CMPSCI 187: Programming with Data Structures

Marc Liberatore and John Ridgway
Spring 2015 (archived)

Policies

Grading Criteria (approximate):

  • Unit Exams (15%): There will be three unit exams. We will write an exam intended to be finished in an hour, and give you two hours to finish it.
  • Final Exam (15%): This will be during the May final exam period as scheduled by the University, and will be cumulative. You will have two hours. This exam will count for 15% of your final grade, but you must receive a C- on the exam to receive a C- in the course.
  • Programming Assignments (40%): There will be roughly ten programming assignments over the term, each counting about 4% of your grade. These are to be handed in as Eclipse projects using Moodle. Late assignments will generally not be accepted.
  • Discussions (15%): Attendance at the Monday discussion sections is required and this portion of the course grade will be based on your attendance and participation. Participation will be measured by group responses to in-class written assignments. You will normally submit answers in pairs, with the rule that you may not have the same partner twice over the semester. These will be graded “check” (B), “check-plus” (A), or absent (F). Each discussion’s grade will be weighted equally.
  • Clicker Questions (15%): In most lectures there will be around five multiple-choice questions to be answered using the iClicker system. You are responsible for getting and registering a clicker device. Each lecture’s grade will be weighted equally.

There are no opportunities for extra credit in this course.

We will retain all graded materials for this course until the end of next semester (Fall 2015). If you wish to review them, please come to see us during office hours (or make an appointment).

Attendance

We expect you to attend class having done the assigned reading, and to come to scheduled exams.

  • If you will be absent (either from class, or from an exam) due to religious reasons, you must provide us with a written list of such dates within one week of your enrollment in the course.
  • If you will be absent for a University-related event, such as an athletic event, field trip, or performance, you must notify us as soon as possible.
  • If you are absent for health reasons, we expect you to notify us as soon as possible.
  • If you are absent for other extenuating non-academic reasons, such as a military obligation, family illness, jury duty, automobile collision, etc., we expect you to notify us as soon as possible.

If you must miss an exam for an excusable reason, we will work with you to find an acceptable time for you to take a makeup exam. If you miss an exam without prior notice, we will require an explanation and written documentation in order to judge whether the absence is excusable.

Incompletes: Incompletes will be granted only in exceptional cases, and only if you have completed at least half the course. Prior to that, withdrawal is the recommended course of action.

Academic Honesty Policy

Please read the UMass Academic Honesty Policy.

All work submitted must be your own in presentation. How much outside help is allowed depends on the course component.

Copying of solutions to exams or assignments is forbidden.

You may discuss assignments with other students. In fact we encourage this as a learning experience, but the writeup and code must be your own work. A conservative guideline is that it’s OK to discuss assignments with other students, but not to take notes during your discussion. If you make use of a printed or on-line source for any assignment, other than specific course materials such as the textbook or web site, please mention it in your writeup.

Copying solutions you find on the web is forbidden, as is copying other students’ work, re-writing existing code or solutions, or collaboration so close that it looks like copying. This behavior falls under the University’s definition of academic dishonesty. We will be checking for copying and rewriting both manually and using various automated tools.

If you are unsure whether a particular action will constitute academic dishonesty, then check with the instructors before pursuing it. There’s no penalty for asking!

If you engage in academic dishonesty, you will almost certainly receive an F for the course. Further, if there are formal disciplinary proceedings, we will lobby for the maximum possible penalty.

Academic dishonesty is usually the result of other problems in school. Please come see us or the TAs if you are unable to keep up with the work for any reason, and we will try to work something out. We want to see you succeed! We will bend over backwards to help you, but we will not tolerate academic dishonesty.

Investigating academic dishonesty is an unpleasant experience for both the instructor and the student. Please help us by avoiding any questionable behavior.

Other Academic Regulations

The Office of the Registrar publishes Academic Regulations yearly. You should be familiar with them. Particularly relevant are the policies on attendance, absences due to religious observance, and examinations.