics in Programming:
Android Application Interface
Design and Programming.

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"Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains,
no matter how improbable, must be the truth"

-Sherlock Holmes "The Sign of Four"

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Instructor: Jeff Whitmer

Jeff Whitmer

  • My Office: Luddy Hall 2050 (IF2050).
  • Office Hours:


  • Office Hour Special NOTES:
    • Any changes to my office hours will be posted here.

      • Tuesday, January 9, 2024: FIRST DAY THIS CLASS MEETS.

      • Monday, January 15, 2024: Martin Luther King Jr. Day: IU CLASSES DO NOT MEET.

  • Luddy Hall 2050 (IF2050) Office Phone: 855-3974.
  • E-mail: jwhitmer@indiana.edu.

Meeting Times: (Spring 2024)

  • Tuesday/Thursday: 11:30am - 12:45pm (section 5515 and 6379)
    Miles Brand Hall I W109

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Important Updates for All Students
enrolled in Spring 2024

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[LAST UPDATED: 3/4/2024]

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  • ACTIVE Course Engagement Scores, Final Averages, and Final Grades are posted and Final Grades Submitted to Registrar: ACTIVE Course Engagement scores, Final Averages, and Final Grades have been posted on Canvas. Final Grades have been submitted to the Registrar. You should be able to view your official grade tomorrow. Please read the following carefully before contacting me about your grade as I will refer you back to this message if your question is answered here.

    Because the quality of work for the group over the entire course was very, very good, I could not justify any dramtic adjustment in the final grading scale. The final scale was originally 90-80-70-60 with the top and bottom 2.5% representing the + and - grade respectively. I did, however make a small adjustment. The B scale changed to 79-90 and the C scale changed to 68-79, so the final scale was 90-79-68-57, with the top and bottom 2.5% still being the +/- ranges. Please remember, your final average is not simply adding all the scores together and dividing by the total possible. You can confirm this on the "General Course Information" page, but the equation used was: Homework PROGRAMS % x .25 + ACTIVE Engagement % x .10 + Attendance % x .05 + MINI/JIT/CAT % x .10 + Final Project % x .50 = some total less than 100.00. All calculations were taken out to 5 decimal places even though only 2 are displayed. Unless you think there is an arithmetic error, you should consider these grades as truly final, as I have already carefully considered each grade even though I made no adjustment to the scale. Please note this especially as it relates to "borderline" grades. I've already looked at every grade and if a change was made, it was only if there was consistent work in every category. If you missed work of any sort for any reason, you should not expect to be moved to the next highest grade. For the Final Averages for the class as a whole, there were 3 averages in the 90s, 3 in the 80s and 2 in the 70s.

    For the class overall, there were 3 students who received some form of "A," 4 who received some form of "B," and 1 who received some form of "C." This is consistent with performances in past semesters and reflects the hard work everyone put in.

    NOTE: The average posted in the "Grades" part of Canvas is correct, as is the Final Grade posted in that same section. I am able to reset the Canvas grading scale to reflect the scale for this course.

    NOTE on "ACTIVE Course Engagement." While this is a subjective score, it was very good for most of the class, with a vast majority of the scores in the 90s. It is important for you to recall, as I said in the first and last weeks, it is impossible to separate Engagement from attending the class meetings and completing all course work. If you were excessively or chronically absent, and/or failed to submit multiple assignments, it was impossible to achieve a superior engagement score. The more classes where you were absent or the more missing assignments you accumulated, the lower your ACTIVE Course Engagement score was. Again, a majority of Engagement scores were in the 90s but some were in the 80s. The ACTIVE Course Engagement average was 91.88.

    Once again, thanks for being a terrific group of students and for all your hard work on this eleventh version of this course. I hope you found the course worthwhile and that everyone has a great rest of the semester.

