Syllabus

Regrade Requests

Any request for reconsideration of any grading on coursework must be submitted within three (3) days of when it is returned (or published on gradescope). Exam regrading requests must be made through gradescope. You may come to office hours to discuss regrade requests, but any final consideration must be on gradescope. Justification like "TA X said this deserves more points" will not be considered a valid reason for a regrade. Additionally, any coursework submitted for reconsideration may be regraded in its entirety, which could result in a lower score if warranted.

Extra Credit

You can get up to 1% extra credit by participating during discussions. Each TA will keep track of your contributions during disucssion throughout the semester and we will then calculate your extra credit at the end of the semester based off a logarithmic scale. Just attending is not sufficient enough for participation. We define participation by actively engaging during discussions. This could mean answering questions posed by the discussion leader or asking engagin questions about the content.

Final Grade Calculations

Final course grades will be curved as necessary, based on every student's performance at the end of the semester. We will use +/- grading. Whether or not a curve is implemented will be determined at the end of the semester. However: It is very likely that 90 earns an A-, 80 earns a B-, 70 earns a C-, etc.; The curve will only lower the cutoffs, not raise them. Important: Completing the programming assignments is an essential part of the course. Therefore, we may fail any student who does not make a good-faith attempt (GFA) on all course projects, regardless of the student's performance or scores on the other coursework. We will define the GFA as achieving at least 20 percent on the Gradescope server for each project. To fulfill this requirement you may submit solutions past the late deadline up to and including the last day of classes (May 9th, 2024). Submissions made past this date will not be considered for the GFA. Additionally, GFA scores do not count towards your final grade. This means that if you do not submit anything by the late deadline, you will receive a 0 for the project, even if you later fulfill the GFA.

Programming Projects

Projects must be submitted electronically following the instructions given in class. Projects may not be submitted by any other means (e.g., please do not email your projects to us). It is your responsibility to test your program and verify that it works properly before submitting. All projects are due at 11:59pm on the day indicated on the project assignment, according to the Gradescope's internal clock.

Projects may be submitted up to 24 hours late for a 10% penalty. Note that your project score as it appears on Gradescope may not include any late penalties. Any penalties will be incorporated into the final project grade on ELMS. If you submit both on-time and late, your project will receive the maximum of your latest on-time submission and the penalty-adjusted scores.

Project extensions will not be granted due to system problems, network problems, power outages, etc., so do not wait to submit a project until the night it is due. You may submit multiple times up to the deadline, and only your active submission on Gradescope is graded. Similarly, if you submit late, only your latest submission before the deadline will be considered. It is your responsibility to ensure that your submission with the highest score is the active submission on Gradescope. By default, the active submission is the latest one you have submitted. You can activate a previous submission under "Submission History" for an assignment. No consideration in grading will be made for errors made in transferring files or submitting the wrong version of your project. Having a working, un-submitted version will not count; only submitted code will be counted.

That being said, you will receive three (3) 24-hour credit tokens to use on any project(s) you wish for this semester. These token's don't extend the deadline, but they do make that submission exempt from the late penalty. You cannot use more than 1 token per project. To use a token, you must indicate this in a file you will submit with the project. Your score on gradscope will then be adjusted based on how many tokens you wish to use. Once the project late deadline is over, you cannot change how many tokens you wish to use (so plan ahead).

We will not be granting extra tokens for any reason so be careful with how you allocate them.
The only exception to this rule is if you have a valid university excuse like a medical or family emergency.
If you receive an extension, you cannot use tokens on that project.

Your projects will be partially graded based on test cases not provided in advance. Because grading is done automatically, you must follow the project specification exactly. Also, while projects will generally not be graded on style or documentation, we reserve the right to manually grade program source code for some projects.

Finally, any "hard coding" in a project assignment may result in a score of zero for that project, and is considered a bad-faith effort. Hard coding refers to attempting to make a program appear as if it works correctly, when in fact it does not. One example of hard coding would be printing the desired output instead of computing it. This is only one example, and if you have any questions as to what constitutes hard coding, be sure to ask ahead of time.

Do not share or publicly post your project solutions online; doing so constitutes a violation of academic integrity. This issue is discussed in greater detail below.

