Policies

Communication Policy

This is a large course, and there are several ways to get in touch with the course staff depending on your need.

• For basic syllabus information, policies, schedule, etc., please see the course website.
• For resources such as lecture notes, recordings, readings, etc., please see Sakai.
• For regular questions about course content, please attend helper hours or use Ed Discussion. The Ed discussion tool is linked/integrated on Sakai. Please post publicly (you can choose to remain anonymous to your peers) so that others may benefit from your question, but do not directly share your solutions to assignments (that is, ensure you satisfy the collaboration policy below).
• For personal questions about the course (grades, student accommodations, emergencies, etc.) you should email the instructors at compsci330-staff@cs.duke.edu. Please do not use email for anything other than these sensitive topics that should not be handled through the other means above.

Collaboration Policy

Collaboration is an encouraged part of the course, but only within boundaries that will ensure your learning and maintain academic integrity. In particular:

Homework assignments can be completed in groups of size 2 (that is, you can work with a partner). This is voluntary – you can work by yourself if you choose, and you can work with whomever you like. You can switch partners between assignments, but once you begin working with a partner for a particular assignment you may not change for that same assignment. See more details below under Homework Policy.

The Case Study can be completed in larger groups of up to 4. See more details below under the Case Study Policy.

Apart from your homework partner or case study group, you may discuss ideas and study with other students in small groups of up to 5. You may not, however, write or share solutions. As a rule of thumb, if you find yourselves sharing written text, taking pictures of solutions on boards, or looking over someone’s shoulder at a laptop, you have moved beyond the bounds of acceptable collaboration across groups. The same goes for the internet – you are welcome to use it as a resource, but you may not search for or use solutions from the internet.

Lecture Attendance Policy

We do not take attendance explicitly in lecture. We will typically have one or more in-class exercises that are graded for completion, not for correctness. Each in-class exercise will earn 0.25% of the final grade, up to a cumulative maximum of 5% over the course of the semester (20 for full credit). Currently, 26 lectures are currently scheduled (not counting exams) leaving 6 more beyond those necessary for full credit. These 6 are intended to cover all absences, excused and unexcused. We do not track excuses for lecture.

Recitation Attendance Policy

Participation in your recitation section every week will earn 0.5% of the final grade, up to a cumulative maximum of 5% over the course of the semester. The first recitation will be a review session for which attendance will not be taken. They will not count in the final grade. This leaves twelve other recitations. We do not track excuses for recitations; the two over the 5% cap are intended to cover all absences, excused and unexcused. See below for details regarding which section you should attend.

This category will be used for course surveys as well. After some confusion with the midsemester survey, we have adjusted the policy so we will still only count ten items.

Most of the time, you must attend the recitation section to which you are assigned. However, if you have one or two times during the semester when you have a conflict, you must inform both sets of TAs in advance and they will be able to transfer your attendance credit.

Homework Policy

The total weight of assignments in the final grade will be 25%. There will be eight homework assignments. Of the eight units in total, the best six units will be considered for the final grade. That means there are an extra 2 beyond those necessary for full credit. No extensions will be granted, excused or otherwise, for late/missed homework. Instead, these two drops are intended to cover illness, emergencies, or any other personal circumstances that may prevent you from being able to complete homework assignments.

Homework assignments schedule is available on the homework page and they will be posted as the same page. Typically, homework for the material covered in Week x will be released on the Thursday of Week x and will be due on the Wednesday of Week x+1.

• You may work on an assignment alone or as part of a duo. You may change partnership from one assignment to the next. However, once you have started working on an assignment, you cannot change who you work with on that assignment. If you work with a partner then you should submit one document on Gradescope and use the group submission feature. Do not submit separate submissions of the same work or it may be flagged as plagiarism. For the sake of your learning, we encourage you to consider working fully collaboratively and ensure that you individually understand all parts of every problem, rather than splitting up the problems. The latter approach will reduce your opportunities to practice and learn and may result in your not being fully prepared for exams.
• You must type all solutions – we will not accept handwritten solutions for full credit. You will use LaTeX or WORD to produce a PDF file for every assignment, plus auxiliary code files as appropriate for applied problems or case studies. Detailed instructions will be given for each assignment. Only homework in the appropriate format will be accepted and grades will be deducted for formatting that makes it difficult to read your submissions.
• You will submit on Gradescope, which will also be linked/integrated into Sakai. Each submission is due by 11:59 pm Durham (Eastern) time on the due date. A submission will be considered late if the submission website (Gradescope) marks it as late. Submissions submitted between 12:00 am and 1:59 am to Gradescope will be penalized with a 10% deduction of the final grade of that assignment. A submission received after 2:00 am will not be graded and awarded no credit. This means that it is in your best interest to submit sufficiently early so that there is no possibility of the Gradescope server receiving it after 11:59 pm.

Case Study

There will be one case study, divided into two parts, which will entail designing, implementing, analyzing algorithms for particular tasks, and testing them on some real data sets. You may work on the case study in a group of at most four. You may change the partner after the first part is due, but once you have declared a partner for each part, you cannot change it. The only exception is when your partner withdraws from the course. More details of the case study, including the release date, will be provided during the first two weeks of the semester. The due dates are available on the home assignment page. The total weight of the case study in the final grade will be 15%. The submission policy of both parts of the case study is the same as for homework assignments.

Exams

There will be two midterm exams and one final exam. Their dates are available on the lecture-schedule page. All exams are closes book. The total weight of the midterm exams is 25% and the weight of the final exam is also 25%. No make-up exam will be given. If you miss a midterm exam, your missing score will be interpolated based on your performance in the other exams.

Grading Policy

The course will us relative grading and the final letter grades will depend on overall class performance. But, in choosing the final cutoffs, the following absolute course grade minimums will be ensured (that is, we may lower the cutoffs, but they will not be raised from this).

60% and higher: D- or higher

70% and higher: C- or higher

80% and higher: B- or higher

90% and higher: A- or higher