Virtual Office Hours Instructions

Office hours will be held online for the semester to comply with the University’s response to the novel coronavirus. This page details how to utilize online office hours.

Join the Queue if you have a question about material presented in lecture or lab. The queue is also meant for when you’re stuck on an annoying bug - especially when you’ve written and tested a solution, but can’t quite pin down why it’s not working correctly. Join the Queue if you’ve reached an impasse with an MP, lab, or POTD.

The following sections outline how to join each Queue. Please familiarize yourself with these instructions before you seek help from course staff. This will allow us to maximize the time we spend helping you with course content. Of course, if you have questions or concerns about the instructions provided here, please reach out to us on Piazza. In particular, if your situation prevents you from connecting with us using the avenues detailed in this document, please create a private Piazza post. We understand that this is a difficult time and we want to work with you to make sure you have access to course resources.

Joining the Queue

Open your favorite web browser and do the following:

1. Generate a meeting link using either Google Meet or Zoom.
2. Join the meeting you have just created.
3. Create a tinyurl of the meeting link you have created.
4. Join the Queue. Update the location to be the tinyurl of your meeting link. Make sure your netid is typed correctly in the question form. Course staff will join you in your Google Meet session when it’s your turn.
5. You are encouraged, but not required, to use the CS 225 Discord ‘Waiting Room’ channel (Office Hours General). We hope that this will simulate a non-remote environment by providing you potential interactions with other students who may have similar questions. Your question will still be resolved separately.

Queue Troubleshooting

If course staff is unable to access your meeting link, be on the lookout for either an email on your Illinois account from one of the TAs on duty, or a message on the CS 225 Discord.

Virtual Office Hours Debugging Help

When your question involves investigating why your code doesn’t work the way it should, please come prepared to discuss the following:

1. What is the intended behavior of the code?
2. What is the feedback from terminal utilities like Valgrind and GDB?
3. Where do you think the error might be originating from? Given the limited amount of time per question, you are strongly encouraged to take steps to solve these questions yourself such as running Valgrind, using GDB, and/or adding print statements to your code.

When we answer your question on the queue, we will aid you using the screensharing feature of whichever video meeting website you choose to utilize. Please feel free to reach out to us on Piazza with suggestions on how we can improve your office hour experience.