Course Information

This page explains the courses' policies and grading.

Academic Integrity

All students in class are expected to follow Georgia Tech's principles of academic honor and integrity. Details about GT's policies can be found at the OSI web pages. Unless otherwise noted (for example, the HW collaboration policy described below), all work should be strictly your own. If you have any questions about these policies, just ask your instructor.

Grading

The course will be graded on a traditional 60-70-80-90 system as shown below.

Grade Scale:

90 - 100 = A
80 - 89 = B
70 - 79 = C
60 - 69 = D
0 - 59 = F

Important: In addition to the total overall class percentage for determining your grade, you must have a passing average (>60 average) on the 3 exams and the final exam all combined together, not each one individually, in order to pass the course as well. We implement this policy as a check-and-balance with respect to the HWs and our allowance of collaboration on them. Note that this does not mean that you have the option of only using the four exams to determine your grade. All the categories above will be used in the grade calculation, but in addition, you must have a passing grade on just the four exams in order to pass the course. For (non-CS/CM) students who are taking the course P/F, you must earn 60% to earn a P (and on the exams too).

You have one week from the time we post your exam or homework grade to file a challenge to the grading. After that time, the grade will stand. The grade doesn't need to be resolved in 1 week, but you must notify someone with specific issues about a question on the exam or a homework for the grade to be eligible to be changed.

All grades will be determined by work done throughout the semester. Students will never be allowed to do "extra work or projects" after the term to boost their grade. Please do not appeal at the end of a term for special consideration. All students will be treated equally and fairly.

Course Grade Percentages:
Program Homeworks     9 @ 2%     18%
Written Exams     3 @ 17%     51%
Final Exam         27%
Attendance & Participation         4%

Exam Policy

The written exams will be conducted during lecture periods as indicated on the class schedule. The written exams will cover concepts, as well as aspects of coding. Material from lecture and from the assigned sections of the book will be covered in each written exam. It is also expected that you will be familiar with the material and concepts from any programming homework that is due prior to an exam. One of the best ways to do well in this class is to thoroughly complete all the HWs and learn all the ideas that are embodied in them. This is not a course about memorization; it is about problem-solving. There are no cheat-sheets or calculators allowed during the exams.

All students are expected to attend the exams. Forgetting about the exam or simply missing it are not proper excuses and will receive a zero score. If documented sickness or excused school absence will prevent you from taking an exam, you must notify the instructor prior to the start of the exam, that is, early enough so that you get confirmation from the instructor about the absence. Simply emailing the instructor a few minutes before the exam is not sufficient.

If a student is going to miss an exam and this can be coordinated with the instructor, then it may be possible to schedule an alternative make-up exam. Alternatively, we will not administer a make-up exam, but will instead substitute the student's score/percentage on the final exam for the missed exam's score/percentage. Note that this does not mean that anyone can substitute the final exam grade for another exam's grade or simply decide not to take an exam. The policy only applies for legitimate excused absences.

Homework

During the course of the semester, there will be approximately one programming assignment per week on the weeks without exams. The HWs will be distributed via t-square. They will be due at 8 pm, typically on Thursday evenings, with a grace period until midnight. We recommend that you start on the HWs early. Do not leave them until the night they are due. If you are stuck on a portion of the program for longer than the recommended time, you should definitely see your TA to get a stronger understanding of the concepts involved prior to putting continued effort into the assignment.

Note that an assignment turned in at one minute after midnight is not one minute late. It is four hours and one minute late. And no smart student would ever ask to have a program considered that is over four hours late.

You should also read the collaboration policy below to learn about our policies about how you can work on the HW assignments with your peers, if you so choose. For all assignments, you will submit all the source files (.java) that you created to T-Square. Make sure to practice safe-submission and retrieve your submission after you submit it to make sure all the files you thought you turned in were there.

After receipt of a homework grade, you have two weeks to inquire about the grade and check into any potential grading problems with your homework.

HW Collaboration Policy

We have chosen to focus the assessment of students' knowledge of course concepts and skills on in-class exams rather than homework assignments. Homework assignments are opportunities for learning and discovery; they are not instruments of evaluation. (In fact, homework assignments are considered in the final grade largely to motivate students to work on the assignments.)

Because homework assignments are now not used for assessment, we relax the constraints on collaboration with respect to these assignments, that is, collaboration between students in CS 1331 in permitted. Collaboration includes students working together to gain an understanding of course concepts, active discussions with teaching assistants and instructors to learn about course material, and interactions in other GT-approved activities that help students to learn and understand the topics covered in the course. We do expect that you understand and can explain any homework solution that you submit, no matter how you worked on it.

As has always been the case, however, plagiarism is not allowed. Plagiarizing is defined by Webster's as "to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own : use (another's production) without crediting the source." Taking assignments from other classmates, being given a homework solution from an outside GT source, or downloading completed assignments from websites are considered plagiarism and are not allowed. These are activities that are simply meant to earn a score, not understand our course material. If caught plagiarizing, you will be dealt with according to the GT Academic Honor Code.

If you collaborate with other students in class or use approved sources other than those provided for everyone in the course (e.g., instructors, teaching assistants, the textbook, the course web site, the course newsgroups, the lectures, or the recitations) to help yourself learn and understand, then you must give appropriate credit to those collaborators and/or sources. As long as you acknowledge the collaboration that occurred, your grade will not be affected nor will you be charged with academic misconduct. On the other hand, a failure to acknowledge collaborations or give appropriate credit to sources of help (other than course materials or personnel as noted above) will be treated as plagiarism, a violation of Georgia Tech's Student Conduct Code.

To ensure that you acknowledge a collaboration and give credit where credit is due, we require that you place a collaboration statement at the beginning of every set of homework solutions you submit. That collaboration statement should say either:

"I worked on the homework assignment alone, using only course materials."

or

"In order to help learn course concepts, I worked on this homework with [give the names of the people you worked with], discussed homework topics and issues with [provide names of people], and/or consulted related material that can be found at [cite any other materials not provided as course materials for CS 1331 that assisted your learning]."

For quizzes and exams, all work must be your own. Cheating off of another person's test or quiz is unethical and unacceptable. Cheating off of anyone else's work is a direct violation of the GT Academic Honor Code, and will be dealt with accordingly.

Use of any previous semester exams to help studying is allowed for this course; however, I remind you that while they may serve as examples for you, they are not guidelines for any tests, quizzes, homework, projects, or any other coursework that may be assigned during the semester.

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