Fall '25 Week 2
YouTube VideoResources
Video Script
Hello and welcome to the week two announcements video for CIS 527 and CC 510 in fall 2025. So this week you should be getting started on the first lab. Please bear in mind I do have a megathread on ed discussion for this lab. So if you have any questions or concerns with this lab, I’d really recommend that you post in the ed discussion and also check there, but you can also email to do lab grading. I get a lot of questions about lab grading in this class. The way this works is you’re going to schedule a time slot to meet with either the GTA Josh or myself. You need to meet with us before the lab is due. You can schedule your time slot anytime. So even if you’re not done with the lab right now, you can schedule a time slot for next Wednesday sometime when the lab is due, but you need to have the lab done before that time slot, obviously. So you schedule a time slot. Please check Josh’s calendar first. And then if he doesn’t have any times available that works for you, then schedule with me. Please bear in mind, I am generally very busy on Mondays because I’m on campus and then a little bit on Wednesdays and Thursdays as I have lab meetings and other things going on those days. Tuesdays and Fridays are usually pretty open for me. So anyway, schedule with Josh first, then me using our calendly links, or I also have a booking link that you can use.
Before the lab grading time, make sure you make snapshots of everything so that they’re all ready to go. Have everything ready to go when you join the Zoom. Please, please, please don’t join the Zoom. And then we have to sit there and wait five minutes while all your VMs load. Have everything up and ready to go. And then be prepared to demonstrate everything that you did on the lab. We’re going to ask you things for this first lab, like show us how you changed the computer name. Where’s the computer name now? Show us where the user accounts are. Can you show that you got all the user accounts created? Show us that the files are created and have the correct file permissions. Those sorts of things. We’re going to ask you to show us that. And so we expect you to remember how you did it and be able to demonstrate that you did it correctly. So we’ll be prepared to kind of coach you along if you’re not sure. We really want you to demonstrate the work that you did. It’s a very live grading type of situation. And then, of course, don’t forget that as soon as we start grading, everything is locked in. If you notice you made a mistake, it’s too late to change it. But we’re pretty lenient on things, so don’t worry too much about it. We really just want to make sure that you’re understanding what’s going on and get things working the way they’re supposed to.
So second thing going on in this class is the live discussions. Hopefully everybody filled out the survey. It’s looking like we’re going to do those Tuesdays, Tuesday afternoons. So the schedule is coming soon. Usually the first one I try and get is Seth Gallitzer, our former C assistant administrator, and I wanted the SysAdmins for Engineering. So I will try and get the schedule put out soon. We’re going to have anywhere from three to five of these discussions throughout the semester. If you remember, the discussions are a chance for me to bring in somebody in industry that works in a field related to system administration, and you get to talk with them, hear about their experiences and what they’re up to. The way the discussions work is I will post the discussion topic and the person and their little bio about a week beforehand. You need to go in and ask two questions beforehand in the Canvas assignment. Then you can either attend the live session on Zoom or you can watch the video afterward. If you attend the live session, you just have to ask one of your questions to get points. Otherwise, if you don’t ask a question or if you watch the video afterward, there’s a short prompt that I’ll have you respond to. It’s like a few sentences for the prompt, just to show that you watched the video and paid attention and kind of have some comments on what was said. On the days that we don’t have a discussion, I’ll use those as kind of an office hours. So again, those will probably be Tuesdays out in the afternoon starting next week. So watch for a more detailed announcement with that coming up.
To get help in this class, there are three big ways to get help. First and foremost, we have the CIS 527 help email. That goes to both Josh and I. However, I really prefer that you use the Ed Discussion board as your primary source of help. I post mega threads for each of the lab assignments on there. It’s a great place to have discussion. My mega thread header includes some hints for all of these labs. I went ahead and pre-populated the first four labs worth of Ed Discussion posts already. So they’ll be posted on a schedule as those labs come available. So definitely check Ed Discussion. Check those mega threads. Check some of the other threads in Ed Discussion that are going on. I’ve gotten a lot of questions via email about using a Mac silicon to do this class. I already have a post on Ed Discussion about that. So please check the stuff in Ed Discussion. And then, of course, if you need to schedule a one-on-one time with me, you can either schedule with Josh and his Calendly or me and my Calendly. Again, I prefer if you start with Josh just to keep him busy. He’s an excellent GTA. He’s been doing a lot of good work in this class, but you can also always schedule with me if you have any questions as well.
So that’s really all that’s going on for this first week of class. The first lab is not due until middle of next week, but hopefully you’re getting started on it this week. Usually we have to work out a few little bugs and errors and things as we get this first lab up and running, especially if you’ve never worked with virtual machines or installed operating systems before. It’s a lot of new experiences this first time. And so I really like this class because it’s a good experience. It gives you a lot of opportunities to do things in system administration you’ve probably never done before. So as always, if you have any questions, let me know. Otherwise, best of luck this week, and I will see you again next week.