cis3990-25fa (Fall 2025) Home Schedule Assignments Tools & Refs Syllabus

Disclaimer

Table of Contents

Overview

Prerequisites

This course is currently only open to undergraduate students and assumes prior knowledge from CIS 2400 and CIS 1210. Note that students who have not taken CIS 2400 or an equivalent course will have very little, if any, chance of being admitted. As stated above, CIS 1210 is not as strong of a pre-requisite and it may be possible to get through the course with just experience from CIS 2400 and CIS 1200.

Course Description

This course is designed to train systems programmers. After this course you should be better equipped to tackle the problems that system programmers solve. As a side effect, you should be ready to take on some of the more rigorous upper-level systems courses (CIS 5480, CIS 5050, CIS 5550, CIS 5530, CIS 5600, CIS 5650, etc.).

To do this, we need to cover a couple topics that are critical to software systems programming. Upper level courses will often assume knowledge of these topics already and either do a relatively quick review of the material or not talk about it at all.

Learning Objectives

This course has roughly 4 main learning objectives. By the end of this course students should be able to:

Topic List

Broadly this will include:

A more detailed (but still tentative) list of topics includes:

Course Materials

Website

The website acts as the central place for organizing material for the course. All essential material for the course is delivered through or linked through the course website. As an example, the website contains the course schedule, lecture materials, recitation materials, homework specifications, and this syllabus. We highly encourage you to explore, try some of the resources that are available, and become familiar with the site early on in the course.

Github

All programming projects will use github for version control. This is increasingly important for the later projects as they will be done with teammates. We will create repositories for you and distribute some provided code through them. You can setup your github account for the course by following the instructions here: Github Setup Instructions

Gradescope

Gradescope is where both programming projects and exams are submitted and graded. You should be able to initially access the gradescope for the course via the canvas sidebar. After the initial access, you should be able to log into gradescope directly and see CIS 3990 on it.

Programming Environments

In this class we are using an Ubunutu 22.04 Jammy Jellyfish environment for developing our programs. There are many ways to set up an Ubuntu 22.04 Jammy environment. There are two setups that will work regardless of which kind of computer you are on, but there are other (and in my opinion, better) options that you can choose depending on which operating system you have.

You can find more details on which environment to use in the document here.

Canvas

The canvas site contains the gradebook, surveys, and class recordings. You are free to use the canvas if you want, but if there is anything that is needed on canvas, it will be directly linked on the course website.

Ed Discussion Board

The Ed Discussion board provides a place for students to get support from course staff. Ed is also the primary mechanism for announcements, though we will try to repeat announcements at the beginning of lecture for convenience. Ed Discussion is also where we will host the weekly check-in quizzes.

OHQ

The course has an OHQ that we will be using for virtual office hours. Please write at least a somewhat detailed explanation of your question/problem and what you have tried so far to fix it.

Textbook

There are no strictly required texts for this course, however, some find it helpful to read the course material from a textbook. Note that none of the textbooks listed will have everything used in this course. As a result, we are suggesting the following texts:

Course Components

Lectures

There are approximately 27 lectures throughout the semester, which occur from 12:00 PM (Noon) to 1:30 PM on Mondays and Wednesdays. Lectures are designed to be very active. This stems from the beleif (which is proven by academic literature) that learning happens from interaction with the material. Simply listening to a lecture is not sufficient to integrate the material and thus will make the projects and learning much more difficult. The amount of activitiy in a lecture may vary a lot lecture to lecture, but the idea is that lecture will generally:

This lecture style has the following consequences:

Recitations

Recitations will provide yet another place for you to practice the material in the course, however recitation is usually geared towards preparing you for the homework assignment that is due next, and any particularly complicated topics in the course. Recitations will be largely activtiy driven, with small “micro-teaches” inside where a TA will give an alternative explanation to content covered in lecture. Sometimes the recitation will consist of new content that is not talked about in lecture, but is useful (if not necessary) for the homework.

Slides and worksheets from recitation will be posted afterwards, but not recorded to encourage student participation (as some students may get discouraged from participating by being recorded).

Attending Recitation is part of the coure-wide participation component of your grade and will be evluated by students having their worksheets checked at the end of recitation. The worksheets are checked not necessarily for correctness, just that a reasonable amount of effor was put into completing the activities and some understanding of the content is demonstrated.