  • Final Project Phase 3 scores and Final Project overall scores posted and Phase 3 emails sent: You should have all received an email with your Phase 3 score. These were all very good submissions, with scores on Phase 3 ranging from 69.25 to 99.75 out of 100, with a Phase 3 average of 87.13%. This is one of our best ever sets of Phase 3 submissions. There were 4 in the 90s, 1 in the 80s, 2 in the 70s, and 1 in the 60s. Remember that your overall score includes Phase 1 + Phase 2 making 30% and Phase 3 making 70%. The overall scores were also very good, with an average of 84.76%. There was 3 in the 90s, 2 in the 80s, 2 in the 70s, and 1 in the 60s. IMPORTANT REMINDER: The "OFFICIAL Final Project TOTAL SCORE" in the Final Project group is confirmed accurate and it is now the only score from that group that will be used to calculate your Final Average. The other Final Project scores are still visible, but no longer counted toward the final average.

    NOTE: ACTIVE Course Engagement Scores, Final Averages, and Final Grades will be posted sometime on Monday, March 4, 2024 and submitted to the Registrar no later than 8pm on Monday, March 4, 2024.

  • Your overall average for "MINI/JIT/CAT" on Canvas confirmed accurate: Since today's CAT was our last one, your overall average for "MINI/JIT/CAT" is now final and confirmed accurate. Keep in mind these various overall averages carry different "weights" in determining your final average for the course. You can review those "weights" on the "General Course Information" page. There were 3 MINIs (15 each), 4 JITs (3 each) and 4 CATs (10 each) for a total of 97 possible points. The course average on these was 81.70%. ALSO NOTE: I did my best to point out on the first day that if you missed one MINI or one CAT or a couple of class meetings, each was worth a small enough part of your final grade it wouldn't make a difference. HOWEVER, I also said that if you missed several MINIs and/or several CATs and/or many classes, it would definitely have an impact. For a few of you, this turned out to the be the case. There was 1 average of 100, 2 averages in the 90s, 2 averages in the 80s, 1 in the 70s, 1 in the 60s, and 1 below 60.

    Your overall averages for "Attendance" are also confirmed accurate. For "Attendance" there were 16 possible class meetings. This includes the two days I was ill where everyone was counted present. If you had an excused absence, either with documentation, or as your "PTO" day, it counted neither for nor against you. I explained this in class today. The class Attendance average was 97.12%, with 7 100s, 0 in the 90s, 0 in the 80s, and 1 in the 70s. As noted in class, if your attendance average is low, you should not expect a high "ACTIVE Course Engagement" score when those are posted next Monday. The Averages on Canvas are correct, but rounded. In my records, they are stored to two decimal places for greater accuracy. This means your "92" on Canvas could well be a 92.31 and your "87" on Canvas could well be an 86.67. Canvas rounds up or down for Attendance, but I will not when calculating the final averages.

    PLEASE NOTE: If you have any questions about these averages, you must contact me by 5pm tomorrow, Friday, March 1, 2024. After that, these averages will be final and official.

  • MINI 3/ JIT 3 Scores Posted and emails on the way: Scores for MINI 3 and JIT 3 are posted and everyone should have an email with the details of their scores by the end of the day. Overall, a good set of submissions for this third MINI with a slightly different structure, but I did expect them to be better overall and they were. The overall average was 90.00%. MINI 3 was worth 15 points and JIT 3 was worth 3. These should all be visible on your Canvas Gradebook.

  • JIT 3 "topics" posted, JIT 3 and MINI 3 scores/feedback coming later today. JIT 3 "topics" are posted. Because I wanted to be sure everyone saw these "important topics" from those who submitted, I got this part done as promptly as I could. It will be hard to miss that most of you put a great deal of work into your submissions while others clearly did not by not submitting JIT 3. The JIT compiled "important topics" and "why" have been updated on the Homework Page, so you can see those topics your classmates thought were worth sharing. Again, almost all the submissions are very detailed and I hope you find them useful.

  • Individual FINAL PROJECT Phase 2 scores posted and emails sent: Let me begin by saying that, regardless of your score on Phase 2, all the projects that have been proposed look practical, interesting, and most appear achievable so everyone can continue their development on the Phase 3 Final Project deliverable.

