FAQ

If it's an actual emergency, post a note on piazza and/or contact (both) instructors.

If it's not an emergency, please look through the relevant sections of the course web pages, and this FAQ page, before contacting the course staff. If you have made a good faith effort and haven't found the answer, then post a note on piazza.

Where is the Canvas page?

Only LAS courses are required to have a Canvas page. Many engineering courses do not. Look at the website, watch piazza, and come to class.

We will eventually have a gradebook set up on Canvas or Moodle, so that you can look at your grades and current course average. A link will appear in the top menu (under the Resources tab).

I missed (or will miss) a Tutorial session, examlet, or homework - what do I do?

See this page.

I came to Tutorial but I have a zero on PrairieLearn

It is your responsibility to check that your assignment has been properly graded before you leave the classroom.

PrairieLearn seems to be unenrolling me, or giving me weird access errors!

You are probably in CS 128, which uses a separate PrairieLearn login. So log in again with your standard UIUC credentials (either in a different browser or after logging out of your 128 account).

Which building is "Siebel"?

If we ever forget to specify, we're talking about Siebel Center for Computer Science, not Siebel Center for Design.

Regrades / broken questions

See here for guidance on regrades and broken questions.

Curving / letter grade cutoffs / extra credit

See this page. In particular,

Is an 87% enough for a B+?

We do not guarantee any thresholds in advance other than the ones linked above. But in the last few semesters we've used 80/83/87 for B-/B/B+ (same split for A and C; 50/57/63 for D-/D/D+), and the most likely outcome is that the thresholds will be the same again this semester.

Is a 97% enough for a A+?

This course does not give out A+ grades. We've found that pressure to be perfect contributes to student stress. A and A+ both count as 4.0 when the university calculates your GPA.

Is the course curved?

No.

Are individual assignments curved?

No.

Are grades rounded up, e.g. is a 79.5 or a 79.95 the same as an 80?

No, we will use the precise score. (And relatedly, grades are not rounded down either - note that PrairieLearn might display rounded down scores, e.g. you might get an 84.9% on an examlet and it might show up as an 84%, but we will use the precise score in our final calculations.)