Overview

Lecture and Recitation

There are three lectures a week, MWF 12-1 (first section) and 1-2 (second section) in Towne 100. There will also be a one-hour recitation each week, which you will sign up for at the beginning of term. Attendance is required for both lecture and recitation.

Slides will be posted on the syllabus page shortly before class.  The lecture recordings will be posted once they become available after class. No that the recordings do not replace your attendance in class! You will not be able to ask the recording questions, see anything written on the chalkboard, hear other students' questions (only the instructor's microphone is captured), or see demos or the contents of the second projector screen. In some cases, the recording system may be unreliable.

Grading

The grade breakdown for the course is:

• Homeworks: 50%
  
• Midterm: 15%
• Final: 25%
• Recitation: 10% (5% attendance / recitation exercises + 5% participation)
  

Incomplete grades will be given only for verifiable medical illness or other such dire circumstances.

Your lowest homework grade on a submission that demonstrates at least minimal effort (at least 7/20) will be dropped.

All graded work will receive a percentage grade between 0% and 100%.  Here is how the percentage grades will map to final letter grades:

A serious lack of effort may be grounds for failure in the course. If you find yourself in any of the situations below, you should meet with an instructor promptly to discuss your situation:

• Numerous missed assignments or substantially blank assignments.
• Missed midterm or final exam. Be prepared to provide documentation of a serious emergency to justify any unexcused exam absence.
• Academic dishonesty (see the collaboration policy below). If you believe you may have violated the collaboration policy, you are encouraged to explain what happened to the instructor. Even if your actions constitute a serious violation, the sanctions are likely to be considerably less if you turn yourself in.

• Exam averages tend to be relatively low, reflecting the nature of the exams; homework averages tend to be relatively high, reflecting the effort that many students put into them.
• The median and standard deviation for each exam will be posted, and approximate letter-grade guidance for the midterm (but not the final) will be posted to help you evaluate your own learning and performance. The median and standard deviation for the homework assignments will not be given out.
• There is no quota for the number of As, Bs, etc.  Many students with no prior programming experience have been able to earn an A in this course.
• Focus on the course material, not on your grade. You will enjoy the course more, find it more rewarding, and most likely do better. Counting points will not help you get more points, only distract from the substance.
• We do not provide any additional detail on the grading procedures beyond this section. We will not predict what grade you will get in the course, nor tell you what you have to do to get an A.

Re-grades

You may request a re-grade for homeworks up to one week after they are returned. Please direct your homework re-grade requests to your TA.

For exam re-grade requests, we provide a re-grade request forms on the exams page for you to fill out. We will announce the deadline for re-grade requests when we release exam grades. Midterm re-grade requests must be submitted to your TAs. We will provide directions for submitting final re-grade requests when we release the final exam scores. All exam re-grade request must be in writing, and must be accompanied by your exam.

Note that a re-grade can result in a lower score on the problem in question. We also reserve the right to re-grade the entire submission. As a result, your final grade may be lower or higher than your original grade.

Homework and Late Policies

It is imperative to understand that computer programming is not a spectator sport. To get good at it, you need to practice, and the primary vehicle for that is the homeworks.

Submitting Homeworks

• Homework assignments are due at 9pm.
• Assignments submitted within three hours of the original due date will be counted as on time, however they will not be eligible for extra credit. This is a grace period, and does not apply to late days or extensions.
• Homework must be submitted through the online submission system. All deadlines are automatically enforced. If your homework is late, you will not be able to submit.
• If you have trouble with the submission system, e-mail your code to your TAs before the deadline. We will normally give you an extension to resubmit online once. Submit your next assignment early and seek help if you still have problems. (You can always resubmit later on.) We will not normally give you a second such extension unless you have sought help resolving the problem.
• You may submit as often as you like. We will grade the last version of each file that you submit.
  
• Once you have submitted a file, you do not need to resubmit it unless it has changed.
• If the deadline is approaching, submit! Remember, it is much better to submit an incomplete assignment than nothing.

