Princeton University
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Computer Science 340
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Fall 2018 |
You are strongly encouraged to attend the lectures. Your lecture attendance and participation are important to your success in the course.
Some of the material covered in lectures may not be covered in the textbooks or precepts. Some exam questions may reward your lecture attendance.
Laptops and cell phones may not be used during Lectures.We encourage you to attend the precepts. We also encourage you to participate actively in the precepts by listening attentively, asking helpful questions occasionally, answering questions occasionally, and so forth. Your precept attendance and participation are important to your success in the course. They also are important to the success of the course as a whole, and so will be components of your subjective grade.
Some of the material covered in precepts may not be covered in the textbooks or lectures.
You should attend your precept, that is, the precept for which you are registered in Princeton's TigerHub system.
Generally it is not acceptable to attend another precept instead of your precept. Your subjective grade will suffer if you do not participate in your precept. However, it is acceptable to attend another precept instead of your precept occasionally if a conflict with your precept arises (indeed you should do so). In that case, as soon as you become aware of the conflict, send e-mail to your Preceptor and the other Preceptor. The other Preceptor thereby will know to duplicate handouts for you, make sure you have a seat, etc. Note that this mechanism is intended to address occasional conflicts; it does not provide license to attend precepts other than your precept on a regular basis.
Generally it is not acceptable to attend another precept in addition to your precept. After all, if even a small fraction of the course's students did that routinely, then some precepts would be very large (or even overflow) routinely. Precepts containing a large number of students are less effective than those containing a reasonable number. However, it could be acceptable to attend another precept in addition to your own occasionally. In that case, send e-mail to your Preceptor and the other Preceptor the day before the precept, asking permission to attend. The Preceptors then will make the decision. If the decision is "yes," then the other Preceptor will duplicate handouts for you, make sure you have a seat, etc.
These are the course's policies concerning electronic communication:
If you have a question that you can express without revealing any parts of your assignment (also known as problem set) solution, then you may post it to the course's Piazza account. One of the course's instructors will respond as soon as possible. Other students also are welcome to respond if and only if they can do so without revealing any of their assignment solutions.
If you have a question that you cannot express without revealing any part of your assignment solution, then you may not post it to Piazza as an open question to everyone. Instead you may e-mail it to your Preceptor. See the course's General Information web page for the e-mail address of your Preceptor. You may not e-mail questions directly to a Preceptor other than your own.
In the context of electronic communication, the phrase "any part of your assignment solution" includes:
The products that you create for the assignment, that is, your .tex code files (including parts of it), pdf files containing parts or the whole solution of a problem included in an assignment, your notes taken for the purpose of completing the assignment, etc. You may not show any of the products that you create for the assignment, modified versions of them, or any parts of them, openly (for instance on a post where other students have access to) on Piazza.
Descriptions of those products in the form of natural language prose, etc. You may not describe the solutions that you write for the assignment, or any parts of them, openly (for instance on a post where other students have access to) on Piazza.
Decisions that you make in the process of creating the solutions to assignments, that is, your decisions about how to express your the logic of your solution or a part of it. You may not describe such decisions or suggest this kind of decisions openly (for instance on a post where other students have access to) on Piazza.
Unless a problem is marked as a no-collaboration part of an assignment in which case you may only discuss the problem with course staff, you may collaborate in groups of at most three students to solve assignment problems. After discussing with your collaborators, you must type your own solutions. You must write all the names of your collaborators on your solutions. You are not allowed to discuss your solutions outside of your group. However, you may discuss your solutions with the Professor of the course, any of the Preceptors of the course and the Lab TAs; see the course's General Information web page for information on the teaching staff of the course. Any notes taken during your discussions should be discarded after the discussions are over and before you write your solution. After you finished your discussions, you should write your own solutions in isolation. Sitting together (with your group members or other students of the course) and writing/typing solutions is strictly prohibited.
