CIS 1010-07 Introduction to Personal Computing Spring 2021

(last updated 1/25/2021)

Basic information

Class meetings

This is an online course. All the learning materials and activities are online, using Cengage SAM which contains exam trainings, exams, projects, and eBook. Instructor interacts with students via Blackboard announcements, email and office hours.

Course Description

●   4 Subjects, 5 modules in 15 weeks: Microsoft Word 2019, PowerPoint 2019, Excel 2019 (2 modules), Cyber Security.

●   Learning Activities: 5 trainings, 5 exams, 4 projects, 1 eBook. All of them are on SAM.

●   You must pass all 5 exams with a minimum of 70% for each exam AND all 4 projects with a minimum of 70% for each project, to pass this course.

●   This is a Credit/No Credit course, i.e. Pass/Fail. Therefore, the grade of this course will not affect your GPA.

●   All learning materials are on SAM (http://sam.cengage.com ). All projects and exams will be auto graded by SAM and you usually see your grades in SAM minutes after submission.

Course Objectives

Students passing this course will demonstrate the ability to create, edit, store, and manage Word Document, PowerPoint presentation, and Excel spreadsheet in Windows OS environment, and use these knowledge and skills in subsequent courses at Cal Poly Pomona.

CIS 1010 serves as a:

●   required support course of all Business Administration majors and minors

●   restricted elective for Apparel Merchandising and Management major

●   required core for Agribusiness and Food Industry Management major

●   pre-req for ACC 2070

Required Course Websites

●   SAM (http://sam.cengage.com ) is the MOST IMPORTANT software/website for this course.

You will take the trainings and exams, download project instructions and start files, and submit completed projects to be auto graded, as well as tracking your exam and project grades using SAM, including training, exams, projects and eBook.

●   Blackboard simply contains link to SAM, syllabus, course schedule, and announcements - make sure you configure your Blackboard setting to receive an email notification whenever instructor publishes an announcement. All grades for exams and projects are posted to SAM only, not Blackboard. Once you become familiar with the course structure you may find no need to access to Blackboard anymore.

Course Overview

SAM Access Code

This course participates in CPP’s “Instant Access” Program, which automatically gives all enrolled students access to their course materials, in digital format, by the first day of classes at highly discounted prices. The instant access digital materials fee will be billed to your CPP student account, and you are responsible for paying it by the add/drop deadline along with your other tuition/fees for the term. You can choose to opt-out of the instant access before the add/drop deadline, and the fee amount will be refunded to your student account. (IMPORTANT: If you do not opt-out of this program by the add/drop deadline the charges on your account that fee will be final). If you opt-out, you will no longer have access to the materials. Opt-out instructions will be emailed to you or posted to Blackboard, but for most courses, the easiest way is to log into the bookstore’s Instant Access Portal https://portal.verba.io/pomona/login and follow the prompts.

Instant Access FAQ for students: https://www.broncobookstore.com/instant-access.asp?

Visit the following link for instructions on how to sign up for SAM through Blackboard: https://www.cengage.com/coursepages/CPP_CIS_1010

Trainings and Exams

There are 5 exams (Word, PPT, Excel 1, Excel 2, and Cyber Security); each exam has its companion training.

Trainings are optional and not graded however they are extremely important because they demonstrate and let you practice the skills you need for both exams and projects. Trainings are set to be "always available" and can be taken anywhere with Internet connection via a web browser.

All exams are set up to be password protected, 70% passing rate, 50 min time limit, 3 attempts per task, display feedback for each task, randomize tasks, display results at end of exam.

You must start your exam within 15 minutes of your designated exam start time. Missing the 1st attempt for a specific exam means that you have used 1 of the 4 attempts for that exam.

The exams are close-book, close-notes, meaning you cannot open the corresponding exam training on another browser tab, window, or computer at the same time while you take the exam. You will be logged out of the exam if you do and it counts as one attempt.

All exams are auto graded by SAM and the results are displayed immediately after submission and can be retrieved by you from Reports or Gradebook tab.

Projects and Office 365/2019

There are 4 capstone projects (1 for Word, 1 for PowerPoint, and 2 for Excel); each project covers module 1-3 of the subject in eBook, so you will find solutions to the projects in corresponding eBook chapters. In addition, the training tasks matches 80-90% of the project tasks so trainings will help your projects too.

