MATH 5330 ABSTRACT ALGEBRA (ONLINE)

This course is meant for  students who wish to pursue a Master of Arts in Mathematics (MAM). Please contact me  in order to find out whether this course is suitable for you and/or your degree plan.
Notice that this course cannot be used for  MATH 3330, Abstract Algebra.  

For further info about MAM, please visit
http://www.math.uh.edu/
and follow the link to MAM.

Book: Abstract Algebra , A First Course by Dan Saracino. Waveland Press, Inc. ISBN 0-88133-665-3
(You can use the first edition. The second edition contains additional chapters that cannot be covered in this course. )
This is a short, one-semester  textbook on Groups, Rings and Fields.

Organization of the course: You will receive weekly reading assignments together with  homework. For most sections, I will add some comments. They are meant to add a graduate course perspective.  All homework has to be submitted   by e-mail, as a ScientificNotebook (SN) or LaTeX file .

Tests: There will be two tests and the Final

Grading: Tests count for 90% (T1:25%+T2:25%+Final:40%), HW for 10%

Reading Assignments with  Problems.

Comments and Problems for Section 0. (SNB)                 Comments and Problems for Section 0. (PDF)                (Monday, January 27)
Comments and Problems for Section 1. (SNB)                 Comments and Problems for Section 1. (PDF)                (Monday, January 27)                
Comments and Problems for Section 2. (SNB)                 Comments and Problems for Section 2. (PDF)                (Monday, February 3)
Comments and Problems for Secton 3.(SNB)                   Comments and Problems for Secton 3. (PDF)                 (Monday, February 10)
TEST 1, Saturday, February 15, 11-12:30, PGH 646
Comments and Problems for Section 4. (SNB)                 Comments and Problems for Section 4. (PDF)                 (Monday, February 17)
Comments and Problems for Section 5. (SNB)                 Comments and Problems for Section 5. (PDF)                 (Monday, February 24) 
Comments and Problems for Section 6. (SNB)                 Comments and Problems for Section 6. (PDF)                 (Monday, March 3)  
Comments and Problems for Section 7 and 9 (SNB)        Comments and Problems for Section 7 and 9 (PDF)        (Monday, March 10)
Comments and Problems for Section 8. (SNB)                 Comments and Problems for Section 8. (PDF)                 (Monday, March 17) 
Comments and Problems for Section 10. (SNB)               Comments and Problems for Section 10. (PDF)               (Monday, March 24) 
Review Session, Wednesday, March 26, 18-20 o'clock 
TEST 2, Saturday, March 29, 11-12:30, PGH 646        Practice Test 2

Comments and Problems for Sections 11,12,13 (SNB)     Comments and Problems for Sections 11,12,13 (PDF)     (Monday, April 7)
Comments and Problems for Section 16 (SNB)                 Comments and Problems for Section 16 (PDF)                (Monday, April  14)
Comments and problems for Section 17,18,21 (SNB)       Comments and problems for Section 17,18,21 (PDF)     (Monday, April  21)

Review Session, Wednesday, April 23, 18-20 o'clock
FINAL, Saturday, April 26, 11-14, PGH 646                 Practice Final

Taking tests off-campus:
UH DE request that students provide at least three institutions near them. In turn, UH DE will contact those institutions and confirm if they have proctoring services and gather any other important details students need.
DE students wishing to have their exams proctored must contact
Program Coordinator
Scott Mason
by e-mail
smason@uh.edu
or by phone:
713-743-5572

However, if possible you should take tests on campus. Online graduate courses are not meant to save you time and gasoline. Living in nearby cities, like Katy, Humble, Sugarland or the Woodlands should not be a reason to take tests off campus. If you have to take the tests off campus, then certain WebCT Testing Center Policies must be obeyed:

1. Introduce yourself to the proctor and be prepared to show a valid photo id.
2. Once you have started a test, you cannot leave the testing room for any reason. If you decide to leave the testing room, you have to turn in your test, and the proctor should not allow you to continue the test.
3. You should take a test at the scheduled day. If this is impossible, then you have to ask me for permission to take it a couple of days earlier or later.

A student who wishes to take a test off campus has to notify me at least one week ahead of time.
 

The file format for submitting homework must be LaTeX. In order for doing so, you will need 

ScientificNotebook (SNB): This program is available for $99  through MacKichan Software at http://www.mackichan.com/

You should download and save the assignments on your local drive and open with Scientific Notebook.
All homework has to be submitted by e-mail to
klaus@math.uh.edu
as a Scientific Notebook (SNB) attachment. Do not use any of my other e-mail accounts!

I do not have a WEB CT account. Thus you must submit your HW to my regular e-mail account, that is to klaus@math.uh.edu.

Your e-mail message should have the subject field completed like
Subject: Your name, HW #, section # Optional), e.g.,
Subject: John Smith, HW 0&1, sect. 0&1
and the attachment would be the file: smith_hw0&1.texHomework has to be submitted by the deadline. I do not accept late homework. Always submit what you got, and on time.
If you have problems, feel free to contact me by e-mail. Always include your name in the subject field. We can also meet in my office, PGH 607. Just make an appointment.

Your HW file will be returned with comments and correction marks.

Comments on Scientific Notebook:

SNB  is a rather simple word processor meant for text entry together with math. Files are saved in LaTeX, thus he .tex extension.  But for SNB you don't need to know any LaTeX. With SNB you can also perform all sorts of mathematical calculations through MuPad. This makes SNB a reasonable buy at the price of a graphics calculator. If your file contains graphics element that haven't been created within SNB then you have to save your document as a .rap file before emailing it. The graphics files then are wrapped within the .tex document and then unwrapped and saved at the location  of the recipient.

If you start a new document, say for Homework, then open SNB and start typing.

If you go through the  File-New routine, choose Blank Document. Never ever use "Homework with Instructions". Blank with Theorem Tags is like Blank if you ignore theorem tags. For HW, theorem tags are overkill.

I don't recommend  buying one of the "upgrades" of SNB namely  Scientific Word (SW) or Scientific Workplace (SWP).   If for some reason you wish to get a full TeX program, there are better  choices. SW as well as SWP offer only limited compatibility with regular LaTeX.

Why don't we use MS Word with the Equation Editor: Because  this is an awful combination and sooner or later I would be forced to accept handwritten HW.  It just would take you too long to get any math typed. And there are many other reasons why we should not use Word for documents that contain  mathematical formulas.

Can I use SNB for my other math courses? Yes. SNB provides you with decent looking hardcopies. But even if your instructor accepts HW as e-mail attachments, SNB files can be opened by LaTeX which is available to every faculty. And you might enjoy the math capabilities of SNB for courses which have a numerical component, like Linear Algebra.

Can I save SNB files in PDF? Yes, but only if you have access to the Adobe Acrobat,  or an equivalent program.

Updated: December 23, 2013