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1. ECE265 — Continuous-Time and Discrete-Time Signals and Systems — 2026-09

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1.1 Showing Support for Open-Access Learning Resources for Students

Textbook and Lecture Slides. The instructor invested a very substantial amount of time developing the textbook and lecture slides used in the course. If you find the textbook and lecture slides to be valuable resources for learning, the instructor would very much appreciate if you could show your support of them by posting reviews of them online. Reviews can be posted using the following links:

(Information about posting reviews can also be found in the handout Showing Your Support for Affordable Learning Resources for Students.)

1.2 Accessing Course Materials

Some of the course materials associated with this web page (such as assignment solutions and exam papers/solutions) may be stored in a protected area. Typically, links to private areas of the website are marked by a padlock . In order to access protected course materials, you will need to know the appropriate username and password to use for the website. The username and password can be found in a post in the Announcements section of the Brightspace site for this course. See the Brightspace Site section for more information.

Warning

As explained above, the username and password for the course website are not the ones for your Netlink/faculty/departmental account!

1.3 Instructor

Michael Adams
E-Mail: mdadams (append "@ece.uvic.ca" for the complete address)
Office: EOW 311

1.4 Teaching Assistants (TAs)

The tutorial TAs and their email addresses are as follows:

The marker TAs and their email addresses are as follows:

1.5 Course Outline

The course outline is available through the following links:

  • the official course outline (after publication by the University) as an online HTML document on the UVic Course Outline website [NOTE: The official course outline is published on a website that is controlled by the University, not the instructor. Furthermore, the University adds some information to the instructor's submitted course outline before it is published. For this reason, the official course outline is not guaranteed to available until after the start of the term.]

  • the unofficial course outline (from the instructor) in PDF format [NOTE: The unofficial course outline contains only the content provided by the instructor. It is missing all of the extra content that is added by the University. The unofficial course outline is available prior to the start of term and is intended mainly to be used as a reference until the University publishes the official version of the course outline.]

Hardcopies of course outline. In order to reduce paper waste, hardcopies of the course outline are not normally provided. A hardcopy can be printed from the electronic copy if desired.

Course Grade Calculation. The following document provides very detailed information about how the final course grades are calculated:

1.6 General Teaching Strategy

This course is taught using a traditional lecture approach.

1.7 Brightspace Site

In addition to the website currently being viewed, the course also has a Brightspace site. A direct link to the Brightspace page for the course is as follows:

Although the course has a Brightspace site, the primary online source of information for the course is the website that is currently being viewed, not the Brightspace site. Brightspace is only used in a limited capacity for the course. In particular, Brightspace is used only for the following:

  • posting important course announcements and other information, such as: assignment submission deadlines, exam dates (if not already provided on the course outline), and the username and password required to access password-protected areas of the course website;
  • submitting (and grading) assignments; and
  • providing students with a means to review their grades in the course.

Students are responsible for reading all announcements posted on the Brightspace site in a timely fashion. For this reason, it is strongly recommended that students enable notifications (via email) for new announcements and other events on the Brightspace site.

Information on Brightspace. Some links regarding Brightspace that are likely to be helpful to students are as follows:

1.8 Online Meetings

Some meetings in the course are either held exclusively online or have the provision for online attendance. So, it is important for students to know how to attend online meetings. Detailed information on how to attend online meetings in the course can be found in the following document:

Meeting IDs and Passwords. The meeting IDs and passwords needed to join online meetings in the course can be found at the following password-protected link:

(Refer to the course outline for information on where to find the username and password required for accessing password-protected areas of this website.)

1.9 Lecture Sessions

First Lecture Session. The first lecture session will be used to provide an overview of the course and address many administrative matters. All students are required to attend this first lecture session.

Lecture-Session Attendance. Students are responsible for all material covered in the lectures. So, attendance of these lectures is mandatory.

Recording of Lecture Sessions. Normally, the lecture sessions will not be recorded by the instructor.

1.10 Office Hours

Office-hour sessions will be held by the instructor in order to provide extra help with the course materials as well as discuss other course-related matters with students. These sessions will be offered online only. (For details on how to attend online meetings, see the Online Meetings section.) Any private/confidential matters will be discussed one-on-one with the student in a breakout room. Any questions about course materials will be answered in the main room (i.e., not one-on-one) so that all students can benefit from the questions asked.

Determination of Schedule for Office Hours. The time slot to be used for the office-hours sessions will be determined based on the results of Brightspace survey. This survey can be accessed through the "Office-Hours Survey" on the Brightspace site for the course. After the survey period is complete, the schedule for office-hours sessions will be posted here.

Other Remarks on Office Hours. The instructor's office hours are cancelled during reading break (and on holidays). Also, the above office hours only apply up until the last day of classes. So, these office hours do not apply during the final exam period. Since all of the exams for this course are scheduled prior to the final exam period, no office hours will be held during the final exam period.

1.11 Tutorial Sessions

The tutorial time slots will be used by the tutorial TAs to hold sessions in order to help students with course materials. These sessions are to be held face-to-face. The names and contact information for each of the tutorial TAs can be found in the Teaching Assistants section.

