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Theme Song: Lost in Paradise

Welcome to CSCI 1270 - Database Management Systems! This document will take you through getting set up in the course. You'll be learning our course's policies, creating an anonymous ID, joining our Gradescope, joining our Campuswire, and setting up GitHub, Google Calendar, and Zoom.

Please complete this assignment by Monday September 20 by 11:59 PM ET. If we do not receive your form by the deadline, or you do not correctly follow the steps mentioned here, we will not be able to grade any of your assignments!

Please email us at cs1270headtas@lists.brown.edu with any questions!

Administrivia

Before anything else, please read our course guide, our missive, and our collaboration policy. These documents will answer 99% of your questions about course logistics.

Next, if you need an override code, or to enroll concurrently with another course, or any other special request that requires instructor permission, DO NOT EMAIL US - your request will get lost. Instead, please fill out the following form: Special Request Form (CLOSED).

Anonymization

To ensure anonymous grading, you'll need to create a Gradescope account with an anonymous email address. If you already have an anonymized email address from another class, feel free to use that account. Note that doing this is MANDATORY. If you run into any trouble while doing this, please email the HTAs at cs1270headtas@lists.brown.edu!

Anonymous ID Creation

First, create an anonymous ID using this link: http://www.unit-conversion.info/texttools/random-string-generator/. Please use the default allowed characters, create one (1) string, with a length of twenty (20).

Click the "Generate" button, and copy the output. The goal is to create a random string of letters that no TA can ever recall you by. IDs like "correcthorsebatterystaple", which have nothing to do with your name, are NOT anonymous, because they are easily memorable.

Email creation

Now, you'll need to create a new email address with your ID from above as the username. This will make you anonymous to graders on Gradescope. To do this, carefully walk through the following steps. We recommend you use an incognito window so that you are not already logged into your Brown account.

  1. Navigate to https://gmail.com.
  2. Click "Create account" at the bottom.
  3. Fill out relevant details, and include your ID from above as the username. That is, your account should be (anonymous_id)@gmail.com. The first and last name can also both be the anonymous id.
  4. If prompted, enter a valid phone number to verify your account.
  5. Finish filling out the requested details and click "Next".

You should now be in a Gmail inbox.

Email Forwarding

We would like you to set up email forwarding so that you don't need to ever check this inbox. To do this, follow these steps (starting from your new Gmail inbox):

  1. Go into your inbox settings by clicking on the gear symbol in the upper-right of your inbox and then clicking on "Settings".
  2. Navigate to the "Forwarding and POP/IMAP" tab.
  3. Click on "Add a forwarding address" at the top and choose an email of your choice.
  4. Go into that email inbox and copy the confirmation code to verify.
  5. Select the "Forward a copy..." radio button, and then click "Save changes" at the bottom.

Keep track of your ID as you will need it to sign in to your Gradescope account! We recommend using a service like Lastpass.

Gradescope Setup

Here we will go through the steps of creating a Gradescope account and enrolling in our course. If you are using an existing anonymous account, simply add us as a course using our course code below. If you have an anonymous account linked to your Brown account, please ensure that the course settings obscure your real name and ID from us. If you have created a new account:

  1. Navigate to Gradescope.
  2. Click "Sign Up" in the top right and sign up as a student.
  3. For the course entry code, write the code in the handin form linked below.
  4. For the remaining fields enter your anonymous ID, email address, and anonymous ID respectively. Neither your name nor Banner ID should appear anywhere in your account information.
  5. Once you submit, your account is created, and you're enrolled!

Campuswire Setup

CSCI 1270 uses Campuswire as a forum for asking any kind of questions about the class. Join it using the link in the handin form linked below. Please register using your Brown email!

After shopping period, CSCI 1270 will use Campuswire as the primary method of communication. Please check it regularly for course updates!

GitHub Setup

CSCI 1270 uses GitHub Classroom to disseminate stencil code. While you do not need to join our classroom in order to use stencil code, you do need to have a GitHub account. If you don't already have one, please create one at https://github.com. There's no need to link your GitHub with anything; GitHub Classroom will take care of the rest later.

Google Calendar Integration

We use Google Calendar to help you track assignment due dates, lecture times, TA hours, and Zoom links. We highly recommend adding our calendar!

Zoom Password

We password-protect our lectures. See the handin form for the lecture password - don't forget it, and certainly don't share it outside of this course!

Handin

Please complete this form to let us know some basic information and to signal to us that you're all set up in the class. You'll be asked to read some course documentation; you can find all of it at the website's main page.

Feedback

As this is a new course, we appreciate any feedback you have for us! If you enjoyed this assignment, hated this assignment, or have other thoughts to share, please do so here!