Workload: There will be an in-class midterm and final. There will be both homework assignments and programming assignments. The work load for this course is high.

Grading

Homeworks: There will be five to six written homeworks. Students will be allowed to work together on written homeworks. Students may discuss the homework to understand the problem and reach a solution. However, each student must write down the solution independently, and without referring to written notes from the joint session. In other words, each student must understand the solution well enough in order to reconstruct it by him/herself. In addition, each student should write on the problem set the set of people with whom s/he collaborated. This method as an experiment for CSMC421. If we find that people's homeworks are suspiciously similar (indicating copying as opposed to collaborative work), we will simply stop the experiment and disallow collaboration for the entire class.

Important note on the honor code: We occasionally reuse problem set questions from previous years' courses, we expect the students NOT to copy, refer to, or even look at the solutions in preparing their answers. It will be considered an honor code violation to intentionally refer to previous year's solutions (or other solutions available on the web) The purpose of problem sets in this class is to help you think about the material, not just give us the correct answers.

Late Homeworks and Projects: Homeworks are due at the start of class on their due date. Due dates and times will be specified for each project. A grading penalty will be applied to late homeworks and projects. Recognizing that students may face unusual circumstances and require some flexibility in the course of the quarter, each student will have a total of seven free late (calendar) days to use as s/he sees fit. No additional individual extensions will be given. Once these late days are exhausted, any homework turned in late will be penalized at the rate of 20% per late day (or fraction thereof). Under no circumstances will a homework or project be accepted more than a week after its due date. Late days are from noon to noon for homeworks. Late homeworks should be handed in to the TA. If not available (e.g., on weekends), write the date and time on the assignment and push it under Prof. Getoor's door. It is a honor code violation to write down the wrong time.

Exams. There will be a midterm exam and a final exam.

REGRADING ISSUES: The majority of the grading will be done by the TA. If you think there has been a mistake in grading your homework or exam, please submit a regrade request explaining in writing, precisely and consicely, the grading error that has occurred, to the TA. Such request must be made no later than 1 week after the material in question was returned to the class. Any request to have an assignment regraded may result in the entire assignment in question being regraded, possibly resulting in a loss of points.

ACADEMIC INTEGRITY:.

In this course you are responsible for both the University's Code of Academic Integrity and the University of Maryland Guidelines for Acceptable Use of Computing Resources.

Any evidence of unacceptable use of computer accounts or unauthorized cooperation on tests, quizzes, or projects will be submitted to the Student Honor Council, which could result in an XF for the course, suspension, or expulsion from the University. NOTE SPECIFICALLY: projects are to be done INDIVIDUALLY. Working IN ANY WAY with another student will be considered a violation and WILL BE REPORTED to the Honor Council.

Automatic tools may be used to compare your project solution to that of other current or past students in this class, so it will be very difficult to hide any collaboration. The risk of getting caught is too high, and the standard penalty is way too high (grade of XF).