Getting Course Help

This page is currently under construction.

There are a couple of ways to get help from your instructors to succeed in this course:

• Asking questions of your instructor in lecture is highly recommended.
• Long or highly specific questions can be asked of your instructor after lecture, in a more one-on-one setting.
• Questions and concerns can be posted publicly, anonymously, or privately on Piazza.
• Questions and concerns can be sent to instructor or ISA emails.
• Instructors and ISAs will have online or in-person office hours or consulting hours.

Asking Questions on Piazza

You should have access to the course Piazza. If you do not, contact the ISAs (cs145@uwaterloo.ca) to be added.

When asking questions, first check in case the question has already been answered using the search bar above the feed/list of posts. Questions can be asked publicly, anonymously, or privately.

Generally, matters relating to course concepts or logistics should be asked publicly or anonymously, as all students can benefit from the resulting discussion. Questions related to your solutions to your assignments should be asked privately in order to prevent plagiarism.

In-Person Office/Consulting Hours

The office/consulting hours schedules are posted on the Personnel page. Generally, these office/consulting hours are walk-in. If the times posted do not work for you, you may schedule an appointment with an instructor/ISA by emailing them.

In the case that additional restrictions become necessary to preserve public health, in-person office/consulting hours may shift into an appointment system run through Microsoft Teams. Walk-in consulting hours may still be available if course staff are able to book a sufficiently-large room to follow distancing guidelines. Alternatively, in-person office/consulting hours may be cancelled, instead moving online.

Using Microsoft Teams for Online Office/Consulting Hours

We will be using Microsoft Teams to provide real time video help to CS145 students. Help may be offered in two formats: individual help and group question/answer sessions (consulting hours).

You can use Teams through your browser at teams.microsoft.com or you can download the app from Microsoft's download page. We highly recommend that you use the app. We have had stability and connectively problems with browser-based connections. If you choose to use a browser, Chrome seems to work best.

As of 2020-09-04 the Linux version of Teams was missing some functionality such as hand-raising.

When launching Teams, you will be prompted to sign in. When logging into teams, sign in using your QuestID email: the (at most) eight characters followed by @uwaterloo.ca.

If everything is correct, you will be directed to the uwaterloo sign in page. Once you sign in, you should be signed in as a member of the team, not as a guest. Once you are in Teams, you need to select the "Teams" section(on the left sidebar).

This should take you to a list of the Teams you're part of. One of the teams will be named "CS145 - Fall 2023 Consulting Hours". The block looks something like this:

Clicking on your CS 145 Team, you will see a list of channels on the left. One of them is used to coordinate office/consulting hours. Click that channel to enter it. (If nothing shows up, you might be able to get it to reload by switching between the "Posts" and "Files" tabs at the top.)

Each office/consulting hour slot will have a post with its own instructions on how to join it. By replying as specified, you'll declare (and take) your spot in the queue.

If something comes up and you have to leave the channel/wait list, please do delete yourself from the wait list or otherwise indicate that should skip you. You can do this by hovering over your message. Along with reactions, you will see a "..." which brings up a series of options, including delete and edit.

Pay attention as we get close to you. As soon as we're able, we will call you through Teams. If we can't connect, we will go on to the next student.

If we do go on to the next student, click on the "reply" button on your message. We will try to monitor any recent missed connections, but, unfortunately, if you miss your slot, you may need to go to the back of the queue.

When we call, it is a video call, but you do not need to use a webcam. We are using video calls so that you can show us your screen. If you do not have a microphone, you can use the text chat during the call; however, a microphone is highly recommended.

During the call you will see the interface bar. It hides itself automatically, so you may need to wiggle your mouse to see it.

From left to right, the important buttons are "Camera On/Off", "Microphone On/Off", "Share Screen", "...", and "Chat Window". (Depending on your screen size, chat window and/or share screen might get moved into the "..." menu).

You show us your screen by "Sharing" your screen". Please keep in mind what you are showing to us. You might want to close any browser tabs or shut down any applications you don't want visible.