Syllabus, CMPSC 48, Winter 2020

Basic Facts

• Instructor: Tobias Höllerer (contact via Slack)
  • Prof. Höllerer is @Tobias Höllerer on Slack, all TAs, Readers and Mentors are available there as well, and you can form group DMs
• Lecture: 2pm-3:15pm MW. PHELPS 3526. ATTENDANCE REQUIRED.
• TAs: Harlan Kringen, Richa Wadaskar (contact via Slack)
• Mentors: Anu Polishetty, Connor Daly, Ekta Shahani, JingJing Yu, Terrell Marshall (contact via Slack)
• Lab (50 minute discussion section) Thursday 4pm, 5pm, 6pm, Phelps 3525. ATTENDANCE REQUIRED.
• Office Hours: See: http://www.cs.ucsb.edu/~holl/CS48

For course website links, visit the course Gauchospace site.

About the Course

The official course description is here:

Final Course Grades

The formula to determine your course grade average is explained in the table below.

Regardless of any other policies spelled out here, the average used to determine your final letter grade may be no higher than one full letter grade higher than your exam average. Thus,

• reasonably good performance on exams is very important to earning a good final grade in the course.
• an A or B should not be out of reach for anyone that has a reasonably good mastery of course concepts (enough to earn a B or C on the exams), and puts in hard work on the labs and project points.

To convert final averages to letter grades, a standard 10 point scale will be used, with the upper and lower ends of each range as +/- grades, except for A+ grades, see below. There is no “rounding up”; a grade of 86.9999 is a B and a grade of 87.0000 is a B+.

A+ grades: These may be awarded to the very best performing students in the class—but the cutoff for A+ grades will be determined at the end of the course at the discretion of the instructor (there is no pre-determined cutoff—an average of 97 or more doesn’t guarantee you an A+ grade.)

Grade Item	Percentage of Final Grade
Exam (likely week 8)	20%
Hwks, In Class Assignments	15%
Project Grade (labs)	30%
Project Grade (final product)	35%

Missing homework/in-class activities: Drop the lowest three

If you miss a class, you miss the opportunity for the points on that in-class assignment, or homework that was due. Period.

There is no makeup. In lieu of providing a makeup opportunity, I will drop the lowest three homework/in-class-assignment grades (which may be zeros if you miss an assignment.) Each homework and in-class-activity will be of equal value (100 pts).

Notes sheets on exams

• You are permitted one 8.5 x 11 (standard US letter size paper) double-sided sheet of notes for each exam.
• You are permitted only one sheet per exam.
• Your notes sheet will be collected and WILL NOT BE RETURNED
• So, if you need a copy of it, make a copy BEFORE you come to the exam.

Project Points

Information about project grading will be discussed in a separate document and released during week 2.

Late Labs

The policy is simple, and is based on the idea that the primary purpose of the deadlines is to allow the TA manage his/her workload. The number of labs in this course requires that he/she not have to do “context switching” between grading different labs. All labs must be graded in one sitting, or he/she just won’t be able to keep up with the workload.

So:

• If you want your work to be graded without penalty, turn it in on time.
• If you turn in your lab late, you RISK GETTING A ZERO.
• We will grade late labs ONLY if it creates no extra inconvenience for the graders, and we WILL impose a penalty between 10-20% (see the individual grading rubrics for the labs.)
• There is NO GUARANTEE that late labs will be graded at all. The TA will simply start work at some point after the deadline, and grade until he/she is finished. At that time, he/she will “close the books” on that particular lab, and any work not submitted at that time will NOT be considered.

Attendance

This course is, to a large extent, about process, including the process by which indivduals work together on a team.

Our class meeting times are the only scheduled times our teams definitely come together to meet. So it is essential that you are here.

Questions about grades

Summary: regrade requests must be made only on GradeScope, and always within one week.

From time to time, the people who grade your papers may make clerical errors in grading (e.g. adding up points wrong or applying a rubric incorrectly.) For this reason, you are encouraged to review your grades as they are posted to Gradescope and Gauchospace. You will typically get an email as soon as each grade is posted. From the time the grade is posted, you will have one calendar week to post regrade requests. These must be made ONLY through Gradescope, ON the correct problem. (Don’t request a regrade for question 4 on the page for question 7.)

Please note that regrade requests based on clerical errors or applying a rubric incorrectly are always welcome. Over the course of the quarter, we’ll grade over 10,000 individual problems, so it is unlikely that we won’t make at least some mistakes.

More problematic are challenges to the rubric itself, e.g. “I don’t think you should have taken off so many points for that error” or “I think I deserve more partial credit for that incorrect answer”. The instructor and TA will always listen, but please know that we’ve put a great deal of thought, time and experience into determining the rubric, and we’ve done our best to apply it to all students equitably. You may have a different point of view, we will not always agree with your assessment—in fact, we seldom will. As such, regrade requests on this basis are not encouraged. It is important to approach such conversations in a respectful manner, accepting that the instructor, TA and grader have been given responsibility for determining course standards, and applying those in a fair way to all students.

In any case, once the two week deadline for challenges has passed, each grade becomes final—and it is your responsibility to come to scheduled TA or instructor office hours to have this discussion. If you cannot make office hours, you may request an appointment, but you must request the appointment within ONE WEEK of the assignment being posted. If you wait until the last office hours opportunity during the two week window, and you are not able to be seen (e.g. because of a long line of students), then you lose the right to appeal your grade.

Accommodations for disabilities

Students with disabilities may request academic accommodations for exams online through the UCSB Disabled Students Program at http://dsp.sa.ucsb.edu/. Please make your requests for exam accommodations through the online system as early in the quarter as possible to ensure proper arrangement.

Managing stress

Personal concerns such as stress, anxiety, relationships, depression, cultural differences, can interfere with the ability of students to succeed and thrive. For helpful resources, please contact UCSB Counseling & Psychological Services (CAPS) at 805-893-4411 or visit http://counseling.sa.ucsb.edu/ .

Responsible scholarship

Honesty and integrity in all academic work is essential for a valuable educational experience. The Office of Judicial Affairs has policies, tips, and resources for proper citation use, recognizing actions considered to be cheating or other forms of academic theft, and students’ responsibilities, available on their website at: http://judicialaffairs.sa.ucsb.edu. Students are responsible for educating themselves on the policies and to abide by them.

Furthermore, for general academic support, students are encouraged to visit Campus Learning Assistance Services (CLAS) early and often. CLAS offers instructional groups, drop-in tutoring, writing and ESL services, skills workshops and one-on-one consultations. CLAS is located on the third floor of the Student Resource Building, or visit http://clas.sa.ucsb.edu

Standard Disclaimer

This syllabus is as accurate as possible, but is subject to change at the instructor’s discretion, within the bounds of UC policy.

(end of syllabus)