Course policies

Grading

For the students that take the class for three hours credit, the grade is composed of the following three components:

We reserve the right to lower your overall grade if at the end of the semester your performance in any of these three areas is below 20% of the maximal number of points that can be obtained. We reserve the right to improve your grade by up to 5 percent based on your in-class participation. That is, if you are in between two grades, but you frequently participated in in-class discussions, we will give you the higher grade.

For the students that take the class for four hours credit, the grade is composed of four components:

The first three components are identical for all students. Again, we reserve the right to lower your overall grade if we judge your project to be significantly below what we expect students to achieve. And, again, we also reserve the right to improve your grade by up to 5 percent based on your in-class participation. That is, if you are in between two grades, but you frequently participated in in-class discussions, we will give you the higher grade.

Homework

The homework assignments will mostly consist of programming exercises. All of our programming assignments will be done in Python 3. You can learn more about Python by reading the documentation.

You will need to document your code.

All assignments will be submitted via Compass or Gradescope.

Exams

The exams will cover material covered in the required reading and the lectures. The final exam will only cover material from the second half of the course. The midterm and final exam may have a different number of points, but you will again get a percentage for each of them. Both exams are closed-book exams. No electronic devices, books or cheat sheets will be allowed.

Projects/Literature Reviews

For the fourth credit hour, you will need to do a small research project (with a writeup that discusses relevant original research papers) or a somewhat larger literature survey, to be submitted at the end of the semester.

Academic integrity:

You are encouraged to discuss homework assignments, but you must write your own solutions (this includes any code that is not explicitly provided with the assignments). If you are taking the course for 4 hours credit, your research project or literature survey must also be your own work. The report must be written in your own words. You must properly cite all sources that have been consulted, including papers, text books, websites and existing software.

DRES Accommodations

If you need any disability related accommodations, talk to DRES (disability@illinois.edu , phone 333-4603). If you are concerned you have a disability-related condition that is impacting your academic progress, there are academic screening appointments available on campus that can help diagnosis a previously undiagnosed disability by visiting the DRES website and selecting "Sign-Up for an Academic Screening" at the bottom of the page. Come and talk to me as well, especially once you have a letter of accommodation from DRES. Do this early enough so that we can take your requirements into account for exams and assignments.