COS 240: Reasoning about Computation

Lectures

You are required and expected to attend the lectures. Your lecture attendance and participation are important to your success in the course.

Some material covered in lectures may not appear in the textbooks or precepts. Some exam questions may reward lecture attendance. Quizzes, which are part of your grade, will also be taken during lectures.

Location is found in the course's registrar page.

Precepts

You are required and expected to attend your precept (the one you registered in in TigerHub). Participation is encouraged: listen attentively, ask occasional questions, and answer questions when appropriate. Your precept attendance and participation are important for your success and may affect your grade (see Grading Scheme).

Occasionally attending another precept due to conflicts is acceptable if you notify both preceptors. Attending additional precepts beyond your own occasionally requires prior email permission from both preceptors. Regularly attending other precepts is not permitted and can affect your grade (see Grading Scheme).

Location is found in the course's registrar page.

Message Boards and Electronic Communication

The course's message boards

The course uses Ed Discussion as its message boards for this semester.

Enrollment: You are enrolled in the message boards by the course's teaching staff the moment you officially enroll in the course. Joining the course's message boards is required (you can not continue with the course as an officially enrolled student if you have not joined the course's message boards).

Access: You can access the course's message boards by following the steps below:

• Visit Ed Discussion's website.
• Click on "Login" and then, when prompted for an email, insert your Princeton email (in the form of (netid)@princeton.edu, where (netid) should be replaced by your Princeton netid).
• Login through CAS using your Princeton credentials.
• The Ed Discussion Course Account should listed in your Dashboard.

💬 Electronic communication policies

These are the course's policies concerning electronic communication:

• 📧 If you have a question about course policies, do not post it on the course's message boards. Instead email (or visit office hours of) your Preceptor or the Instructor of Record.
• 💬 If you have a question (not related to course policies) that you can express without revealing any parts of your assignment solution, then you may post it to the course's message boards. Instructors will respond as soon as possible. Other students may respond only if they do not reveal any assignment solutions.
• 📧 If you have a question that cannot be expressed without revealing any part of your assignment solution, do not post it on the message boards. Instead email your Preceptor or (preferably) visit office hours. Do not email other Preceptors directly.

In this context, the phrase any part of your assignment solution includes:

• 📄 The products you create for the assignment - your .tex files (including parts), PDFs containing any portion of a problem solution, your notes taken to complete the assignment, etc. These may not be shared or shown on the course message boards.
• 📝 Descriptions of those products in natural language. You may not describe your solutions or parts of them on the course message boards.
• ⚙️ Decisions made while creating solutions - for example, choices about how to structure logic. You may not describe or suggest these decisions openly on the message boards.

Assignment Conduct

There are two types of assignments. No-collaboration assignments and Collaboration-allowing Assignments.

⚠️ In all cases, sharing your assignment solutions with another student or making your assignment solutions available online is strictly prohibited.

Quick comparison: Assignment rules overview

Regarding receiving help

• ✅ You may consult this semester's course reading material in this semester's course message boards.
• ✅ You may use external sources unless the course policies prohibit them, provided you cite them in your solution.
• ❌ Do not use course materials found in previous semesters' course message boards (Piazza or Ed Discussion).
• ❌ Do not use material that reveal assignment solutions beyond what the course's teaching staff may post in this semester's message boards.
• ❌Do not use AI composition software (such as ChatGPT, Copilot, Claude, etc) for the purpose of solving assignment problems. Furthermore, you may not use generative AI results that are displayed by a web search engine. So any web search engine that you use must be one that either (1) doesn't display generative AI results, or (2) allows you to turn off its display of generative AI results. Clarification: Use of AI tools is allowed for studying and exploring the course concepts, but not for the purpose of solving assignment problems.
• ✅ You may use calculators when working on assignments. However, you are permitted to use only basic calculator functions (+, ×, log, sin, exp); no programming functionality.

Submission format

Submit one typed PDF document per assignment (preferably using the LaTeX templates we provide) that contains your solutions for that assignment. You will submit through the TigerFile link we will provide. Include your name, assignment number, and collaborators at the top of the file. Do not submit handwritten solutions; they will not be accepted.

Retaking COS 240

• ✅ You may reuse your own past work.
• ❌ Do not view old feedback.
• ❌ Do not access course materials from previous semesters.
• ❌ Do not reuse work from assignments where you violated course or university policies.

Penalties for plagiarism

• ⚠️ Suspected plagiarism cases are referred to the Committee on Discipline.
• If found responsible for plagiarism, standard penalty: automatic course failure.
• If found responsible for abetting plagiarism, standard penalty: no credit (0) for the assignment.

Assignment Late Submission

⏳ Late Day Allowance

You may use up to 4 late days throughout the semester, but not more than 2 late days on a given assignment. Using one late day on an assignment extends the due date/time by 24 hours; using two late days extends it by 48 hours. Late days must be used in whole-day (integer) increments. Your late day usage up to and including the current assignment is posted on Canvas after you submit that assignment.

Late day rules

⚠️ Extraordinary Circumstances

Outside of this policy, no late submissions will be accepted unless there are extraordinary circumstances involved. Extensions are granted 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, discuss 📧 the matter with your Preceptor as soon as possible (before the assignment's deadline has passed).

⚠️ Heavy workload, travel, or religious holidays are not extraordinary circumstances. We can not grant extensions in such cases.

🗑️ File Removal Policy

You may remove a submitted assignment file only within 48 hours of the assignment deadline. This window is independent of any late days used.