Attending Sessions for Different Tutorial Sections. Sometimes a student may be unable to register in a tutorial section in a manner that is free of scheduling conflicts. If this situation arises, it is okay for the student in question to attend a session for a tutorial section different from the one in which the student is registered as long as this does not prevent students who are registered in the tutorial section from having a seat in the tutorial classroom. In general, it is okay to attend the sessions for other tutorial sections as long as the tutorial classroom has sufficient space. If the tutorial classroom does not have sufficient space, priority must be given to those students who are registered in the tutorial section.

1.12 Lecture Schedule

1.13 Required Texts/Materials

The required texts/materials for the course are listed on the course outline under the "Required Texts/Materials" heading (and consist of a textbook and lecture slides).

The following handouts relate to the textbook and lecture slides:

Textbook Website. The textbook has a website, which can be found at:

The preceding website contains resources that are potentially of interest to students in this course. In particular, the website provides several versions of the textbook (including the most recent version) as e-books in PDF format.

1.14 Optional Texts/Materials

If an additional source of information for the material covered in the course is desired, the following optional textbook is recommended:

At least one copy of the optional textbook is available on reserve in the library. Some additional information regarding the optional textbook and its relationship to the material covered in the course is explained in the following handout:

1.15 Course-Materials Bug-Bounty Program (CMBBP)

By participating in the Course-Materials Bug-Bounty Program (CMBBP), you can earn extra marks in the course. If you are interested in obtaining extra marks, then read the following document on the CMBBP:

The following document lists all bugs reported to date as part of the CMBBP:

1.16 Feedback on Course/Teaching

Feedback on the course and teaching is always most welcome! The instructor will never hold any of your comments against you, but please be constructive in your criticism. Several options are available for providing feedback. You can provide feedback through:

  • in person (whether it be virtual or face-to-face);
  • normal e-mail;
  • anonymous e-mail (e.g., through a Gmail, Hotmail, or Yahoo account);
  • Rate My Professors website (or follow this link for my most recent ratings).

1.17 Assignments

Assignment Submission. Assignments are to be submitted via Brightspace. All submissions must be in PDF format.

Assignment Marking Issues. If you have any concerns about the marking of an assignment, please directly contact the TA (or TAs) who marked the assignment. For TA contact information and a list of which TAs marked which assignments, please refer to the Teaching Assistants section.

Assignment Handouts. The assignments problem sets are given on the following handouts:

Other Assignment Materials. Some other assignment-related downloads are as follows:

Assignment Solutions. The solutions for the assignments submitted to date are as follows:

1.18 Midterm Exams

Midterm Exam Schedule. All exams will be held during a lecture time slot. The exams for the course are as follows:

Midterm Exam Questions, Solutions, Grading Information, and Other Commentary. The problems and solutions for the exams to date are as follows:

Policy on Missed Midterm Exams. The policy on missed exams can be found in the following document:

1.19 Final Exam

1.20 MATLAB

Accessing MATLAB. Access to the MATLAB software is required in order to complete some assignments in the course. Therefore, students should install MATLAB on their computer. For information on how to obtain MATLAB, visit the following website:

  • https://matlab.uvic.ca. (NOTE: This website is only accessible from the campus network. To access this website from outside the campus network, use the UVic VPN.)

Most computers in the various undergraduate labs in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering allow remote login via Secure Shell (SSH). Since many of these computers also have MATLAB installed, students may also be able to access MATLAB on these computers via SSH.

Some computers in various labs in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering can be accessed using a web browser (via Apache Guacamole) with the following link:

It should also be possible to access MATLAB in this way.

MATLAB Learning Resources. The textbook used for the course has a detailed introduction to MATLAB in Appendix D (titled "MATLAB"). The lecture slides also have detailed coverage of MATLAB (i.e., over 100 slides). Aside from the textbook, some other potentially helpful references on MATLAB include:

MATLAB Code Examples from Lecture Slides. All of the MATLAB code examples from the lecture slides can be found in the companion Git repository for the textbook. To obtain these code examples packaged as a Zip archive, use the following link:

If you know how to use Git, you can also obtain the repository via Git at:

1.21 Practice Exams

Some handouts related to review and preparation for exams are as follows:

1.22 New Textbook Exercises

Since a new edition of the textbook was recently released, there are no new exercises available that have not yet been included in the most recent textbook edition. If any new exercises become available later (as the course progresses), they will be added in this section.

1.23 Solutions to Lecture-Session Exercises

1.24 Miscellany

Extra Practice Problems (with Solutions). The following may be helpful as additional sources of practice problems (with solutions), assuming that these website remain operational for the duration of the course:

Other Resources for Extra Help. Some other resources for extra help include:

Miscellaneous Handouts. Some other handouts include:

Floor Plans. Some floor plans for various buildings at UVic are as follows:

Online/Software Demonstrations. The following online/software demonstrations may be of interest:

Other Links. The following links may also be of interest: