Syllabus

Welcome

In this course, each voice in the classroom has something of value to contribute. Please take care to respect the different experiences, beliefs and values expressed by students and staff involved in this course. My colleagues and I support UMass’s commitment to diversity, and welcome individuals regardless of age, background, citizenship, disability, sex, education, ethnicity, family status, gender, gender identity, geographical origin, language, military experience, political views, race, religion, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, and work experience.

View this syllabus as a guide to the course. It provides important information regarding the course, its assignments, policies, grading, and available university resources.

You should read it once, thoroughly, at the start of the semester. However, this document should be considered a working document. It is possible throughout the semester that a topic may take more time than expected, topics or assignments may change, or a class may be canceled due to a snow day or another emergency. If that is the case, the syllabus and schedule will be updated and a revised version will be posted on the course web site.

Course overview

Description: This course introduces foundational abstract data types and algorithms. The main focus is on the use of data structures in designing and developing programs to solve problems in a variety of domains. Specific topics include lists, sets, maps, graphs, stacks, queues, searching, and sorting. There will be weekly programming assignments, programming and written exercises in discussion sections, regular quizzes, and a cumulative final exam.

Prerequisites: C or better in COMPSCI 121 (or transfer credit, or appropriate score on the placement exam). This course is not a substitute for COMPSCI 187. If unsure of whether this course or COMPSCI 187 is more appropriate, contact instructor. 4 credits.

Objectives: COMPSCI 186 requires students to engage in extensive problem solving and critical thinking. In particular, through a project-based curriculum, students expand their ability to design, reason about, and implement non-trivial algorithms and data structures in a general-purpose programming language.

As the course progresses, project scope expands, and the amount of explicit guidance that students are given is decreased – to succeed, students must incrementally improve their programming ability. Thinking in abstractions, planning large (multi-file) programs, and learning to understand why a program does (or doesn’t!) work as expected are activities that require significant critical thinking and problem solving.

In addition to programming projects, students complete both in-class and take home exercises, about six half-hour quizzes and a final exam. Among other things, these activities serve to evaluate other aspects of critical thinking and problem solving that are better assess in a written format. For example, students might be asked to determine the asymptotic running time of a snippet of code; to show (on paper) how a particular algorithm would operate on a given data set (such as a graph traversal algorithm); to identify logical errors in code; or to compare how operations defined by set theory and by a programming language’s set implementation differ.

Learning outcomes

After completing this course, students should be able to:

• Design and write methods using the basic tools of imperative programming: variables and branches, loops over counters and linear data structures.
• Design and write methods using simple recursion for control flow.
• Analyze problems best solved with multiple classes, implement object-oriented solutions given some scaffolding or design advice, and determine which (if any) of the existing implementations of the List, Set, Map, Stack, and Queue ADTs are appropriate when solving these problems.
• Use, design and implement test methods to exercise both single methods and whole programs.
• Use both formal debuggers and program output to determine the cause of logical program errors.
• Explain the concept of worst-case running time analysis, and classify simple examples of linear, quadratic, and constant-time code.
• Categorize the worst-case running time of operations on arrays and on the List, Set, Map, Stack, and Queue ADTs, given information about their underlying implementation.
• Explain the O(n^2) sorting algorithms.
• Explain and implement breadth-first search, given an existing implementation of graphs.
• Explain the implementation details of array- and linked-list-backed Stacks and Queues.

What, when, where, who

COMPSCI 186: Using Data Structures
TuTh 4–5:15pm
ILC S331 (discussions meet separately on Monday; check SPIRE for details)

Instructor: Marc Liberatore (please call me “Marc”)
Email: liberato@cs.umass.edu (though see note below about Piazza)
Phone: 413-545-3061 (on campus: 5-3061)
Office: Computer Science, Room 318
Office hours: Thursday, 9:30–11:30am

TAs:
Adam Kohan
Email: akohan@cs.umass.edu
Monday, 4:15-6:15pm, LGRT 220
Wednesday, 4:15-6:15pm, LGRT 220
(also on demand, send me (Adam) a piazza private post to schedule office hours on Tuesdays)

Fatemeh Rezaei
Email: frezaei@cs.umass.edu
Thursday, 11:30–1:30pm, LGRT 225

Jonathan Westin
Email: jwestin@cs.umass.edu
Friday, 3–5pm, LGRT 220

ExSEL sessions:
Monday, 5:30–6:45pm Du Bois Library, Room 1302
Wednesday, 8:30–9:45pm Du Bois Library, Room 1302

ExSEL sessions are 75 minutes in length and are capped at 10 students. Half of the spots are held for appointments (students can book via the LRC page, http://www.umass.edu/lrc) and half of the spots are for drop in visits.

Required material

An i>Clicker 2 Remote is required for this course. You will need to bring it to every course meeting, including the first one.

Most technical material will be presented in lecture or on the course website. We will also use a custom version of the OpenDSA textbook, available at http://lti.cs.vt.edu/LTI_ruby/Books/COMPSCI186/html/.

For students who want additional references, I suggest several optional resources:

• The Java Tutorials, likely already familiar to you from COMPSCI 121 or the equivalent, are guides to the Java language. I’ll note in the schedule specific “trails” that you may find helpful.
• Similarly, the Java Platform API provides a comprehensive description of all classes Java Platform; we’ll make extensive use of some of them, and they are fully documented by Oracle.
• Think Java: How to Think Like a Computer Scientist, 1st edition, by Allen B. Downey and Chris Mayfield. Think Java is an alternative to the COMPSCI 121 textbook, and covers about the same material. It primarily focuses on the craft and science of problem solving with computers, with a secondary focus on Java. You may find this book useful to review before the start of the semester or during the first few weeks of this course.
• Learning Java, 4th edition, by Patrick Niemeyer and Daniel Leuck. This book is aimed at working programmers, not computer scientists, and focuses much more on use of Java, tooling in the Java ecosystem, and practical considerations than Think Java. You may find it useful when using some of the tools we require in this course, and when completing some of the advanced (and optional) parts of later programming assignments.
• Java Precisely, 3rd edition, by Peter Sestoft. If you want to know something about the Java language – syntax or semantics – this book is a great reference. Note that it is not a textbook or a how-to manual, but a reference book that explains what specific part of the language mean. It also provides some explanation of important parts of the Java standard library (also known as the class library or Java Platform API).
• Eclipse IDE Pocket Guide, by Ed Burnette. You might find it helpful to have a guide to Eclipse, the Integrated Development Environment we’ll be using in this course. The Pocket Guide is not comprehensive, but it is a valuable reference to the most commonly-used parts of the IDE.

Communication policy

Per the University Email Policy, you are expected to check your email regularly. I will use your UMass email address as your point of contact in all online tools we use (Moodle, Piazza, and Gradescope) and as my primary means to contact you individually outside of class. Group announcement will be posted to Piazza (which you can configure to send you via email, if you so desire).

For course-content related questions (especially questions that other students might benefit from seeing the answers to), please use Piazza. For other questions, email is best, but please check the syllabus and course web site before emailing the course staff. If you send me (or the TAs) email, please include “COMPSCI 186” in the subject line to make sure we answer them in a timely fashion.

Course staff typically respond to emails and Piazza questions within about one business day, but I (Marc) do not typically respond to communications after about 5pm or on weekends. Course staff tend to get a higher volume of email when a deadline is approaching. If you contact us at least two full business days before a quiz or deadline, you are guaranteed a reply before the quiz or deadline. Otherwise we’ll do our best, but no guarantees.