Lecture Quizzes

Lecture quizzes will be worth 4% of your grade. At the end of most weeks, you will be required to submit a multiple-choice quiz on Gradescope. Lecture quizzes are released Thursday or Friday and will be due Sunday night at 11:59pm. They will cover the content discussed that week. We will be dropping 20% of your lowest questions.

Outside-of-class communication with course staff

We will interact with students outside of class in primarily four ways: during office hours, electronically via Piazza, electronically via e-mail, and electronically via the class webpage. The large majority of communication should employ the first two methods, reserving e-mail for personal (presumably rare) circumstances. The class webpage will host announcements (all of which will also be on Piazza)

Personalized assistance, e.g., with programming assignments or exam preparation, will be provided during office hours. You are responsible for developing and debugging your own programs. Do not rely on the instructional staff to make your project work. Lower-level CMSC courses provide extensive debugging and development help in office hours, but upper-level CMSC courses expect students to complete projects with minimal extra help. Therefore in CMSC 330, we will provide less debugging help than some students may be used to. If you come in with a question, expect to be pointed in the right direction, but it will be up to you to finish solving the problem on your own. Office hours for the instructional staff will be posted on the course web page a few days into the semester.

Additional assistance will provided via the Piazza web forum. You may use this forum to ask general questions of interest to the class as a whole, e.g., administrative issues or project clarification questions. The course staff will monitor Piazza on a daily basis, but do not expect immediate answers to questions. Please do not post publicly any information that would violate the university academic integrity policy (e.g., project code or test cases).

Piazza allows students to post private questions that are only visible to instructors. Please use this feature if you wish to ask specific questions concerning your project solutions. Generally it will also be helpful to submit your current project code to Gradescope, so instructors and TAs can try running your code on their machines before answering your questions.

Personal e-mail to instructors or TAs should be reserved for issues that cannot be handled by the above methods. If you must email an instructor please make sure the subject line includes [CMSC330] (brackets included!). If this is not in the header, I cannot guarantee a quick response to your communications.

Important announcements will be made primarily in class but sometimes on the class web page, and via Piazza.

Office Hours

All TAs and Instructors will host office hours and those times can be found on the home page. We know that office hours get crowded during the last few days of a project before the due date, and we know you may feel stressed during this time.

All we ask you treat the TAs with respect. If a TA feels threatened by you, they have been instructed to not help you and let another TA help you instead. Please be civil during all office hour interactions.

Debugging Code

Due to both the size of the class and the expectations of student debugging stated above, I have a few guidelines about debugging help requests in both office hours and Piazza.

• Read the entire project description before starting
• Theoretical questions about class content or project specifications takes precedence over project debugging
• Staff will rarely look at your code to help debug. Most debugging that is done is logic errors so be prepared to discuss the design of your project
When you are stuck as how to start or what to do next ask yourself the following questions:
• What is the goal?
• What are the steps needed to reach that goal? (Alternatively, how would you complete this task manually?)
• What step are you on?
• When staff does look at code, staff will not help debug code that is not well commented. One thing to note is that commenting should not only state what the code is doing, but also why you need that code
• Staff cannot divulge the content of semi-public and secret tests

Personally, I find code traces to be the most helpful. Staff will be available to help you run a code trace.

Excused Absences

Any student who needs to be excused for an absence from a single lecture, recitation, or lab due to illness shall:

1. Make a reasonable attempt to inform the instructor of his/her illness prior to the class.
2. Upon returning to the class, present their instructor with a self-signed note attesting to the date of their illness. Each note must contain an acknowledgment by the student that the information provided is true and correct. Providing false information to University officials is prohibited under Part 9(h) of the Code of Student Conduct (V-1.00(B) University of Maryland Code of Student Conduct) and may result in disciplinary action.

Missing an exam and quizzes for reasons such as illness, religious observance, participation in required university activities, or family or personal emergency (such as a serious automobile accident or close relative's funeral) will be excused so long as the absence is requested in writing at least 2 days in advance and the student includes documentation that shows the absence qualifies as excused; a self-signed note is not sufficient as exams and quizzes are Major Scheduled Grading Events. For this class, such events are the final exam, the two midterms, and the five quizzes, which will be given in class.