Quizzes

Quizzes are short, in-person exams that take place during Lectures. More details regarding Quizzes are provided in Lecture 1.

📝 Rules

• Quizzes will be taken in person during Lectures. No exceptions.
• Closed book and closed notes. They are pen and paper Quizzes 📝. You are not allowed to bring with you any notes/textbooks. However, you will be provided from the teaching staff a page of results from the course that you can use/refer to without proof. You can also use/refer to without proof any other result that was presented in the course that isn't in this page.
• No electronic devices: Laptops, tablets, phones, calculators, smart watches, or any other electronic devices are not permitted. It is considered a violation of the COS 240 exam policy to have an electronic device out for any reason during the Quiz and before you submit your Quiz answers.
• We may ask students not to sit in particular seats, or we may rearrange the seating in the room where the Quiz takes place.
• ⌛ Duration: Each Quiz is designed to take 30 minutes. If you leave the classroom to use the bathroom, you may not take any electronic devices or Quiz papers with you.
• Discussing the contents of the Quiz with anyone is not allowed, with the exception of instructors (Faculty Teaching Staff and/or Graduate TAs) who are available for clarifying questions outside the classroom. This restriction is lifted only after the course's Teaching Staff make solutions available on the course's message boards.
• If you have been approved for special accommodations by the ODS, please make sure you contact the course's Faculty Teaching Staff (see Home page) at least 2 weeks before the Quiz takes place.
• Rescheduling requests: It is not possible to reschedule a Quiz. All rescheduling requests for Quizzes are rejected by default.

⏰ Missed Quizzes

• ❌ If you miss a Quiz, your score for that Quiz is 0. There are no make-up Quizzes.
• ⚠️ Exception: If you miss a Quiz for valid reasons (workload, overslept, etc are not valid reasons), please follow the process for "Missing Quiz For Valid Reasons" below.

📧 Missing Quiz For Valid Reasons

Email Prof. Raz (CCing your Preceptor) within 2 days (48 hours) of the missed Quiz explaining the reason you missed the Quiz. If approved, the missed Quiz's weight is added to your Final Exam weight. Otherwise, your score for that Quiz remains 0. (Such an approval can only come from Prof. Raz)

⚠️ Reminder: Quizzes are conducted under the Princeton University Honor System. Students taking a Quiz will be required to fully write out and sign the honor pledge "I pledge my honor that I have not violated the Honor Code during this examination".

Final Exam

The final exam is a registrar-scheduled final exam. It will be conducted in-person and will be scheduled by the Registrar's Office.

📝 Rules

• Closed book and closed notes. This is a pen and paper exam 📝. You are not allowed to bring with you any notes/textbooks. However, you will be provided from the teaching staff a page of results from the course that you can use/refer to without proof. You can also use/refer to without proof any other result that was presented in the course that isn't in this page.
• No electronic devices: Laptops, tablets, phones, calculators, smart watches, or any other electronic devices are not permitted. It is considered a violation of the COS 240 exam policy to have an electronic device out for any reason during the examination and before you submit your exam.
• We may ask students not to sit in particular seats, or we may rearrange the seating in the exam room.
• ⌛ Duration: The exam is designed to take 3 hours. If you leave the classroom to use the bathroom, you may not take any electronic devices or exam papers with you.
• Material Covered in the Exam. All course material from the entire semester, including the content of readings, lectures, precepts, and assignments.
• Discussing the contents of the Final Exam with anyone is not allowed, with the exception of instructors (Faculty Teaching Staff and/or Graduate TAs) who are available for clarifying questions outside the exam rooms. This restriction is lifted only after the course's Teaching Staff make solutions available on the course's message boards.
• If you have been approved for special accommodations by the ODS, please make sure you contact the course's Faculty Teaching Staff (see Home page) at least 2 weeks before the Final Exam takes place.
• Rescheduling Requests: All final exam rescheduling requests must be made through the Registrar. The course's teaching staff do not handle final exam reschedule requests.

Asking for regrades

Keep in mind the following when you are asking for a regrade on Assignments, Quizzes or the Final Exam.

• If you have a regrade request contact your Preceptor. Explain the request and why you believe the grader has made a mistake.
• In regrade requests we do not negotiate the magnitude of the deductions. Even if you disagree with the amount of points you lost for a mistake, we are not going to change the deduction since it has been applied consistently to all students that made the same mistake.
• Regrade requests should be sent before 10 days have passed from the moment the assignment/quiz/exam grades have been made available. After all, it is to your benefit to look into the feedback you receive in a timely manner.
• When you are asking for a regrade of a particular problem, your solution for the whole problem has to be re-examined. Hence, rarely, a regrade request may result in a lower score than before. This is a probable outcome due to the very definition of "regrading", and should not surprise any student when they ask for a regrade.

Grading Scheme

The course percentage grade for each student is calculated as the maximum of two grading methods:

Method 1

Method 2

* Remember that if a Quiz was missed for a valid reason the weight of the Quiz moves (is added to) to the weight of the final exam (see also Quizzes section)

Component calculations

Assignments: The assignments percentage score is calculated as the following weighted average:

Quizzes: Average of the Quizzes' percentage scores. Each Quiz is weighed equally.

Participation:

• Maximum possible credit for participation (10%) if you attend at least 20 Lectures and 8 Precepts.
• Participation credit = 0 if you attend fewer than 14 Lectures or fewer than 6 Precepts.
• Participation credit = 0 if you attend on 5 or more occasions Precepts that you are not enrolled in (violating Precepts rules).