If you are looking for help on something in CS 115, here is the process we recommend you follow. This will get you the best results possible!


There are several options: You can email your TA, talk to your TA in lab, go to any TA's office hours (once they're posted), email Dr. Keen, or talk to Dr. Keen before or after class or in office hours.
TA email addresses are at: http://www.cs.uky.edu/~keen/115/syllabus/tas.html
Dr Keen's office hours: http://www.cs.uky.edu/~keen/myofficehours.html
TA office hours will be posted soon.

We can't guarantee we will reply to every email right away, so don't wait until the last minute to ask for help! In general, we'll respond to emails within a day, though on the weekend it might take a little longer. Asking a question at 11:30 pm when the program is due at midnight is not likely to get a timely answer!

That said, do give the problem a good honest attempt first: struggling with difficult problems is how you learn to do difficult things. It also means you can ask more specific questions and help us help you better: you're more likely to get a response that is useful to you if you can say "I tried this and this but it didn't work" rather than just "I don't know what to do".

If you're asking a question by email, don't wait for an answer before you go back to the problem: it's hard to count the number of times a student has replied to their own question to say "never mind, I figured it out". Sometimes just formulating the question is enough to get your mind working on the problem in ways you hadn't considered before.

Finally, sometimes the book's problems are confusingly worded; when we find such a problem, we add an "Instructor note" at the top of the section (unfortunately they always go at the top). So be sure to look there if something is unclear. So you know what to look for, there is an instructor note at the top of section 1.4:

If you are asking question about a program, then send the code - ALL the code, not just an extract.

If you are getting an error - send the exact message and exactly where the error is being pointed out. Tell us the code on that line. Line numbers are hard to determine sometimes, depending on the tool we are using to look at the code.

If the program runs without errors, say so. Then say what the problem is, as far as you can describe it - give inputs that caused the incorrect output.

If you get an answer, but need further explanation, please quote the last message we sent back to us. We see a lot of email and we don't always remember what your particular problem is.

Please include "CS 115" and your section in your subject line. We do teach different classes and it makes it easier to put your question in context.


Looking forward to your questions!