For each project, you will 1) download a project instruction document and a start file from SAM, and 2) work on the downloaded start file on any computer that has Office 365/2019, and then submit completed project files back to SAM. SAM will auto-grade it and display the results in minutes. Each downloaded start file has a unique ID attached to it, so sharing or exchanging project files with classmates is easily detectable and will be handled as plagiarism.

These projects are designed for Office 365/2019 therefore you will likely lose points if you use another version. Office 365/2019 is installed on computers campus-wide, including our classroom lab and library 24-hour lab. You also have access to Office 365/2019 from a browser from any computer when logging into the Office 365 portal. You can also download Office 365/2019 to 5 computers.

All the projects are set to be "always available" until end of final exam day. Like exams, all projects are auto graded by SAM and the results are displayed immediately after submission and can be retrieved by students from Reports or Gradebook tab.

Installing Office 365

●   Students can log in, download and install Office from www.office.com

●   The same www.office.com portal also provides the login, download, and install of Office for Mac users without the need to install Windows OS.

●   Students can get Windows 10 for free via https://cpp.onthehub.com.

●   To get VMware you can go to the CIS department's "Current Students" then "Labs and Software" page. Click on the link "California State Polytechnic University - Computer Information Systems - Microsoft Imagine". You will be redirect to onthehub.com. Then look up "VMware Fusion".

●   vBox is also a VMware alternative.

●   Also, you are able to use Office 365 directly on office.com.

●   If you have further questions regarding installing the software you can contact Cal Poly's IT help desk."

eBook

The eBook, Shelly Cashman Microsoft Office 365 & Office 2019 Introductory, comes with your purchase of SAM access code, and the eBook covers all tasks included in trainings, exams and projects and more, using text, screenshots, and short videos. You can access the eBook in SAM by selecting "Readings" and "Always Available" filter in "Activity List". Before click to open the eBook link make sure your browser accepts pop-up windows from this site.

70% Passing Score and 4 Attempts

In order to pass this course, you are required to pass each of the 5 exams at 70% or above AND pass each of the 4 projects at 70% or above in order to pass the course. You get 4 attempts for each exam, and 4 attempts for each project.

If you have already passed a particular exam or project at 70% or above, you do not need to take the rest of the attempts. You can still use the rest of attempts to practice and you may get higher score each time however it does not make any difference to your course grade.

The 4 attempts policy and passing rates are standards across all CIS 1010 sections and there is no exception or negotiation under any circumstances. You cannot pass an exam or a project even with 69%, and you cannot pass the course if you failed any exam or project after using up 4 attempts for each.

DRC

Students with disability can opt to take the exam at DRC with more time, such as 1.5 times of regular exam time or 113 minutes.

Cengage Support

If you have any question or concern you can create a Cengage Tech support ticket online. The link to Tech Support as well as many useful tutorial videos are accessible from the login page of SAM http://sam.cengage.com/Login.aspx .

Cell phones

All cell phones are prohibited during exams. You may have cell phones in class when exams are not given, but they must be muted and not answered until the end of the exam.

Code of conduct

Academic dishonesty is a serious offence and includes:

1. All exams and projects are to present the individual effort of that student. While it is permitted to seek help in clarifying project requirements or related concepts, all materials submitted must present original work by each individual student. Copying of another student’s work, allowing one’s work to be copied, joint authorships, plagiarism, and, in general, claiming the work of another as one’s own will result in a failing grade for the course and a report made to the Office of Student Conduct.

2. Cheating during exams – using unauthorized cheat sheets, copying from another, looking at another student’s exam, opening books (during closed-book exams), obtaining advance copies of exams, and having an exam re-graded after making changes.

3. Use of unauthorized study aids, such as cell phones, Internet, or any other materials prohibited by the instructor, during closed-book exams.

4. You must follow the project instructions exactly, and this includes building your project from the specific download file SAM provides to you. Note that codes are embedded within your files that are not visible to you, and these codes are used to detect cheating should one student attempt to use another’s file.

The University has very clear guidelines for academic misconduct, and they will be enforced in this class.

Student access

“Cal Ploy Pomona, as a learning-centered university, is committed to student success. Students with disabilities are encouraged to contact me privately or the Disability Resource Center (909-869-3333, Building 9 Room 103) to coordinate course accommodations.”

Tentative class schedule