Course Policies
Exams
The final will be during exam week, date and location TBD. The two midterms will be in class during normal lecture time.
If you have a valid conflict with a test date, you must tell us as soon as you are aware, and with a minimum of one week notice (unless there are extenuating circumstances) so we can arrange a make-up test.
If you need accommodations for exams, schedule them with the Testing Center as soon as exam dates are firm. See below for more about accommodations.
Deadlines and late work
Homeworks and mini projects will be due on the date specified in gradescope.
If your work is up to 48-hours late, you can still qualify for up to 80% credit for the assignment. After 48 hours, late work will not be accepted unless you have made prior arrangements due to extraordinary circumstances.
Collaboration
Mini projects are group based, and members of a group are expected to contribute equally to the solution.
You are free to discuss problems and approaches with other students beyond your group, but must do your own coding. If a significant portion of your solution is derived from someone else's work (your classmate, a website, a book, etc), you must cite that source in your writeup.
You must also understand your solution well enough to be able to explain it during code review. You will not be penalized for using outside sources as long as you cite them appropriately and meet the code review expectations.
Academic honesty
You must adhere to BU's Academic Conduct Code at all times. Please be sure to read it here.
In particular: cheating on an exam, passing off another student's work as your own, or plagiarism of writing or code are grounds for a grade reduction in the course and referral to BU's Academic Conduct Committee.
If you have any questions about the policy, please send us a private Piazza note immediately, before taking an action that might be a violation.
AI use policy
You are allowed to use GenAI (e.g., ChatGPT, GitHub Copilot, etc) to help you understand concepts or lecture notes.
For homeworks and mini projects, you are only allowed to use AI in limited, piece-meal fashion, e.g., to search for a particular API, or explain a very specific error you are encoutering. You should understand that this may help or significantly impede your learning depending on how you use it.
If you use GenAI for an assignment, you must cite what you used and how you used it (for brainstorming, autocomplete, generating comments, fixing specific bugs, etc.). You must understand the solution well enough to explain it during code review.
If you fail to report how you used GenAI for an assignment in adequate detail, or if you are unable to explain the basics of the solution in code review, this may result in a 0 for that assignment. A serious, repeat violation will earn you an automatic F in the course.
Your professor and TAs/CAs are happy to help you write and debug your own code during office hours, but we will not help you understand or debug code that generated by AI.
For more information see the CDS policy on GenAI.
Attendance and participation
Since a large component of your learning will come from in-class activities and discussions, attendance and participation are essential and account for 10 and 15% of your grade, respectively.
Attendance will be taken in lecture through polls which will open at various points during the lecture. If you miss such a poll (e.g., due to being significantly late to class), that will count as an abscense. The polls use a custom made website that confirms your location. Attempting to submit such a poll from a different location (e.g., your home) will be detected and may constitute an instance of academic dishonesty/cheating.
Understanding that illness and conflicts arise, up to 3 absences are considered excused and will not affect your attendance grade.
In most lectures, there will be time for small-group exercises, either on paper, GitHub, or gradescope. To receive participation credit on these occasions, you must identify yourself on paper or in the repo/gradescope submission. These submissions will not be graded for accuracy, just for good-faith effort.
Occasionally, we may ask for volunteers, or may cold call students randomly to answer questions or present problems during class. You will be credited for participation/in-class activities for such contributions.
Absences
This course follows BU's policy on religious observance. Otherwise, it is generally expected that students attend lectures and discussion sections. If you cannot attend classes for a while, please let me know as soon as possible. If you miss a lecture, please review the lecture notes on this website before the next class.
Accommodations
If you need accommodations, let us know as soon as possible. You have the right to have your needs met, and the sooner you let us know, the sooner we can make arrangements to support you.
This course follows all BU policies regarding accommodations for students with documented disabilities. If you are a student with a disability or believe you might have a disability that requires accommodations, please contact the Office for Disability Services (ODS) at (617) 353-3658 or access@bu.edu to coordinate accommodation requests.
If you require accommodations for exams, please schedule that at the BU testing center as soon as the exam date is set.
Re-grading
You have the right to request a re-grade of any homework or test. All regrade requests must be submitted using the Gradescope interface. If you request a re-grade for a portion of an assignment, then we may review the entire assignment, not just the part in question. This may potentially result in a lower grade.
Corrections
You are welcome to submit corrections on your mini projects. This is an opportunity to take the feedback you have received during code review, reflect on it, and then demonstrate growth. Corrections involve submitting an updated version of the mini project alongside the following reflections in a document:
- A clear explanation of the issues or feedback
- What misconception(s) led to it
- An explanation of the correction
- What you now understand that you didn't before
After code review, you will have until the following Monday to submit corrections. You can only submit corrections on a good faith attempt at the initial submission (not to make up for a missed or severly incomplete assignment).
Satisfying this criteria completely for any particular mini project will earn you back up to 50% of the points you originally lost (no partial credit).