Programming Projects

Homework will be distributed, through the course website, but will be graded, and submitted through the course gradescope. There will be approximately 10 homework assignments spread out through the semester, typically with an assignment due every week. Some easier than others.

Late submissions and the opportunity to fix assignments will be possible. More information can be found in the assignment policies section here.

Engagement Credits

Instead of mandating attendance to all aspects of the course, we instead will use “Engagement Credits” to keep track of the various ways you may interact with the course. These credits will be used to decide whether you get a “+”, “-“ or neither on the letter grade you earn in the course (more details are on this below). The most any student will need to earn to have an impact on their grade is 110 engagement credits

Engagement credits will not be hard to come by (as long as you are engaging in the course) and many opporunities will come up to earn them. Roughly 100 can be easily earned by attending lecture, recitation, and doing the pre-lecture check-in diagnostics. Further points can be earned by completing surveys, leaving thoughtful answers to questions on Ed, having interesting reflections/discussions on an optional reading, etc.

For a full breakdown, we are planning to have the following ways to earn engagment credits:

Activity Points per # of occurances
Lecture Attendance 1 ~27
Check-in Diagnostic 3 ~12
Recitation Attendance 3 ~12
Course Surveys 4 ~3
Staff Endorsed Ed Answer 2 Uncapped
Other Activities Varies Varies

Check-in Diagnostics

These will be “open-book” assignments on Ed Lessons that will be due before the first lecture of the week. These assignments will have unlimited submissions, so you can resubmit as many times as you wish. They are also auto-graded and will tell you when you are correct. Some weeks will not have such an assignment, details can be found on the course calendar.

These assignments are designed to keep you up to date with the course lecture material and make sure you are ready for the new material that will be covered shortly after the check-in is due. Sometimes the questions in the check-in will be a small to medium sized C++ program that we expect you to complete, but will not be graded on style. Sometimes the lecture activitiy will involve getting started on or doing part of the check-in assignment.

These check-in diagnostics will count towards your engagement credits for the course.

Oral Concept Discussion

During the semester there will be one or more “oral concept discussions”. These will be 1-on-1 evaluations between you and a member of the course staff (of your choice). In these discussions we will ask you to evaluate a problem / some code from the systems programming perspective and explain your thoughts as you work on it. We will be there to give you hints and discuss the problem with you. The problem will be analyzing/building off of something you have alread worked on, or something very similar. This is your opportunity to demonstrate both your technical understanding and the individual work you have done in the class.

You will be evaluated on your thought process, so please vocalize your thoughts during these when possible.

The main thing we are looking for in these is that you are integrating the knowledge of this course and are able to apply it to new problems.

You do not need to do the concept check perfectly to get a 100%. Similar to how we grade programming assignments, we will bucket your answers into either “Excellent”, “Satisfactory”, “Needs improvent” or “Unassessable”. Though we will be more lenient on grading these than programming assignments.

More details will be posted later in the semester about when these will occur.

If there is any reason why you don’t think you will be able to participate/complete these concept discussions (ESPECIALLY for any accessibility concerns) then please let the instructor(s) know as soon as possible so that we can work out an alternative for you.

Exams

Exams will be graded by the course staff and will be posted to gradescope. These will be taken in-person. You can expect there two be two exams. A midterm done in-class rouhgly midway through the semester and a final exam during the univeristy final exams period.

There are two other syllabus policies that relate to exams:

More information concerning how the exam is conducted will come as the exam approaches.

Policies

Getting Help

It is very important to us that you succeed in CIS 3990. As a result, we are providing many resources to help you succeed. These include:

Please do not be afraid to ask for help if you don’t understand something. We are here to help you succeed. Additionally, some of the course staff will get lonely and bored if no one shows up to their office hours.

It is also very important to us that you maintain your mental wellness throughout the course. A few points are not worth losing sleep over. Everyone on the course staff is available to chat, and you can always attend office hours for a non-academic conversation if necessary.

Additionally, if you are experiencing some unforeseen and extenuating circumstances, please feel free to reach out to course staff for help. Notably, the world is not in the most peaceful and stable place right now! Hopefully things are relatively calm for most students, but we know things can come up in the middle of the semester (whether it is directly related to school or not), and we are here to help.

