15-112 Syllabus
Fall 2011

Instructor Office Hours (koz):  Tue/Thu, noon to 2pm, GHC 5001

Head CA (Will Macrae / wmacrae): by appointment

CA Office Hours (in GHC 5205, with overflow in GHC 5201 or elsewhere as needed):
   * Daily (7 days/wk):  6pm to 10pm
   * Saturday:  noon to 10pm
   * Sunday:  10am to midnight

• Python
  • The Python Tutorial
  • The Python Language Reference
  • The Python Standard Library
  • Dive Into Python
  • How to Think Like a Computer Scientist
  • Data Structures and Algorithms with Object-Oriented Design Patterns in Python
• Math for CS: 
  • Janacek and Close, "Mathematics for Computer Scientists"
    Numbers, Logic, Induction, Sets, Counting, Functions, Sequences, Calculus, Matrices, Probability, Statistics
  • Kaw, et al, "Numerical Methods with Applications"
    Approximation and Errors, Differentiation, Nonlinear Equations, Simultaneous Linear Equations, Interpolation, Regression, Integration, Ordinary Differential Equations, Fast Fourier Transforms, Partial Differential Equations, Optimizations

Attending and participating in lectures and recitations.

Reading the printed and online notes and other assigned readings.

Carrying out homework assignments.

Taking the quizzes, midterms, and final.

Attendance is required (if not always strictly recorded).  Repeated failure to attend lectures or recitations may result in a lowered semester grade regardless of your numeric average.  You will be responsible for all materials presented in lectures and recitations. You should not expect that all lecture or recitation materials will be given to you in written form (including the online class notes we provide).  Note that missed quizzes and tests may not be made up in general (though certain exceptions are permitted -- see the relevant sections below).

Assessment:  Any material covered in lecture, in recitation, in assigned readings, or in homework assignments may be included in any future homework assignment, quiz, or test.

Each lab, homework, term project, quiz, midterm, and final will be graded on a standard scale:
   A: 90 - 100
   B: 80 - 89
   C: 70 - 79
   D: 60 - 69
   R:  0 - 59

Midterm Tests:
There will be 2 midterm tests, each worth 10% of the semester grade, given in class as noted in the course schedule. 

Quizzes:
Quizzes will be given approximately once per week generally in lecture but perhaps on occasion in recitation or at other times.

Late Policy:
No late / make-up quizzes or tests will be administered, except in the case of medical or family emergencies or other university-approved absences. For qualifying missed quizzes, students should obtain instructor approval before missing the quiz.  Students may then make-up missed quizzes by attending professor's office hours up until the Wednesday following the quiz.

The programming assignments are a critical part of the course. Experience has shown that the concepts covered in this course are best learned by direct engagement -- in our case by applying them to example problems or by implementing them in computer programs.

Programming assignments will be graded based on style (modularity, effective use of data abstraction, readability, commenting, etc.) and functionality (correctness and efficiency of the program on the test inputs).  A working program is not sufficient for full credit. Make sure you do a thorough data validation. Your code should be properly annotated with comments that are well-placed, concise, and informative. Your assignments will be graded by your CA, and by automated graders, and at times by your instructor.

Unless otherwise noted, for homework assignments, students are encouraged to talk to each other, to the course staff, or to anyone else about the assignments. This assistance, though, is limited to the discussion of the problems in general.  Each student must develop his or her own solutions to the homework. Consulting another student's solution is prohibited, and submitted solutions may not be copied in whole or in part from any source.

Specifically:  do not look at other students' code or written answers, and do not show them your code or written answers, until after the assignment deadline has passed and the assignment has been submitted and graded.

And:  do not email or otherwise electronically or physically transfer your code to other students, and do not receive such transmissions from other students, until after the assignment deadline has passed and the assignment has been submitted and graded.

In particular, this precludes students helping each other debug their code (since you may not even look at their code). Of course, students may (and should!) seek debugging assistance (and any other help) from the course staff, who provide extensive support to all students via email, office hours, review sessions, and 1-on-1 tutoring by appointment.

Also, if you find a reference (say, in an optional textbook or some online source) that contains code or a written solution that is identical or overtly similar to an assigned problem, then you are required to not look at that code or written solution!  You may still refer to supporting figures and explanatory text, but you may not look at or copy the code.

And:  any attempt to decompile solutions, or object code that may help produce solutions, or in any way to extract solutions from the autograder, or to "hack" the autograder in any way, will result in your failing the course.

Note that some assignments will be explicitly marked as collaborative.  In those (and only those) assignments, you may work with other students, even writing code together, and certainly debugging each other's code.  However, even then, you absolutely may not copy solutions from anyone or anywhere.  In all cases, you must be intellectually involved in the authoring of everything you submit.

In addition to manual checks on homework and exam submissions, we will also routinely use an automated plagiarism detector. Here is a video demonstrating how it works (AVI or MP4).

The issue of cheating will be taken seriously by the instructor and CA's.  Any violations will be handled in accordance with the University regulations, with serious consequences on the first offense.

The following addendum is effective from 7-Nov-2011:

Background:  There are many online 'help' resources, and while some may be legitimate, many are basically providing a homework service, or otherwise violating the spirit (and often also the letter) of our course policies on cheating and collaboration.  Importantly, we also cannot control the quality of 'help' students receive from such sources, and experience indicates many 'answers' from such sources are of very low quality (presumably in part as these are not always supplied by CMU Course Assistants or other similarly-qualified tutors).  Finally, given the truly extensive support this course provides through daily office hours, private and small-group tutoring, email-based help, collaborative assignments, and so forth, not to mention the support of the broader CMU community of learners, there is no compelling reason students should need any external sources (except, presumably, to obtain assistance in violation of course policies).  AND SO...  Students may not post any course content (notes, hw's, quizzes, etc), nor any questions related to any assigned material, to any online venue.  Doing so may result in failing the course on the first offense.