About Mallard
Professor Khammash’s EE202 Fall 2000 course
This semester we continue the effort, begun in fall 1997, working toward the ultimate goal to make ISU Electrical and Computer Engineering courses available to any English speaking person who lives anywhere in the world and who has access to the Internet. Ideally, these courses will be available for students to begin them at any time in the calendar--independent of the academic calendar at ISU.
Some of your homework in this course will be done using a computerized instructional delivery and administration system called Mallard software that has been developed at the University of Illinois. Mallard has been in use for 7 or 8 years on the Urbana campus and is now being commercialized.
As soon as possible, you should be able to access the Mallard web site for this course. Just point your browser to:
https://ece-online.ee.iastate.edu/ee202fall2000
This site is on a secure server; so, be sure to type the "s" in "https"
You will be required to provide a login ID and a password to access the content of this site.
Your login ID will be the first part of your e-mail address--as recorded by the ISU Registrar; i.e., if your ISU e-mail address is:
then your Mallard login ID is:
name
Your initial password is:
123456
The first time that you log into this Mallard site, you should change your password (icon link is available on the course home page). Mallard PWF passwords must be at least six characters long. They may contain any mixture of lowercase letters, uppercase letters, numbers, and punctuation from the following list:
! " # $ % ` ( ) * + , - . / : ; < = > ? @ [ ] \ ^ _ ' { | } ~
Mallard passwords may not contain spaces or other white space.
If you are unable to enter this Mallard site, contact Professor Khammash at , or 294-9950.
Exploring the "Lessons Page" in Mallard, you will find the homework that is assigned and the time and date that the homework is due. You will also find some "Practice Problems" for which answers are available within each problem.
Virtually every Mallard problem uses random variables for one or more circuit parameters. Thus if two of you are sitting side-by-side in a computer lab and if both of you are working on the same Mallard problem, you will have the same schematic and be asked the same questions; but, your circuits will have one or more different parameter values. Thus your numerical answers will be different. Generally, if circuit parameters are defined above the schematic, these numerical values are fixed and if parameters are defined below the schematic, these have random numerical values.
When you first load a Mallard problem, you will get a particular "draw" of numerical values of the random variables. You will always get this same draw of numerical values every time that you reload this problem. Hence, if connect time becomes an issue for you, you can load a Mallard problem, print it, leave Mallard, solve the problem off-line, return to Mallard, reload the problem (check to be sure that you got the same draw of numerical values), enter your answers, and submit your answers for grading.
Generally, if your numerical answer is within +/- 2% of the answer that Mallard computes to be correct (to 20 significant figures), your answer will be counted as correct. The maximum score on each Mallard problem is 100%; thus if the problem has only one question within it, your possible scores are 100% or 0%; but, if the problem has 5 questions, your possible scores are 100%, 80%, 60%, etc.
The Mallard homework grading policy is set to allow you to submit answers to each problem 10 times before the due time/date without penalty. A 10% penalty will be assessed for the 11th submission, a 20% penalty for the 12th submission, etc. A 20% per day (or fraction thereof) penalty will be assessed for submissions after the due time/date.
Mallard keeps the highest net score recorded. Therefore you can rework the homework problems as review for exams without changing your recorded scores for these problems. (The "raw" score you earn for each problem by correctly answering the questions within the problem is adjusted for more than 10 submissions before the due time/date and/or is adjusted for late submissions to yield your "net" score for each problem.)
Please use the "Exit" icon when you want to leave Mallard. Do not just close your browser. (Doing so, leaves temporary files on the Mallard server that, over a whole semester with many students, will significantly slow the response time of the server.)
As with any technology, "glitches" sometimes occur. If they do during your use of Mallard this semester, please 1)report your problem to Professor Khammash, 2)remain calm, 3)be patient, and 4)keep your sense of humor.