How to reach James Coleman:
The best thing during the office hours; he is not necessary
in his office in the other time; you can e-mail or phone
him (but his office and phone are shared, so use the phone
as the last reserve).
Textbook and Matherial
Elementary Applied Partial Differential Equations With Fourier
Series and Boundary Value Problems, 3/e by Richard Haberman, Prentice-Hall (1997)
736 pp., ISBN 0-13-263807-X
We will be covering Chapters 1-12 (completely or partially). We start from the part
of Chapter 12 (it is rather easy matherial), and then go in correct order from Chapter 1 to Chapter 11.
Some of the sections which seem to be more technical or less important will not be done
in depth (or even skipped) but I don't mind if you read them. Chapter 6 (numerical methods)
will be surveyed only and to study this topic in depth one needs to take
CSC446H Computational Methods for Partial Differential Equations.
In general the emphasis in
this course will be on solving problems rather than on theory, but
problem solving based on a solid grasp of the concepts involved,
rather than cookbook recipes. You need to understand approaches
rather than remember solutions of the concrete problems.
An understanding of calculus and ordinary differential equations is essential in this course.
Evaluation
There will be 1 MidTerm Test, 2 hours (20%) of the final
mark, 3 Graded Home
Assigments of the equal weight (10%) of the final
mark each , together making 30% of the final mark worth,
and Final Exam will be 50% worth. Your final
mark will be just a sum of your scores (no belling or bulling). Some of
these tests will contain Bonus problems to give you an opportunity
to show how smart you are and earn extra points. If your rescaled
examination mark will be higher than this sum, you will get the rescaled
examination mark. But it doesn't happen often and you should not rely
upon this chance!!! Midterm Test (2 hours)
will be not in schedule.
Make-up
If you missed the test or home work due to
really good reasons (from my point of view!) you should contact me as
soon as possible (phone and e-mail are OK) and make-up will be arranged
if possible. Otherwise, your mark will be rescaled (subject to my
discretion). If your case is not so noble or if you failed to contact me
promptly (one week after test or dead-line is OK but this period could be
extended in some cases) you will get a make-up or rescaling with 10% or
20% reduction of your score for this test (subject to my discretion again).
Further, you can make-up up term test you didn't
do well with 20% reduction of your second score (you should ask in 7 days
after return of the papers). If your first score was higher, it will not be
changed. Remember, however, that this is a heavy load for instructor and
TA and my intention is to make you to learn more rather than to improve
your mark.
The grading of term test and home works is done by TA and
you should contact him first if you have related questions.
If you came to course later
Contact me as soon as possible!
If you have a problem
Contact me as soon as possible!
Don't let you problem grow-up until it will be mature and hard-to-solve!
Problem Sets
The problem sets (usually consisting of problems from the textbook) will
be assigned weekly. These problems will be not submitted for marking.
Students must do these weekly problems in order to prepare themselves
for the GHA, term test and exam. Remember: it is very important to solve all
the suggested problems. You can trap yourself frequently
applying the rule "I know how to solve this problem,
ergo I shouldn't waste the time solving it".
Quizzes and Graded Home Assignments
Make-up
will be only on the following week. Students, having a good reason to miss
the test and make-up should be ready to submit the proof.
Final Exam
The procedure is completely determined by
University policy. No frills! No early sitting, make-up and you will not get
your papers back unless you pay some fee (instructors don't get their fair
share; actually they didn't get any share of this fee at all)
Solutions
will be provided after the tests shortly (including
final exam).
Marks management
As soon as your tests are graded I put the
marks in the Master-File (or rather bunch of them) in my computer.
Further, I put marks for every final exam problem in the Master-File. Note,
that only this file is used for the final mark calculation. But errors are
possible: TA can make problems grading errors, I have yet to see TA who
is proficient in arithmetics and I make typing errors. To find errors you
must browse your marks in my office or on-line; further you
must get your paper, check TA marking, arithmetics and compare
master-file mark with the real one. To correct the error you should
bring the paper to my office (to be sure that I make a correction). I can
correct TA errors in mark calculation only; for grading discussions you
must contact TA. Note, that you should get your paper and
check it and browse your mark-on-line!
Marks-on-line
You can browse your personal marks via WWW (URL is
where yourpass is some special password. By the
default, it is your stutent' ID number. If you want a better privacy
protection you will get a really hard-to-crack (and hard-to-remember!)
yourpass coming
to my office. I hope that you will neither give yourpass to anybody nor
put it on your home page as one whiz kid did some time ago. Note, that the
file you are browsing is not a master-file but it is generated
from master-file by some script I run only after major changes
of the master-file. So, any correction of your mark in my master-file
affects marks-on-line with some delay. Anyway, this file-on-line
is not used for any calculation. And
again browsing marks doesn't mean that you need not to get and check
your real paper: you still must: first, you need to read TA's notes
(which can be really useful); second, you can discover marking and copying
errors. Further, knowing your score for each final exam problem you can
decide if you really want to pay to recover your work.
You can see
how it looked like one year ago
M.A.C. at Sidney Smith
This M.A.C. means Math Aid Centre. It is
open during the week, starting the week of October 1. The hours of
operation and location will be announced. Any important information
concerning the course will be posted on the APM 346 notice board inside
the above M.A.C.
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