Piazza

Piazza is a online discussion management system. It will be used as the main hub for questions and answers in this course. Piazza is a great tool but it can be abused. Please follow these guidelines in your use of Piazza:

• You should use Piazza to ask questions and get advice on assignments. But you may not use Piazza to step through each problem you encounter in an assignment.
• You may not post assignment solutions to Piazza, either in questions or answers to others’ questions.
• If you must post code you are working on, you should do so only through private posts to the course instructors.
• You should not post code without a thoughtful and articulate question. Do not post code and ask only, “what is wrong with my code?” See, for example, http://stackoverflow.com/help/how-to-ask or https://jvns.ca/blog/good-questions/ for constructive advice on asking questions.
• You are encouraged to help other students by answering questions.

The course staff will monitor Piazza and answer your questions in a timely manner (generally within a business day). But do not expect us to provide real-time answers on Piazza, especially in the last few hours before an assignment is due!

If a question has already been answered in a previous post we may not respond to you. If a question does not follow the guidelines above we may not answer it. If we find that a private question is relevant to a larger audience, we may make mark it public to help others in the course.

Time management and what to expect

As a general guideline, the university suggests that students spend an additional two to three hours outside of class time per credit hour. This is a four-credit course, therefore you should plan to spend eight to twelve hours a week on this class outside of lecture and discussion meetings.

In a typical week, you will attend discussion (where there will be either a self-contained activity or a quiz), attend two lectures (including in-class exercises), complete two short out-of-class assignments (due at the start of lecture) and one larger programming assignment (where you will spend the bulk of your time in this course), and complete the assigned reading.

Technology in the classroom

At the start of the semester, I will permit laptops and the like in the classroom. If it becomes clear that they are being used for purposes not directly related to the class, I will ban them. It is unfair to distract other students with Facebook feeds, animated ads, and the like.

Regardless, I recommend taking notes by hand. Research suggests that students who take written notes in class significantly outperform students who use electronic devices to take notes. Any code I write in lecture will be made available in the lecture notes.

Attendance

I expect you to attend lectures and discussions.

• If you will be absent (either from class, or from an exam) due to religious reasons, you must provide me 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 me as soon as possible.
• If you are absent for health reasons, I expect you to notify me as soon as possible and provide written documentation.
• If you are absent for other extenuating non-academic reasons, such as a military obligation, family illness, jury duty, automobile collision, etc., I expect you to notify me as soon as possible and provide written documentation.

If you must miss a quiz or exam for an excusable reason, I will work with you to find an acceptable time for you to take a makeup. If you miss a quiz or exam without prior notice, I will require an explanation and clear written documentation in order to judge whether the absence is excusable. Quizzes must be made up within three business days, unless there are documented exceptional circumstances (such as a hospitalization or extended jury duty), in which case they will be excused.

Similarly, if you miss a class without prior notice, I will require an explanation and written documentation in order to judge whether the absence is excusable (in terms of in-class exercises).

If you add the class late, I will excuse you from missed work, but you are responsible for both notifying me when you add, and for completing the work on your own.

Incompletes

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

Schedule

Please see the course web site for a class-by-class schedule.

Week 1: Java review
Week 2: Testing and debugging
Week 3 & 4: The List Abstract Data Type (ADT)
Week 5: The Set ADT
Week 6: The Map ADT
Week 7 & 8: Introduction to algorithms
Weeks 9, 10, 11: Graphs and search
Week 12: Implementing ADTs (Stacks and Queues)
Week 13: Introduction to recursion & course wrap-up

Final Exam: Friday, 14 December at 3:30pm

Please note (from the Academic Rules and Regulations):

…it is University policy not to require students to take more than two final examinations in one day of the final examination period. If any student is scheduled to take three examinations on the same day, the faculty member running the chronologically middle examination is required to offer a make-up examination if the student notifies the instructor of the conflict at least two weeks prior to the time the examination is scheduled. The student must provide proof of the conflict. This may be obtained from the Registrar’s Office, 213 Whitmore.

