Grading Policy for Network Security and Voice Lab

 

1. Network Security and Voice Lab      LEC 4     T      6:00 8:50PM Kotfila        AE 215

2.  Instructor:   Colleen Morrissey    morric@rpi.edu    Office hours: By arrangement   VCC 215       ext. 6594

Teaching Assistants:

Kyle Mackenzie mackek2@rpi.edu  Mark Dufrane     dufram@rpi.edu      Daniel Delaney    deland@rpi.edu

Email all of us with your technical questions. One of us is reading email at virtually any hour of the day or night:

morric@rpi.edu;kotfid@rpi.edu; pricec@cs.rpi.edu; mackek2@rpi.edu; dufram@rpi.edu; deland@rpi.edu

 

3. Required texts:

 

CCNA Security Official Exam Certification Guide

               Author:   Michael Watkins    ISBN:  1587202204     REQUIRED

CCNA Voice Official Exam Ceritification Guide

          Author:  Jeremy Cioara,Michael Cavanaugh, Kris Krake

          ISBN:  R1587202077   REQUIRED

4. Grading:

The overall goals of the course are two-fold.  The first is that you master the conceptual material.  The second is that you actually be able to configure and troubleshoot actual networks  -  no paper certifications.

The basic structure of the class is 4/4/4 - 4 hours of class, 4 hours of lab, 4 hours of reading/homework per week.  It may be necessary to spend additional time re-reading material depending upon your background.  A critical skill for the successful completion of this course is time management skills.  We will move through a large quantity of material of material at a very rapid pace.  It is essential that you not fall behind in either reading or labs.

You start the class with an A (let's think positive :-).  Any of the items below can reduce your grade:

1.  Labs  -  TAs will take attendance at each lab.    Failure to successfully complete one lab - no penalty     Failure to successfully complete two labs  -  lose 1/2 letter grade     Failure to successfully complete three labs - lose one full letter grade (the highest grade you can get is a B).  Failure to successfully complete four labs - lose two full letter grades..  Failure to successfully complete 5 labs - automatically fail the course.   It is not enough to simply show up for the labs.  You will have a checklist of assignments that you must successfully complete.  The intent here is clear.  This is a course in which you are expected to demonstrate your ability to configure and troubleshoot a real network. 

Students must complete labs the week they are assigned to receive credit for the lab.    Requests to make up ("cram") labs at the end of the semester will be denied.  It is understandable that events occur in life which might necessitate missing a lab (example:   illness, family birthday, etc.)  For events that are known ahead of time (a family reunion), you must email the TAs before the missed lab.  In the event of illness, email the TAs as soon as possible.    You must make up the labs within one week of when you are healthy.

It is the responsibility of Security and Voice Networking students to assist Computer Networking I students in the labs.  This is the way it is done in the corporate world.  This is the way we will do it in this class.  Major priorities for hiring CIOs (Chief Information Officers) are the ability of Network Engineers to a. work as a team, and b. communicate.  In order to encourage teamwork and communication, labs will be run differently this semester than they were last semester.  It is the responsibility of Net Eng II students to assist the TAs in every possible way.  You are no longer done with your lab when you have completed your pod.  All pods must now be configured (see TA responsibilities), i.e., the entire network must be configured.

Labs start January 20thnd, at 8 pm

2.  Class Attendance   -   A significant amount of class time will be devoted to working in the networking equipment.  Because this is a lab class, attendance at class is REQUIRED.    Attendance will be taken each class.  Miss two classes - no penalty.    Miss three classes - lost 1/2 letter grade.  Miss four classes - lose one letter grade.  Miss five classes lose 1 1/2 letter grades.  Each additional class missed results in an additional loss of 1/2 grade.  It is your responsibility to make sure that whomever is taking attendance, marks you present.  In the event of illness,  notify the instructor/TA.

3.  To pass this course, you must successfully pass the official Cisco CCNA Security (640-553 IINS) and Cisco CCNA Voice (640-460 IIUC) exams as well as complete the labs as outlined above.  You may take these exams as many times as you need to, to pass them.  However, the semester is short, and there will not realistically be time to take these exams more than twice.  Each time you take each exam it costs $250.  Lack of money is not an adequate reason for not retaking the exam, or for not retaking it in a timely fashion.  While I am very unhappy about it being this way, you should evaluate carefully whether you have sufficient funds to complete this course.

4.  The Testing materials may be required - materials are under review.   There will be daily homework assignments using these materials. 

 

5.  Your grade can be reduced by up to 20% by quizes each class/attendance.   Expect a quiz at the beginning of each class.   The intent is to insure that students are prepared for each class, and not attempting to "cram" the reading at the end of the module or the semester.

 

 Incompletes  -  Only for medical reasons, or extended illness/death in the family.  The fact that you do not have enough money to pay to retake an exam is not an acceptable reason.

Late work  -  will receive a minimum of one grade reduction and may, at the sole discretion of the instructor, not be accepted at all.

 

5. Labs - Scheduling    Use SIS sign up for 2 lab times each week.  Avoid crowded labs as this will give you more equipment to play with :-)

 

6. Academic Integrity

The corporate environment to which most of you are about to enter is a TEAM environment. That is good news. There is more technical information that needs to be assimilated that any single individual could ever possibly hope to learn. Techies need to understand management. Management needs some understanding of the technology. Within technical groups there will be various specialties. Specialists will have to work across disciplines to get corporate projects completed.

Therefore you are strongly encouraged to help one another in any way that you can. One of you will become an access-list expert but get confused by Lan Switching. Another will really grasp the OSI model in a profound way, but not get dynamic routing. Help each other. Study groups are encouraged!

When you take the official Cisco exams, you will be completely on your own. Cheating will be difficult if not impossible. You will be in a controlled environment in which a computer and a calculator will be provided. You will not be allowed to bring anything else other than a pencil into the testing environment.  Some testing centers video tape the testing sessions.  Cheating on one of these exams will result in an F for the course.

Hands on exams at RPI will be the work of individuals only (no collaboration) and closely monitored. I have never had anyone successfully cheat on one of these exams (do not take that as a challenge). However, in the event that cheating is attempted you will fail that exam. If cheating is suspected, but not certain, then a re-test will be given. The decision to re-test will be solely at the discretion of the instructor.  The first cheating offense on this type of exam will result in a loss of 2 letter grades for the course.     The second offense will result in an F for the course.

Routers have various HELP functions built into the Operating System (IOS). It will be possible to use these during the hands-on exams. This HELP function is not available on the standardized Cisco exams.

It would be easy to cheat on the written homework and lab assignments.  Cheating on these will result in the loss of one letter grade for the course.  The second offense will result in an F for the course. 

Using non-approved passwords on networking devices hurts everyone in the class.    It prevents other people from using the lab and costs the director/instructor/TA valuable time spent in breaking the password.  The first offense of intentionally using a non-approved password will result in a grade reduction of one letter.  The second offense will result in failure.   There is no penalty for accidently ("fat fingering") setting the wrong password.  Immediately notify your instructor/TA so that they can remedy the situation.

 

7. Semester Reading Assignments