COMPSCI 577: Operating Systems Design and Implementation Online Details

Taking the Course Online I hope you had a safe and healthy spring break. I would like to outline how we will conduct this class in an online manner for the rest of the semester.

Starting today, the entire rest of the course is available to you in one go. Every lecture. All labs assignments and the project. All scribe notes. Everything you need until the end of the term. We have done this for maximum flexibility.

All lectures videos, which we recorded over spring break, are on the class web page and our youtube channel. The classroom in now virtually flipped. There are no live lectures. Watch at your own pace. We have also suggested viewing dates on the class web page. You can even binge-watch all lectures Netflix style if you wish. Although there are no live lectures, once a week, we will have a weekly an online discussion session over zoom (on Thursdays). We will also have extensive piazza discussions and have created a discussion thread for each lecture. Please post your questions there as well.

All remaining lab work is also available effectively immediately. You can work at your own pace. Lab 3 is due in 2 weeks from today and the project in 4 weeks, but we will be flexible in the event of unanticipated problems you may face. We have streamlined the labs so that it is easier to help you online and have also provided more pointers and notes to help you work remotely.

We are also increasing our availability to help you. Office hours will be held daily over zoom. I will be available to answer your questions during the Thursday discussion session (which combines office hours and lectures). More details of timings and zoom URLs are posted on the class web page.

A consequence of making all course materials in one go is that it allows us a lot more flexibility in the event of outages and disruptions. IF you have Internet problems, just tell us. We will put all lectures, labs, notes on a USB drive and deliver it to your current address anywhere in the world. Lab submissions require low bandwidth access to github. If you have problems accessing github (it is blocked in some countries), we will allow zip submissions over email or accept code on a USB drive via express shipping (we will pay for shipping). So long as you have a plain old telephone, you can call in to office hours or the weekly discussion session - no Internet needed. You can also request a phone or zoom appointment by emailing us (or sending a private message over piazza).

I hope that all of these measures and flexibility will enable you to get a good educational experience for this class through the end of the semester.

These are stressful times, so let me end by reminding you of the motto for this class: "Your kernel may panic, but you shouldn't." We got your back.


Summary:
  1. Video lectures for the rest of the term are available on the class webpage. There are no live lectures for the rest of the term. Every Thursday, we will hold a online discussion session to answer questions for suggested lectures for that week (or any other lecture). While online discussions are optional to attend, we encourage you to come prepared with questions.
  2. Lab 3 and the final project are also available now so you can get an early start.
  3. Help is available via daily Zoom office hours and on Piazza at any time.

This page is online at http://lass.cs.umass.edu/~shenoy/courses/577/online.html
Prashant Shenoy
Last modified: Sun Jan 19 05:33:27 EST 2020