Assignments and Assessment

The course will consist of a combination of paper readings, textbook readings, programming and written assignments, and exams. Most readings will require a brief paper review, due several hours before class.

We plan to weight grades as follows:

• 35% — paper reviews
• 30% — midterm and final exam
• 35% — homework assignments

Attendence

Attendence at lectures is not required, but strongly recommended. Attendence at exams is required; if you cannot make an exam for some reason, contact the instructors as far in advance as reasonably practical. Exam dates will always be announced at least 2 weeks in advance.

Late Policies

We will generally not accept late paper reviews as they will be used to guide discussion during lecture.

We will accept late homework assignments as follows:

• up to 48 hours late: 10% deduction
• up to one week late: 20% deduction
• more than one week late: 100% deduction

If you are going to be submitting a homework assignment late, we would strongly prefer you inform to an instructor about it. We would like to make sure late submissions on one assignment do not cascade into problems on later assignments.

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.

Cheating

Students are encouraged to discuss the assignments in general and to help other students with debugging their solutions. Students are not permitted to share code or consult solutions to assignments from prior semesters. Assignment submissions should not make extensive use of code found online. Incidental use (not central to one of the goals of the assignment) is okay, but must be clearly cited.

We reserve the right to assign an arbitrarily large grade penalty for cheating, up to and including an “F” in the class. This penalty is independent of (and potentially in addition to) the University Honor System.

If you are unsure about whether something would be considered academic dishonesty, please ask the course staff.

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.