Late Policy

• Deadlines are automatically enforced. Forty-eight (48) hours after the deadline, the submission link will disappear. (E.g., if an assignment is due on Thursday at 9pm, the submission link will disappear Saturday at 9pm).  If you have fewer than two late days remaining, the link will disappear sooner.

• You have four late days to use as you wish throughout the semester. Each late day allows you to submit an assignment up to 24 hours late. Late days are designed to help you through an especially busy week, a cold, and other issues that commonly crop up at some point in the semester. Use them wisely.
• You may use at most two late days on any given assignment. After two days, you will receive no credit.
• Late days are deducted automatically for late submissions. You do not need to ask permission or give any reason for using them.
• You may not use late days or the grace period together with an extension. This rule is enforced by the submission system.
• Extensions will be granted only in exceptional verifiable circumstances (e.g., extended, serious illness).  It is your responsibility to provide documentation.
  
• Extensions are valid only if entered into the system and are visible when you view your grades or submit online. If your extension does not show up with 24 hours, contact the instructor or TA who granted it to make sure it gets entered.

Collaboration Policy

We encourage you to discuss the material and work together to understand it, but you must complete all homework assignments and exams yourself.  For this reason, we have strict rules about what you can and cannot do:

• Discuss assignments, the readings, and lecture topics with one other
• Discuss general solutions to the homeworks
• It is fine to discuss the topics covered in the homeworks, to discuss approaches to problems, and to sketch out general solutions. However, you MUST write up the homework answers, solutions, and programs individually without sharing specific solutions, program code, etc.
• If you made any notes or worked out something on a white board or paper with another person while you were discussing the homework, you shouldn't use those notes while writing up your answer.
• Explain the meaning of error messages to each other, as long as you don't look at any other student's code
• Work on examples related to assignments, including coding them together
• Sharing test cases and input data that you create, except when creating these is part of the assignment itself

• Share your code with anyone, electronically or on paper, even after you are no longer in the course
• Copy anyone else's code, either electronically or by typing it in
• Look at anyone else's code, electronically or on paper, even if they are not currently in the course
• Post your code anywhere that is publicly accessible, such as GitHub (making your code widely available, even unintentionally, is a very serious violation of the course policy)
• Allow anyone else to copy a file of yours, either explicitly or by leaving your code unprotected
• Have someone else debug your code, except members of the course staff
• Use or consult code found on the internet for any of your assignments.

• Protect both yourself and others. In cases of unwarranted collaboration, all participating parties are typically penalized (both helpers and helpees).
• Do not put a copy of your code on a friend's or roommate's computer, even temporarily and even if you absolutely trust them.
  
• Do not access your code via a web browser or online service such as DropBox from anyone else's computer. If you are not able to work on your own computer or on a lab computer, keep your code on a USB key. The temptation of code left in the browser cache or recycle bin has gotten the better of more than one student.
• Make sure you log out of lab computers and protect access to your code. If it is stolen, you may well still have to go through a stressful disciplinary procedure that will be more punishment than you deserve! You will also have the burden of demonstrating that your code was stolen.
• Use judgment about asking or answering questions of other students. For example, if you are supposed to implement Algorithm X that is described in the book, and you don't understand Algorithm X, then you can ask another student to explain it to you. However, if you are supposed to come up with your own algorithm to solve a problem, then you may not ask another student to tell you their algorithm.

Naturally, the course also follows the standard Penn academic integrity code, so make sure that you are familiar with this as well.

As a final note, we will periodically run cheat-checking software to detect copying from other students or from the internet.

• These programs are remarkably good at detecting plagiarism; changing variable names and simple code rearrangements don't trick them.
  
• Modifying an existing program to defeat a cheat checker is just as hard as writing your own program from scratch.

If you have any questions or doubts as to what types of collaborations are allowed, please ask the instructor or your TA.