CS 372H: Policies and Grading

Exams

Unless stated otherwise, all exams above will be closed book. The midterm and the final exam will cover material from lectures, labs, readings, and homeworks.

Grading

Your final grade will be determined by the following weights: The exact weighting between the midterm and quizzes will depend on how many quizzes we have. Don't worry about missing one or two quizzes; we'll drop your lowest score or two (the vagueness is because we don't yet know how many quizzes we're going to have).

Turn-in policy, slack days, lateness, etc.

Each student gets a total of 72 late hours to use throughout the semester. It is up to you how to divide these hours among the various lab assignments. After your late hours are exhausted, each additional day late will incur a full letter grade penalty.

Exemptions of the lateness rules will be allowed in three cases:

  1. Illness, which has to be documented by a doctor and approved by the university.
  2. Death in the immediate family.
  3. Accommodation for students with disabilities as prescribed by the university.
No extensions will be given for any other reason.

You are required to turn in every lab assignment, late or otherwise. If your lateness results in your getting 0 points on the assignment, you will get a D for that assignment. If, by the end of the semester, you have not turned in all of the assignments, then you will receive an F on the entire lab portion (i.e., 40%) of your final grade. (That is, failing to turn in any one lab assignment will cause 40% of your grade to be an F.)

Code of conduct

Please read the UTCS Code of Conduct. It outlines what is expected of you and what you can expect from classes in the CS department.

Cooperation, collaboration, source material, and cheating

Cooperation and collaboration

We encourage you to discuss the problem sets and programming assignments with your colleagues. We welcome discussions of possible interpretations of questions, approaches to solutions, and points of confusion.

However, you must do the work on your own. What does "on your own" mean? You should not discuss actual code, in any form. (For example, you should not discuss code on the whiteboard.) You should not help each other debug. Here are three further guidelines to keep you on the right side of the line:

  1. Other than the TA and instructor, it is never okay to look at the written work of another person or show another person your written work until after all grading on an assignment is completed. This includes looking at paper print-outs, sketching solutions on a white board or napkin, or looking at a screen to help debugging. It should go without saying that copying other people's code or solution sets is strictly prohibited.
  2. Second, after discussing a problem with another student (or the TA!), go watch TV for a half hour before going back to work on the assignment. If you can't remember what the person said after a half hour, you didn't really understand it.
  3. Third, everyone in the class is expected to take appropriate measures for protecting their work. For example, you should protect your files and printouts from unauthorized access.

Source material

You are welcome to use existing public libraries in your programming assignments (such as public classes for queues, trees, etc.) You may also look at operating systems code for public domain software such as Linux. Such activities qualify under approved collaboration practices, and you are welcome to take advantage of them.

What you may not do is look at any course material relating to any project or lab similar to this course's assignments. For example, you may not look at the work done by a student in past years' courses, and you may not look at similar course projects at other universities. If you are unsure about whether a particular source of external information is permitted, contact the instructor before looking at it.

Acknowledging collaborations

When you turn in your lab assignments:

Cheating

Note that the above guidelines are necessarily generalizations and cannot account for all circumstances. Intellectual dishonesty can end your career, and it is your responsibility to stay on the right side of the line. If you are not sure about something, ask.

Students who violate University rules on scholastic dishonesty are subject to disciplinary penalties, including the possibility of failure in the course and/or dismissal from the University. Because such dishonesty harms the individual, all students, and the integrity of the University, policies on scholastic dishonesty will be strictly enforced.

Accommodations for students with disabilities

The University of Texas at Austin provides upon request appropriate academic accommodations for qualified students with disabilities. For more information, contact the Office of the Dean of Students at 512-471-6259, 512-471-6441 TTY.

Last updated: Mon Mar 01 15:52:33 -0600 2010 [validate xhtml]