On-campus students of CS 473 are primarily undergraduate students. Some course policies such as head-banging sections and oral evaluations for homework have been set up with undergraduates in mind. However, CS 473 is also taken by a number of MCS students in the online/I2CS program. Below we outline some of the course policies that pertain to online students.Please contact Chandra if you have questions or concerns.
- The online students will be graded separately from the on-campus students. The grading policies are essentially the same but the curve will be calculated separately for the two groups.
- I2CS students are in the graduate program and the instructor expects some more independence from the students. It is not possible to replicate the on-campus experience, however the course staff will do its best to help the online students. Since the two sets of students will be graded separately there should not be a concern that one group has an unfair advantage.
- Kyle Fox is the official TA assigned to the I2CS students. However, all the TAs will share the load of the course.
- We will be holding office hours via Skype on Fridays from 6 to 7pm until further notice. The Skype username is cs473uiuc. Chandra can be reached on Skype during his office hours or by setting up an appointment.
- There will be no oral evaluations for I2CS students due to logistical and resource constraints. All homeworks by I2CS students will be submitted as written solutions. Unfortunately this means that I2CS students have to form groups within themselves but we encourage you to interact with on-campus students via the newsgroup and informal study groups. However, be cognizant of the collaboration policy for the homework.
- Homeworks are due at the same time as they are for on-campus students. The online students need to send a pdf of their solutions (could be scanned copy of a handwritten solution) via email to ta473@cs.illinois.edu by the homework deadline.
- The headbanging session on Tuesday will be taped and made available to the I2CS students. The sessions are interactive so it is not clear how much the tape helps but at least it is there. Solutions for HBS problems will not be provided.
- The course staff is neither familiar with nor in charge of proctoring arrangements for exams. Please contact the I2CS program staff, in particular, Frank Hoskinson for help on this matter.