Syllabus

Grading Policies

Grade Breakdown

Your grade is composed of the following components:

Grading Scale

All your grade components will be added up with the percentage weights indicated and result in a single number. This number will determine your letter grade, according to the following scales:

General Rules

Any questions, concerns, or misgivings regarding a specific grade must be raised within one week of the release of the grade. After one week has passed, the assigned grade is considered accepted and no further complaints will be considered.

iClickers

Short quizzes are conducted during lectures using iClickers (50% participation, 50% correctness). An iClicker remote can be purchased from any of the bookstores, and must be registered on Compass, under the tab "Register i>clicker". You need to register your iClicker by the end of Week 2, when the iClicker roster will be synced for the last time. The first iClicker use for credit will take place in Week 2 of the semester. Your lowest three scores will be dropped. These drops should be reserved for unexpected occurrences such as sickness or a family emergency.

You may not share your iclicker with another student in this course, even if they are in the other section of the course. Doing so may result in you not receiving iclicker credit.

Piazza

We will be using Piazza for communication. The course staff will post important announcements on Piazza and it is your responsibility to monitor Piazza for these announcements. If you have a question or a concern, please post it on Piazza. Most questions can be posted publicly. However, if you are asking a question about your grades specifically or some other private matter, you may post the question/note privately. Specifically, do not post answers (answers, plots, code etc.) publicly on Piazza.

Please do not email the course staff, but post on Piazza instead. This is both to assist other students who may have similar questions and to ensure you receive the fastest response possible by making it visible to the entire course staff.

We will not debug code via Piazza. If you need assistance debugging your code, please come to office hours.

Homework

Homework sets will be due every week. The due dates are indicated in the lecture schedule and in the class calendar.

General Homework Policies

• Each homework is due at 5pm on Wednesday.
• Homework assignments are automatically submitted shortly after the deadline. You do not need to (and cannot) manually submit your entire homework assignment.
• No late homework submissions will be accepted after the assignments are automatically submitted.
• For homeworks requiring manual grading, we will post a note on Piazza when the homework grades are released in the gradebook. Although you may see intermediate feedback during the grading process, grades are subject to change during the grading process. Please refrain from posting questions regarding your grade until after the homework grades have been released.

Individual Problem Policies

• For coding problems, it is your responsibility to ensure that your code runs without errors and produces the desired output on Relate. The course staff will not change your code or reopen your homework submission to correct mistakes.
• Coding problems may be fully automatically graded or partially automatically graded and partially manually graded. You can see the score for the automatically graded portion of the problem by pressing "Submit answer for feedback". You will see no feedback for the manually graded portion of the problem.
• All plots should be clearly titled, labeled, and have legends as appropriate. Failure to do so may result in loss of points.
• For any homework problems requiring file submissions, the uploaded file must be in PDF format, clearly legible, with all problem parts clearly labeled. For non-coding problems with file upload submissions, you must show your work (showing how you arrived at your answer and/or explaining your answer as appropriate). For these problems, an answer without appropriate work will receive little or no credit.

Collaboration on Homework

• You may discuss your approach (but not your code or your writeups) with your peers. All parts of each homework set must be your own work. You must have typed/written every part of your homework yourself. In some cases, code/pieces of work from elsewhere may be allowed--if so, this will be stated in the instructions. In that case, you must acknowledge the source.

• If we notice that your work has considerable overlap with someone else's (and we do check), the both of you should be ready to have an unpleasant conversation and face penalites as provided by campus rules regarding academic honesty.

Quizzes and Final Exam

There will be 5 quizzes throughout the semester and a longer final exam. This course uses the College of Engineering Computer-Based Testing Facility (CBTF) for its quizzes and final exam.

Please familiarize yourself with the policies of the CBTF. The policies of the CBTF are the policies of this course, and academic integrity infractions related to the CBTF are infractions in this course.

Any problem with testing in the CBTF must be reported to CBTF staff at the time the problem occurs. If you do not inform a proctor of a problem during the test then you forfeit all rights to redress.