Inclusion

You have a right to a learning environment that feels safe, where you are treated with respect and feel that you can contribute ideas constructively. Put another way, you have the right to an inclusive learning environment.

We want every student to feel that they have a safe and healthy learning environment, and if at any point you feel like this is not the case in any way, please let course staff know and we will see what we can do to help.

You can contact staff by making a private post on Ed, reaching out to course staff via email, talking to course staff at office hours, or scheduling a 1-on-1 with the instructor here:

Disability Services

The Student Disability Services (SDS) is a unit within the Weingarten Learning Resources Center (WLRC) dedicated to ensure equal access to all University programs, activities and services. They offer a wide range of services for students with disabilities that are individually designed and remove the need to reveal sensitive medical information to the course staff. Please submit a request if you will have a medical need for extensions of exam times or assignment deadlines.

Grade Calculation

To calculate your grade you need two numbers: the “normal” grade calculation (which determines the letter grade) and how many engagement credits you have earned (which determines if you get a “+”, “-“ or neither.

Letter Grade Calculation

The first number is similar to what you have seen in other courses. Simply calculate your grade percentage using the weights below.

Note that not every homework assignment is worth the same weighting. For example, an assignment out of 100 points is twice the weight of an assignment that is out of 50 points.

From this percentage, we calculate whether you get some kind of “A”, “B”, “C”, etc. If you got at least a 90% then you will get some kind of A (A, A+ or A-) in the worst case. If you get at least an 80% then you will get some kind of B or higher, a 70% will result in some kind of C or higher, etc.

I can’t give exact thresholds since it is adjusted slightly every semester to account for variation in exam difficulty and oral concept discussion.

Plus, Minus, or Neither

The next number you need is the total number of engagement credits you have earned. The engagement credits determine what kind of grade you get. e.g. if you get an A+, A or A-.

To get an A, you must have earned it from the normal grade calculation above and earn at least 90 engagement credits. If you earn at least 20 more than this (e.g. 110) then you will get an A+. If you get less than 90 you will get an A-. This can be repeated for a B with thresholds of 80 and 100, C with thresholds of 70 and 90, and D with thresholds of 60 and 80.

Assessment Policies

Late Policy

For exams, lecture participation and check-ins, no late submissions will be accepted, or extensions granted, except for special circumstances.

For Homework assignments, there are no late penalties or late submissions. Instead, homeworks will have an assigned due date and the ability to request for a re-opening. Extensions requests are made as part of the weekly check-in’s. When you submit the weekly check-in you will specify an assignment you want to re-open and that assignment will stay open till the next check-in is due.

If there are extenuating circumstances that are affecting your ability to complete work (whether it is “your fault” or not), then PLEASE reach out to the instructor. From there the instructor can work with you and give extra time if needed to complete the semester.

It is also worth noting a few things about the system:

Code Grading

We grade your programming assignments a little differently than other courses, so we will clarify these here.

Automated Grading

Almost all coding homework assignments are graded with an autograder with various test cases. However, in our course each test case is not worth a fixed number of points. Instead test cases are grouped together and you will only get points for a test case if all cases in its group are passing.

For example, consider an assignment where you implement a linkedlist and a hashtable. You will only get autograder points from the linkedlist once you pass all linkedlist tests. You will only get autograder points for the hashtable tests if you pass all the hashtable tests. Also note: To pass a test case you must not only get the correct behaviour but your code must not have any memory errors detected via valgrind.

Lastly there are also automated tests for checking some basic style functionality. You will not get these points unless you have passed all (or enough) of the automated correcntess test cases.

Manual Style Grading

Roughly every other programming homework assignment is graded on style in addition to correctness mentioned above. There will be a message at the top and bottom of the homework specification for each assignment that is graded on style. Style grading is done manually, and is only done if you get 100% on the automated checks mentioned above. This may seem a bit harsh, but this is for a few reasons:

For each style issue we will leave a comment and mark a rubric item in gradescope.

Notably, each rubric item / style issue will necessarily result in a deduction on your grade. We instead categorize the overall quality of your assignment.

I wish I could be clearer about what qualifies as an E/S/N/U, but the code quality errors you may have can vary in severity. For example, “extra copying” could be either minor or major depending on whether it shows up in an important loop or once at the beginning of a function. We will do our best to be clear about this, but please ask if you have any comments or concerns. We are also happy to process regrade requests when they come up, you must justify your regrade request though.

