Lecture will be held MWF 9:00-9:50 in PCB 1100.
You are responsible for anything said in class, including
class announcements. If you have to miss lecture for any
reason, please ask one of your classmates to fill you
in on what you missed.
There are two discussion sections for this class. Each section meets one hour per
week. This is an important time to get questions answered about homework
problems.
All email with questions about course material should be sent to the
following email address:
ics6b-questions@ics.uci.edu.
This is an alias for the instructor, the TA and the readers. It ensures
that we all see your message and the response. It also gives you better
turnaround time.
Please also include the following information:
- The string "ICS 6B:" at the beginning of the subject line
- Your name
- Your student number
For questions about grading on homework, please go to the office hours of
one of the readers or you can send an email to them directly.
For questions about grading on quizes, you can either ask Zach or me.
Course Announcements
- Course announcements will be sent via email to all students enrolled
in the class, at their official UCI email address.
-
Click here for the
archive of these messages.
Homework and Quizes
On each Monday, a new homework assignment will be posted
to the class web page.
The new homework covers the material that presented in lecture
that week.
The homework is due the following Wednesday in lecture.
The homework will be graded by the following Tuesday and can
be picked up in discussion section.
The purpose of discussion section on Tuesday and Thursday afternoon
is to answer any questions
you may have on the graded homework in preparation for the quiz
that will given on Friday morning in lecture.
No solutions to homework or quizes are distributed.
The purpose of discussion sections and office hours are to answer any
questions you may have about solutions to quizes or homeworks.
You are highly advised to learn the correct
solution to quizes and homeworks since I will typically
re-use a couple questions (perhaps with some minor modifications)
from homework on quizes and will take some final exam
questions from the quizes.
Absolutely no late homework assignments will be accepted.
.
The weekly quiz will be given every Friday
at the beginning of lecture.
The quiz will be handed out at 9:00 AM, sharp
and will be picked up at 9:15 AM, sharp .
There will be no make-up quizes given.
When we tabulate your final grade, we will drop the two lowest quiz
scores and the two lowest homework scores. However, in exchange for this,
we will make absolutely no allowances if you arrive at a quiz late or
turn in your homework late. This holds even if you have a perfectly
valid reason to miss a homework assignment or a quiz. If for some
reason you fail
to make it to a quiz or hand in a homework assignment, that will count
as one of your dropped quizes or homework assignments, no matter
how legitimate your reason is.
There will also be one midterm on Monday of week 6.
Grades for the assignements and quizes will be posted through EEE.
If you have questions regarding grading, please see the person who
graded that particular item.
Text
This quarter you will be using a web-based interactive, animated offering as your "textbook". The material
includes interactive
exercises which will count towards your grade.
Here are the directions for subscribing:
- Go to ucidmfall13.zyante.com.
Bookmark this site - this is your site for the entire quarter.
- Click on Subscribe at the top right.
- Enter in your UCI email, name and password. Your email will be your login.
- Click Subscribe at the bottom of the form and use your
credit card or Paypal account to pay the subscription price of $25.
Note: a Paypal account is not required.
If you don't have a credit card or a Paypal account, contact
support@zyante.com.
Contact
support@zyante.com for help or with any questions regarding obtaining a subscription.
Course Structure
The grading criteria for the course is:
Homework 10%
Reading Assignments 4%
Midterm 15%
Quizes 40%
Final 30%
Completing the Course Evaluation 1%
Note that there is a tiny bit of credit given for completing the course evaluation towards the
end of the quarter. It is
available through EEE and is
usually released a couple weeks from the end of the quarter.
If enough students complete the evaluation then I have access to the list of students
who completed the evaluation. However, I do not see any evaluation results until the
quarter is over and grades have been turned in. Even after the quarter when I do
see the evaluation results, they are completely anonymous. Thus, there is no risk
to you in being completely honest in your evaluation. I take these evaluations very
seriously and use them to improve my teaching.
Missed Midtern or Final Exam Policy
The final exam will be on Wednesday, December 11, 8:00AM-10:00AM.
- If you miss the final exam and do not have a valid reason, you will receive
a score of 0 on the exam.
- The following policy applies if you miss the final exam for a valid reason.
-
There are only two classes of valid reasons for missing the final exam:
- An unforeseeable emergency, such as a medical emergency.
In such cases I will ask for documentation.
- An absence from an exam due to a foreseeable circumstance
that I have approved in advance.
-
A work conflict is NOT a valid reason for missing the final exam.
The examination times
are announced at the beginning of the quarter, so there is plenty of
time to plan your work schedule.
- If you wait until after the exam to get a foreseeable excuse approved,
and it is not approved,
you will receive a grade of zero (0) on the exam.
- If I accept your reason for missing the final exam, at my option I may
either (1) give you a makeup exam or (2) assign your grade on the basis
of the remaining course work that you did not miss.
- If I give a makeup exam, I may give it less weight
than announced on the course web page.
Academic Honesty
The Bren School of ICS and the University have already established an academic honesty policy. Read it.
Violators of academic honesty policies are subject to the penalties described in the Bren School of ICS policy. They are also subject to an immediate course grade of F, and you will not be allowed to drop the course to avoid the grade. Also be aware that a single documented case of academic dishonesty may preclude you from switching into computing majors, registering for computing minors, joining the ICS Honors Program, and graduating from a computing major with honors.
Guidelines to avoid plagarism:
- Do not look at another person's homework.
Instead you should prefer to discuss the problem in plain English.
This helps you to communicate clearly, practice technical jargon as it applies to your problem, and to identify how your solution exhibits behavior different from what you expect.
- Do not write down the solution in your notes.
It is perfectly fine (and encouraged) to collborate on work.
Working in a group is a rewarding experience, and definitely a necessary skill in any professional career.
The collaboration can include drawing diagrams and perhaps solving the problem on a whiteboard.
However, you should avoid writing the solution in your notes.
It is very useful to rethink the problem and go through the details and logic when you solve it again on your own.
We expect that:
- You can monitor each other and enforce these rules among yourselves. Making sure that others follow these guidelines will help to ensure that they don't pass off your work as their own.
- Your work honestly represents your efforts. The entire purpose of obtaining an education is so that you can accumulate a body of skills and experience that will help you later on. If you do not perform the work yourself, then you have cheated yourself out of the education. Employers in our field can (and do) screen applicants for skills and knowledge. You will perform poorly (and discredit UCI) if you do not practice now by doing your own work.