Grading

The relative values of the various course components are approximately as follows:

30% programming assignments
20% homeworks / exercises
10% in-class exercises
25% quizzes
15% final exam

The numerical cutoff for final course letter grade assignment will be made after all grading is completed. As a rough guide, expect to require at least a 93 to get an A, a 90 to get an A-, an 87 to get a B+, an 83 to get a B, an 80 to get a B-, and so on.

There are no opportunities for extra credit in this course.

Late work will not be accepted. If you need an extension for an assignment, contact me a reasonable amount of time — generally, at least a full business day — before the assignment is due. If you are incapacitated for one or more days up to and including the due date, I will require written documentation explaining your inability to work on course material in order to consider granting a retroactive extension, at my discretion.

Also: It’s 2018. Storage and bandwidth are virtually free, and the University has both computer labs and loaner computers available. “My computer crashed” won’t be acceptable as an excuse in this class.

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

You are responsible for monitoring your grades. Grades will be available through Moodle (though note that some will be available in Gradescope first) and you should check them regularly and review any provided feedback. If you encounter any issues with your grades, you will have one week past the first posting of a particular assignment’s grade to Moodle to contact the course staff so that we can investigate. Please contact us via a private message on Piazza. We will not generally accept questions about an individual assignment’s grade beyond this one week, so you must be prompt.

Programming assignments

I will post programming assignments about once a week, and you will typically have about one week to complete them. They will be posted to the course web site’s assignment page and must be submitted through Gradescope. Programming assignments must be completed individually, that is, you may not collaborate on code! See the course honesty policy, below, for more details.

You are responsible for submitting code that compiles and runs on the autograder; if you submit code that does not compile or that gets stuck in an infinite loop, you will receive no credit.

Attempts to manipulate, game, or otherwise incorrectly use the autograder will be treated as academic dishonesty.

Homeworks

There will usually be a short exercise (“homework”) due at the start of each lecture. They will be generally posted to the course web site’s assignment page by the end of the day of the preceding lecture. This semester I am planning to experiment with having at least some of these homeworks be doable on-line through Moodle; the others will be submitted through Gradescope.

You may work with your classmates on homeworks.

In-class exercises

You will be assigned exercises in most lectures and some discussion meetings. These will generally be pair or small-group exercises, and will either be done using an iClicker, or be handed in on paper at the end of the lecture or discussion. Bring an iClicker, paper and a writing implement to class!

Each lecture’s in-class exercises will as a whole be worth two points: one for participation and one for correctness. You’ll get one of the two points for just attempting the majority of the in-class questions (or, for exercises on paper, for submitting a reasonable attempt). The other point will come from getting the correct answer(s). The full point will be awarded for answering all (or all but one) of the questions correctly. Answering some fraction of the questions correctly will be worth a corresponding fraction of a point.

Quizzes and exams

There will be about seven quizzes over the course of the semester. The quizzes will be announced, and given during discussion meetings. Each will consist of a few programming questions that you will answer on paper, and they may include a few other short-answer questions as well. They will be short: designed to be completed in about 25 minutes, though we will give you the entire 50 minute discussion period to complete them.

There will also be a cumulative final exam. It will be in the style of the quizzes, but will be significantly longer. You must achieve a passing grade on the final exam to pass the class.

You may not bring supplemental material to the quizzes or final exam, that is, they are closed-book, and the use of notes, calculators, computers, phones, etc., is forbidden.

Quizzes and exams must be completed on your own: they are not collaborative!

A message from Student Success

Your success in this course is important. Your instructor has partnered with Student Success and your academic advisors to assist you in better understanding course material which can aid you on your path to success. Resources available to students include: Supplemental Instruction, ExSEL Group Tutoring, and 1:1 Tutoring. Visit the Learning Resource Center online at http://www.umass.edu/lrc.

Throughout the semester, your instructor will communicate with Student Success & academic advisors regarding your progress in the course. If you are contacted, please consider scheduling appointments such as tutoring or academic advising and talk with your professor. Referrals are not punitive and are meant to assist you in connecting with resources at UMass. Please email studentsuccess@umass.edu if you have any questions or need assistance connecting with resources.