For medical absences, you must furnish documentation from the health care professional who treated you. This documentation must verify dates of treatment and indicate the timeframe that the student was unable to meet academic responsibilities. In addition, it must contain the name and phone number of the medical service provider to be used if verification is needed. No diagnostic information will ever be requested. Note that simply being seen by a health care professional does not constitute an excused absence; it must be clear that you were unable to perform your academic duties.

For absences due to the death of a family member, a death certificate, obituary, or any other information related to death services must be provided. This is only related to deaths that occurred during the semester. For death anniversary observations, University religious observance policies apply (See next section).

It is the University's policy to provide accommodations for students with religious observances conflicting with exams, but it is the your responsibility to inform the instructor in advance of intended religious observances. If you have a conflict with one of the planned exams, you must inform us prior to the end of the first two weeks of the class. Failure to give advance notice may result in accommodations not being able to be met in a timely manner.

For missed exams due to excused absences, the instructor will arrange a makeup exam. If you might miss an exam for any other reason other than those above, you must contact the instructor in advance to discuss the circumstances. We are not obligated to offer a substitute assignment or to provide a makeup exam unless the failure to perform was due to an excused absence.

The policies for excused absences do not apply to project assignments. Projects will be assigned with sufficient time to be completed by students who have a reasonable understanding of the necessary material and begin promptly. In cases of extremely serious documented illness of lengthy duration or other protracted, severe emergency situations, the instructor may consider extensions on project assignments, depending upon the specific circumstances.

Makeup Policy

If you do need to makeup a quiz or exam, you must fill out this form and provide documentation. If you do not have documentation, you will not be able to sit the makeup. Makeups will occur on the next lecture day during lecture time. Room number and additional information can be found on the pinned piazza post.

Academic Integrity

The Campus Senate has adopted a policy asking students to include the following statement on each examination or assignment in every course: "I pledge on my honor that I have not given or received any unauthorized assistance on this examination (or assignment)." Consequently, you will be requested to include this pledge on each exam and project. Please also carefully read the Office of Information Technology's policy regarding acceptable use of computer accounts.

Programming projects are to be written individually, therefore cooperation or use of unauthorized materials on projects is a violation of the University's Code of Academic Integrity. Both the person receiving assistance and the person providing assistance are in violation of the honor code. Any evidence of this, or of unacceptable use of computer accounts, use of unauthorized materials or cooperation on exams or quizzes, or other possible violations of the Honor Code, will be submitted to the Student Honor Council, which could result in an XF for the course, suspension, or expulsion.

• The use of of AI generated code like chatGPT or Github Copilot is a violation of the Academic Integrity Policy and we will be running your code against various AI generated models. It is important to note that we will be asking questions about project implementation on quizzes and exams so writing your own code is vital for success.
• For learning the course concepts (including the programming languages), students are welcome to study together or to receive help from anyone else. You may discuss with others the project requirements, the features of the programming languages used, what was discussed in class and in the class web forum, and general syntax errors.
• When it comes to actually writing a project assignment, other than help from the instructional staff a project must solely and entirely be your own work. Working with another student or individual, or using anyone else's work in any way except as noted in this paragraph, is a violation of the code of academic integrity and will be reported to the Honor Council. You may not discuss design of any part of a project with anyone except the instructor or teaching assistants. Examples of questions you may not ask others might be "How did you implement this part of the project?" or "Please look at my code and help me find my stupid syntax error!". You may not use any disallowed source of information in creating either their project design or code. When writing projects you are free to use ideas or short fragments of code from published textbooks or publicly available information, but the specific source must be cited in a comment in the relevant section of the program.

Violations of the Code of Academic Integrity may include, but are not limited to:

1. Failing to do all or any of the work on a project by yourself, other than assistance from the instructional staff.
2. Using any ideas or any part of another person's project, or copying any other individual's work in any way.
3. Giving any parts or ideas from your project, including test data, to another student.
4. Allowing any other students access to your program on any computer system.
5. Posting solutions to your projects to publicly-accessible sites, e.g., on github. (Note that if you want to use Git, you can request free, private accounts from Bitbucket.)
6. Transferring any part of a project to or from another student or individual by any means, electronic or otherwise.