Midterm Clobber Policy

The clobber policy allows you to demonstrate mastery of past material with regard to exams. In particular, you can replace your midterm exam score with the score of the midterm section of the final exam. This does not apply in reverse, we will not replace your midterm section of the final with your midterm exam score.

To accommodate for the midterm subsection of the final exam being harder/easier than the midterm exam itself, we have a formula that accounts for average and standard deviation.

  1. First, we calculate Potential Midterm Clobber Score with: (final_midterm_subscore - final_midterm_mean) / final_midterm_std_deviation * midterm_std_deviation + midterm_mean, capped at 100
  2. Then we take the maximum score between the calculated potential clobber score and the grade you had on the midterm. The higher of the two will be used to calculate your final grade.

Rescheduling Exams

If you know in advance that you will be unable to take an exam, please discuss it with the instructor as soon as possible, at least a day before the exam so that the reason can be verified and plans can be put in place. Make-up exams would likely take place after the initial exam.

For emergency absences, please reach out to the instructor when possible so that plans can be put in place.

Policies regarding absences for the Final Exam are covered by the University Provost; for Spring semester courses, a makeup Final Exam would be scheduled at the start of the following Fall semester. Requests for a makeup Final Exam due to reasons that could reasonably be anticipated (e.g. traveling for summer break) are unlikely to be approved.

Collaboration & Academic Misconduct

In general, we encourage collaboration, but there is a very fine line between collaboration and cheating. We can learn a lot from working with each other and it can make the course more fun, but we also want to ensure that every student can get the maximum benefit from the material this course has to offer. Keep in mind that the overall goal is for YOU to learn the material so you will be prepared for the exams and for job interviews etc. in the future. Cheating turns the assignments into an exercise that is a waste of both your time and ours; save us both by not doing it.

Cheating consists of sharing code or solutions to assignments by either copying, retyping, looking at, or supplying a copy of a file. Examples include:

If you feel that you are having a problem with the material, or don’t have time to finish an assignment, or have any number of other reasons to cheat, then PLEASE talk with the instructor, we are more than happy to work with students as needed. We WANT you to learn the material. If you cheat, you are not learning the material (and thus wasting time and money of yourself and others). Please, just don’t cheat.

If you think you may have done academic miconduct on current or past work that was not caught previously, then please talk to us. If we think what you did may have been detrimental to your learning, we will not open a cheating investigation and instead work with you to try and make sure you get the desired learning experience. This may involve us asking you to redo the relevant parts of the assignment or perform some other task to demonstrate mastery of the material. What we care most about is not punishing you, but instead making sure you learn the material. What we do in these cases is intentionally vague since it depends on the circumstances in which it happened and we also hope that these situations do not happen much. If you communicate with us and are reasonable with us, then we will be reasonable in return. When in doubt, please communicate with course staff and we will do our best to work things out.

If we do catch you cheating, we will take it as a serious issue. If you are caught cheating, then we may initiate a cheating case in the University system and give you a zero for the assignment. Depending on circumstances, you may receive a failing grade in the course.

If you are in doubt about what might constitute cheating or anything regarding this policy, please send the instructor an email describing the situation and we will be happy to talk about it with you.

See Penn’s Code of Academic Integrity for more information.

Policy on Generative A.I.

This isn’t as much a policy as it is advice. For this class, I strongly recommend against using generative AI like ChatGPT, Co-Pilot or related technologies. I am not denying that ChatGPT can be a useful tool for getting something made, but I not convinced that it benefits your growth and learning of the material in this class.

I do not claim that AI is useless by these statements. There are many things it can do, I just doubt their usefulness in this class with the purpose of learning. I will not ban the usage of ChatGPT or similar tools except for during exams. I will still be a little disappointed to see people using AI.

If you MUST use AI, then I suggest you read this article about how to use it well: https://horizon.mit.edu/insights/critical-thinking-in-the-age-of-ai. Notably, the first bullet point in the list at the bottom is: “Learn: Continue building your own body of knowledge and skills, even if it is seemingly something that a computer could do for you.”

Regardless of your usage, we expect you to be able to:

All in all, use your best judgement.