Assignments and Assessment

The course will contain several programming and/or written homeworks as well as weekly quizzes. In addition, we anticipate having a final (format TBD, possibly a combination of written problems and programming assignments).

Weekly quizzes will generally be released on Wednesday night (after lecture) and due by midday Monday.

We anticipate assigning course grades as follows:

• 40% weekly quizzes — with two quizzes dropped
• 45% homeworks — none dropped
• 15% final assignment and/or final quiz (details TBA)

Overall raw scores will be translated to final grades in a way to be determined (depending on the actual difficulty of coursework), but overall scores above 90% will be at least an A-, above an 80% at least a B-, above a 70% at least a C- (or CR), and above a 60% at least a D- (or GC).

Lecture attendence

Attendence at lectures is not required, but strongly recommended.

I intend to give lectures live and take questions (primarily via chat) as I go. If you choose not to (or cannot) attend the lecture live, I would strongly recommend:

• having some way to take notes when watching the lecture recording
• writing down your answers to any in-class exercises we do in those notes
• writing down any questions you have during the lecture recording and asking them after you watch it either via Piazza or office hours

Late Policies

Late quizzes are not accepted as we may release and/or discuss quiz answers immediately after they are due. Contact the course staff for alternate arrangements if you have a conflict with a quiz.

We will accept late homework assignments as follows:

• up to 72 hours late: 10% deduction
• up to 120 hours late: 20% deduction
• more than 120 hours late: 100% deduction

We may waive or reduce these late penalties on a case-by-case basis; please contact the course staff if something that might warrant this comes up. (Things that might warrant this include illness, unexpected family or life events, etc.)

Honor Policy

We expect all homeworks and quizzes to be completed individually. You may not share code or consult assignment solutions from previous semesters or other institutions. You are encouraged, however, to discuss the assignments in general and provide advice to other students that does not amount to sharing code, pseudocode, or instructions that otherwise essentially solve the assignment. We may use automated tools to look for similarities between homework submissions that suggest excessive collaboration.

Your submissions for homeworks should not make extensive use of code found online. Incidental use (very brief utility code that is clearly unrelated to any major objective of the assignment, like looking up code for splitting a string into an array) is okay, but must be clearly cited. If you are unsure whether something would qualify as “incidental”, please consult the course staff first.

Quizzes are open book, open notes, and open to other references. However, you may not ask anyone else for help on a particular quiz question. This includes, for example, asking about the question on any online discussion fora before the quiz is due. You may not share your quiz answers or reasoning with other students before the deadline for each quiz.

If we believe you have cheated, we may apply an arbitrarily harsh grade penalty up to and including an F in the course. This penalty is independent of (and potentially in addition to) any findings of the University Honor System.

Accomodations

If you need any kind of special accommodations, including but not limited to disability, learning needs, or personal circumstances, please contact us as soon as you are aware of these needs. We aim to be as accommodating and fair as possible.

If you are not sure if your situation warrants special attention, ask us.