You may consult the course reading material (distributed only in this semester's course Piazza account) to solve assignment problems. If you used any external sources to solve assignment problems (e.g. other textbooks, wikipedia, material from other courses) you must clearly mention them at the beginning of your solution. Some assignments restrict available sources; you may use only the sources listed in those assignments. In all cases, you may not consult material posted in previous semesters' course Piazza accounts. Furthermore, you may not consult material that reveal parts of the assignment solutions beyond the ones the course's teaching staff may post on Piazza.
Sharing your assignment solutions with another student is an especially egregious violation of course policies. Do not give hard copy of your work to anyone. Do not e-mail your work to anyone. Do not make your work available to anyone via the web.
There will be several problems in each assignment. You must type the solution to each problem on a separate PDF file. You may use the provided LaTeX templates to type in your solutions. Write your name, assignment number, and names of your collaborators on each solution.
If you took COS 340 (or part of it) during a previous semester, then you may use your work on assignments from that previous semester. However:
You may not look at the feedback on your old graded reports.
You may not look at any course material (solutions to assignments, precept material, etc) you may have had access to while enrolled in a previous semester.
You may not use your work on an assignment from a previous semester if you violated course policies or University policies on that assignment, as determined by the course's instructors or the Committee on Discipline.
Conduct during in-class exams is covered by the University Honor Code. If we suspect a student of inappropriate conduct during an in-class exam, we will refer the case to the Honor Committee. If the Honor Committee finds the student guilty of inappropriate conduct, the standard penalty is automatic failure of the COS 340 course. The Honor Committee may impose additional penalties.
You must submit all your solutions to an assignment electronically as PDF files using the link to the CS dropbox service posted in the relevant Piazza thread.
You may use up to 4 late days throughout the semester, but not more than 2 days on a given assignment. Using one late day on an assignment extends the due date/time of that assignment by 24 hours. Using two late days on an assignment extends the due date/time of that assignment by 48 hours. On each instance, you may only use an integer number of late days. Your late days' usage up to and including the current assignment is posted on Blackboard after you submit your solutions to the problems of that assignment.
Outside of this policy, no late submissions will be accepted unless there are extraordinary circumstances involved. We will grant extensions only in the case of illness (with a doctor's note) or other extraordinary circumstances. If illness or other extraordinary circumstances will cause you to submit an assignment late, then you should discuss the matter with your preceptor as soon as possible. Please plan your work on the assignments so that travel, religious holidays, etc. do not cause you to submit it late. Heavy workload is not an extraordinary circumstance.
If you wish to remove an assignment file you submitted, you can only do so before 48 hours have passed after this assignment's deadline. This time period you have to remove an assignment file you submitted is not affected by any late days you may have used on this assignment.
Your final grade will be weighted as follows:
Component Weight Assignments 50% Midterm Exam 15% Final Exam 30% Subjective 5%
To determine your subjective grade we will consider the extent to which your involvement in the course positively affected the course as a whole. Did you attend and participate actively in lectures and precepts? Did you participate effectively on Piazza by asking helpful questions or providing helpful answers? If you can answer "yes" to those questions, then you have made the course a better experience for other students, for the instructors, and for yourself.
Conversely, we also will consider the extent to which your involvement in the course negatively affected the course as a whole. Did you miss lectures or precepts frequently? Did you attend the wrong precept (without prior approval) frequently? Were you often distracted during lectures or precepts, or were you a source of distraction for others? Did you frequently send messages to Piazza that are inappropriate, asking questions that were answered previously on Piazza, or asking questions that are answered in the required readings? If you must answer "yes" to any of those questions, then you have negatively affected the course for all concerned.
10% (rounded up) of all assignment problems (the ones with the lowest scores) will be dropped and will not be used in your final grade calculation. For example, if at the end of the course there is a total of 35 assignment problems (in this example you can assume 7 assignments, each one of the assignments has 5 problems for a total of 35 assignment problems - please note that this might not be the case this semester, namely these numbers of total problems, problems per assignment and number of assignments may not be accurate for this semester; they are used as an example -), each worth an equal number of points, then 10% of those problems rounded up, namely 4 problems, with the lowest scores will not be included in your final grade calculation.