    Having said that, the submissions for Phase 2 ranged from very good to quite disappointing. While two students received scores of 70 and 1 had a score in the 60s, there were also many scores below 50. This distribution is something I have learned to accept given this is a new experience for most students. However, there were submissions with lower scores, primarily because one or, usually, several of the required components for the Phase 2a and 2b part of the submission were incomplete, not presented as required, or omitted entirely. For Phase 2b, these were clearly laid out on Page 4 of the Final Project Description, which is the primary authority on what must be completed for each step of the Project process. We discussed all this in class on at length and in detail on 2/15/24. For Phase 2a, I offered an additional extended discussion also on 2/15/24 with examples about what was expected, but many submissions lacked all the "detailed" storyboards for every screen change that was carefully and thoroughly addressed during that meeting. In other words, some submissions seemed to ignore the detailed discussions and examples, both on what to do and what not to do, that were shared on class before Phase 2 was due.

    The average was still a very good 51.25/70 or 73.22%. While most submissions provided something for each required component, some were just too brief in one or more sections of the Phase 2b submission, or, as already noted, failed to include one of the required sections. Also keep in mind your reader should never be forced to "hunt around" for your discussion of these topics, when they are presented and organized in such a clear and detailed manner in the Final Project Description itself.

    As you work on Phase 3, remember the goal is to use what you created for Phase 2 to help you stay on task with your interface design AND your logical/coding structure. Both will be important to you as you continue to work, and both will be clearly and thoroughly used in our evaluations of your Phase 3 submission. Remember, Phase 3 (the actual Project) is due on Friday, March 1.

  • A290/A590 Final Project Description and Schedule/Calendar now posted. You can find it on the Homework Page at the bottom, in the Final Project section. Be sure to note there are 3 phases to this project and Phase 1 (+ Phase 0) is due (at the beginning of class) on Tuesday, February 13, 2024 (week after this). We will discuss it briefly Tuesday, 2/6/24, but you need to be sure you read it thoroughly, several times, before class on 2/8/24. Again, read it from beginning to end several times as every section and word is there for a reason and failing to understand and complete every requirement of every phase could significantly impact your Final Project score and your final grade in the course. Phase 1 should be fairly straight-forward both to understand and to complete by Tuesday, February 13. I have tried to check this carefully, but if you find typos, or other things that you believe are errors, please let me know. We will very briefly discuss Phase 2a + Phase 2b and Phase 3 on Tuesday as well, and dedicate more time in future meetings to discuss them in greater detail.

  • AI contact information and preferred appointment times now available. You will now find the contact information and preferred appointment times for the AIs in A290/A590 Android, Piyush, Janakiram, and Sreya on the Course website Homepage just below the section with announcements. Please note that "preferred appointment time" means just that. These are the times it is the most likely each of them would be able to meet with you to answer questions that cannot be answered electronically. I do not ask them to hold office hours, as that is not a very effective use of their time. If you have a question about an Individual Homework PROJECT (with restrictions), you are welcome to contact any of them to set up an appointment either in person or virtually. Keep in mind we expect appointments to be kept and a missed appointment without notice may impact your options for future appointments. We will discuss this further in class tomorrow.

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Graduate Associate Instructors, Spring 2024:


Piyush Chauhan

Piyush Chauhan

Email: pgchauha@iu.edu

  • Office Hours/Appointments: Usually part of class meeting time. Appointments also available and strongly encouraged.
    PREFERRED Appointment times:
  • Wednesdays: 1:30pm - 3:30pm and Thursdays: 2:00pm - 4:00pm

Janakiram Sharma Kashigari

Janakiram Sharma Kashigari

Email: jkashig@iu.edu

  • Office Hours/Appointments: Usually part of class meeting time. Appointments also available and strongly encouraged.
    PREFERRED Appointment times:
  • Wednesdays: 4:00pm - 6:00pm and Fridays: 10:00am - 12:00pm

Sri Sai Sreya Sadasivapetkar

Sri Sai Sreya Sadasivapetkar

Email: ssadasiv@iu.edu

  • Office Hours/Appointments: Usually part of class meeting time. Appointments also available and strongly encouraged.
    PREFERRED Appointment times:
  • Wednesdays: 10:00am - 12:00pm and Fridays: 1:00pm - 3:00pm
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