Taking Quizzes / Final Exam

• You must take your quizzes as scheduled with the CBTF, and only on the scheduled day and time. If you do not take the exam (e.g. by not scheduling an appointment, by not reporting to the facility at the scheduled time, or by not performing the required work), the exam will be counted as a zero.

• There will be no exceptions to this scheduling policy except in cases of severe emergency (e.g., loss of life or limb). Examples of events that do not qualify as emergencies include (but are not limited to): transportation problems, conflict with work schedule, important family vacation, or computer problems. The policies of the facility apply during each quiz for aspects such as late arrival and emergency closures.

• See the below section for appropriate documentation required for quizzes missed due to university-approved activities.

• If you miss a quiz for any reason, then you must contact the CBTF proctors immediately. Depending on the circumstances you may be able to reschedule. If you fail to contact the proctors immediately, then you forfeit the opportunity to take the quiz.

• No aids other than a writing utensil and paper provided by the facility are allowed in the CBTF. In particular: If you are seen near a phone, MP3 player or other digital device (turned on or not--it does not matter) during an quiz/exam, you will receive a grade of zero for the assessment.

• Extended illnesses or emergencies should follow the policies outlined by the Office of the Dean of Students.

• Only quizzes taken in accordance with these rules will receive credit. Any deviation from these rules will lead to the quiz in question being assinged a grade of zero.

• You are not allowed to discuss the quiz with other students during the quiz period. Please refrain from discussing the questions until after the quiz period ends.

Reviewing Quizzes

Answers for quizzes will not be released. You may review the questions you got wrong by coming to office hours and a TA will go through the problems you got wrong with you. You have one week from the time that the quiz scores are released to come and review the questions you got wrong. After one week has passed, you will not be allowed to review your quiz. You will not be allowed to take pictures of the questions and you will not be allowed to copy the questions.

There will be no opportunities to review the final exam.

Absences

1. Excuses from assessments will only be given in the following circumstances:

   A. Illness

   B. Personal crisis (e.g. car accident, required court appearance, death of a close relative).

   C. Required attendance at an official UIUC activity (e.g. varsity athletics, band concert).

2. In all cases you must fill out the excused absence request form and upload the appropriate documenation.

3. In cases (A) or (B) an official excuse letter from the (Dean on Duty) must be uploaded with the form within 2 weeks of the due date of the missed assessment, no later than reading day. In cases of extended or unusual illness, late submission of excuse documentation will be considered.

4. In case (C) an official letter from the designated university official must be uploaded at least one week prior to the due date of the missed assessment.

5. Notwithstanding the above, at your professor's discretion you may be required to make up any excused work or attend substitute instruction or assessment.

Registration

CS 357 is, unfortunately, too popular for its own good, leading to annoyances like waitlists and sections with controlled access.

Some of you have asked to take part in class activities despite not being officially registered for the class, and we are usually happy to make this possible. If you would like temporary access to Relate while you attempt to register, please fill out the temporary relate access request form.

If you choose to make use of this, you will be held to the same standard as every other student that is officially registered for the class, and, at the discretion of the instructor, work you do as part of this 'unofficial' participation may be eligible for class credit if you later become officially registered.

However, please keep the following two things in mind:

1. While it is quite likely that spots will open up as the semester continues, we are unable to promise that this will happen.

2. As long as you are not officially signed up (check with the academic office in 1210 Siebel if you're not sure), you will not receive university credit for the work you are doing.

In particular being "enrolled" in the course on this site has no administrative significance to the university. What matters is enrollment as shown in the UIUC self-service application.

Accommodations

If you have accommodations identified by the Division of Rehabilitation-Education Services (DRES), please post a private note on Piazza with your DRES LOA.

If you have accommodations for exams, please take your Letter of Accomodation (LOA) to the CBTF proctors in person before you make your first exam reservation. The proctors will advise you as to whether the CBTF provides your accommodations or whether you will need to make other arrangements with your instructor.

Academic Integrity

Academic integrity, harassment, and discrimination: Academic integrity infractions, harassment, and discrimination of any kind will not be tolerated. See the University's Student Code, Article 1, Part 4. Please see the Students’ Quick Reference Guide to Academic Integrity for more details.

Please see the departmental Honor Code for details on integrity and procedures.