Administrative matters, adopted from Vikram Adve
There is no required text for this class because no single text covers a sufficient part of the material. We will reference material from several sources, including the textbooks listed below. Copies of these texts are on reserve at Grainger Engineering library, and the papers will be made available electronically.
Copies of notes and course handouts will be made available off the course web page.
For questions to the instructors and discussions among students we have set up a forum on Piazza, a modern and much improved form of newsgroup. I will use this for all course announceents, so please read it regularly (although I will occasionally forward urgent messages directly via email). You should also use Piazza for questions to me and questions and discussions among yourselves. I will monitor the forum daily but please be prepared for occasional delays in getting answers from me, especially if I am out of town or on weekends.
Send me e-mail to set up an appointment outside normal office hours,
or to ask a question specific to yourself, or questions that reveal
information about the course project that you think should not be shared.
Please use Piazza for all other communication, since the
answers will likely be of interest to the entire class.
NOTE: Please do not use
Piazza for any posts other than those relating to the course.
There will be two exams: a mid-term and a final. The mid-term exam will be 1-1/4 hours in length, and in class, roughly half-way through the semester. The final exam will follow the published university schedule.
I do not grade on a curve. Grading on a curve generally means to assign a predetermined fraction of the class each grade (e.g., the top 10% get an A; the next 10% a B; etc.). I evaluate each person's performance individually when assigning grades. I do use the overall performance of the students as a guide in calibrating how difficult the projects and exams were, since these change from year to year. But I would be extremely happy to give the entire class As, if they all got high scores.
See the EWS web site for more information about EWS.
Late programming assignments will be penalized 2% per hour late (or fraction thereof), counted from 11:59pm CST on the due date. This means being several hours late could affect your grade.
There are two circumstances for which we'll give "free" extensions:
You are NOT to copy solutions from ANY source (including, but not limited to, code available on the Web, code written in previous semesters, or code obtained from people other than your partner). While the pressures of many classes, homeworks, work and/or extracurricular activities can be great, this is never an excuse for copying solutions from others. "Helping" somebody by allowing them to copy part of your code is not doing them a favor either, but indicates your approval and active participation in such activities. Refer to the Campus Code regarding academic integrity. In particular, giving someone else code is just as much cheating as copying someone else's code. Cheating will result in a reduced grade, or an "F" grade for the course. If you are aware of any breach of academic integrity, it is your responsibility to report it to the instructor.
Discussing your problems with other students, however, is encouraged and even highly recommended. This means asking someone not in your team to give you advice, asking them for suggestions when you face an obstacle, or just discussing any aspect of the material. What you may not do is to copy or in any way use code written by anyone else or dictated by anyone else not on your team. As responsible adults, you can draw the distinction between cheating and honest behavior: exercise your judgement and try to preserve the highest level of professional integrity in everything you do.
Bottom line: You may discuss difficulties with others and get occasional help with debugging but you or your team must write your code entirely by yourself.