If you have any question about a particular situation or source then consult with the instructors in advance. You can also refer to the following table for a cheatsheet of what is allowed and not allowed. Should you have difficulty with a programming assignment you should see the instructional staff in office hours, and not solicit help from anyone else in violation of these rules.

Assignment	Open Notes	Open Internet	Ask a Friend	Submit Group Work	ChatGPT/AI Allowed
Discussions	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
Projects	Yes	Limited	No	No	No
Quizzes	No	No	No	No	No
Exams	No	No	No	No	No
Lecture Quizzes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes

It is the responsibility, under the honor policy, of anyone who suspects an incident of academic dishonesty has occurred to report it to their instructor, or directly to the Honor Council.

Every semester the department has discovered a number of students attempting to cheat on project assignments, in violation of academic integrity requirements. Students' academic careers have been significantly affected by a decision to cheat. Think about whether you want to join them before contemplating cheating, or before helping a friend to cheat.

You are welcome and encouraged to study and compare or discuss their implementations of the programming projects with any others after they are graded, provided that all of the students in question have received nonzero scores for that project assignment, and if that project will not be extended upon in a later project assignment.

Names/Pronouns and Self-Identifications

The University of Maryland recognizes the importance of a diverse student body, and we are committed to fostering inclusive and equitable classroom environments. I invite you, if you wish, to tell us how you want to be referred to in this class, both in terms of your name and your pronouns (he/him, she/her, they/them, etc.). Keep in mind that the pronouns someone uses are not necessarily indicative of their gender identity. Visit trans.umd.edu to learn more.
Additionally, it is your choice whether to disclose how you identify in terms of your gender, race, class, sexuality, religion, and dis/ability, among all aspects of your identity (e.g., should it come up in classroom conversation about our experiences and perspectives) and should be self-identified, not presumed or imposed. I will do my best to address and refer to all students accordingly, and I ask you to do the same for all of your fellow Terps.

Additional Policies

Besides the policies in this syllabus, the University's policies apply during the semester. Various policies that may be relevant appear in the Undergraduate Catalog.

If you experience difficulty during the semester keeping up with the academic demands of your courses, you may consider contacting the Learning Assistance Service in 2201 Shoemaker Building at (301) 314-7693. Their educational counselors can help with time management issues, reading, note-taking, and exam preparation skills.

Students with Disabilities

Students with disabilities who have been certified by Disability Support Services as needing any type of special accommodations should see the instructor as soon as possible during the schedule adjustment period (the first two weeks of class). Please provide DSS's letter of accommodation to the instructor at that time.

All arrangements for exam accommodations as a result of disability must be made and arranged with the instructor at least three business days prior to the exam date; later requests (including retroactive ones) will be refused.

Basic Needs Security

If you have difficulty affording groceries or accessing sufficient food to eat every day, or lack a safe and stable place to live, please visit UMD’s Division of Student Affairs website for information about resources the campus offers you and let me know if I can help in any way.

Veteran Resources

UMD provides some additional supports to our student veterans. You can access those resources at the office of Veteran Student life and the Counseling Center. Veterans and active duty military personnel with special circumstances (e.g., upcoming deployments, drill requirements, disabilities) are welcome and encouraged to communicate these, in advance if possible, to the instructor.

Course Evaluations

If you have a suggestion for improving this class, don't hesitate to tell the instructor or TAs during the semester. At the end of the semester, please don't forget to provide your feedback using the campus-wide CourseEvalUM system. Your comments will help make this class better. CourseEvalUM is scheduled to be open sometime December, but this is subject to change by campus.

Right to Change Information

Although every effort has been made to be complete and accurate, unforeseen circumstances arising during the semester could require the adjustment of any material given here. Consequently, given due notice to students, the instructors reserve the right to change any information on this syllabus or in other course materials.

Copyright

All course materials are copyright Dept. of Computer Science, University of Maryland (Marvin Zelkowitz, Jeff Foster, Larry Herman, Atif Memon, Chau-Wen Tseng, Michael Hicks, David Levin, Nelson Padua-Perez, Anwar Mamat, Cliff Bakalian). All rights reserved. Students are permitted to use course materials for their own personal use only. Course materials may not be distributed publicly or provided to others (excepting other students in the course), in any way or format.