Academic honesty

General academic honesty statement

Since the integrity of the academic enterprise of any institution of higher education requires honesty in scholarship and research, academic honesty is required of all students at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Academic dishonesty is prohibited in all programs of the University. Academic dishonesty includes but is not limited to: cheating, fabrication, plagiarism, and facilitating dishonesty. Appropriate sanctions may be imposed on any student who has committed an act of academic dishonesty. Instructors should take reasonable steps to address academic misconduct. Any person who has reason to believe that a student has committed academic dishonesty should bring such information to the attention of the appropriate course instructor as soon as possible. Instances of academic dishonesty not related to a specific course should be brought to the attention of the appropriate department Head or Chair. Since students are expected to be familiar with this policy and the commonly accepted standards of academic integrity, ignorance of such standards is not normally sufficient evidence of lack of intent.

In addition, you should read the UMass Academic Honesty Policy (ignorance of the policy is no excuse).

Course-specific academic honesty information

Academic dishonesty is usually the result of other problems in school. Please come see me or the TA if you are unable to keep up with the work for any reason and we will do our best to work something out. I want to see you succeed, but I will not tolerate academic dishonesty.

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

What is permitted and what is not? You may discuss material with others, but when collaboration is forbidden (as it is on programming assignments), your writing (code and prose) must be your own.

The surest way to avoid problems is as follows: When discussing problems with others, do not show any of your solution (code or otherwise) to others. In particular, do not sit down and start typing on a classmate’s laptop, do not allow a classmate to type on yours, and don’t act as a dictation machine (where a classmate sitting next to you tells you what to type).

When asking others for help, avoid taking detailed notes about the solution – you want to avoid doing a copy/paste, whether it be on a computer screen or using pen and paper.

When you ask for help, either in person or on Piazza, it’s good practice to ask your question by describing the problem you’re having, or using a small synthetic example that illustrates your difficulty. If you must include a large chunk of your code to ask your question on Piazza, mark it as a “private” question, and only the course staff will be able to see it.

When searching for the answer online: Don’t. Just don’t.

Do not provide your solutions to others, either directly or via some sort of public posting, except when collaboration is explicitly permitted and when both you and the other person are currently enrolled in this course. Publicly or privately redistributing solutions to exercises, homeworks, or assignments for this course is a violation of the University Honesty Policy’s prohibition against facilitating academic dishonesty.

Copying and pasting code from another student or a third party is a violation of academic honesty, and we will endeavor to detect this by any means available to us, including automated similarity analysis of submitted assignments. Be aware that if something looks like academic dishonesty to us, we will treat it as such, unless you can provide strong evidence to the contrary. When in doubt, it is your responsibility to contact the course staff about whether a potential action would be considered academic dishonesty.

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.

A word about copyrights

Most of the material (lecture notes, lectures, assignments, and so on) in this course is original work created by the instructor (Marc Liberatore); exceptions are clearly noted. While you are welcome to use the material for your own personal and educational use, you may not redistribute them to others outside the class. In particular, selling or otherwise redistributing your notes (or mine!), making or selling audio, video, or still recordings of course material, is not allowed without express written permission from me.

I make this stuff available on the web for you to use easily and without the hassle of sign-ups, logins, and the like, not for you to abuse for a buck. As Carol Barr (Senior Vice Provost and Dean of Undergraduate Education) and Enku Gelaye (Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs and Campus Life) noted at the start of the Fall 2018 semester, usage of notes or in-class recordings without the faculty member’s permission is a violation of the faculty member’s copyright protection.

Accommodation statement

The University of Massachusetts Amherst is committed to providing an equal educational opportunity for all students. If you have a documented physical, psychological, or learning disability on file with Disability Services (DS), you may be eligible for reasonable academic accommodations to help you succeed in this course. If you have a documented disability that requires an accommodation, please notify me within the first two weeks of the semester so that we may make appropriate arrangements.