Your TA has primary responsibility for evaluating your work; see the TA first for any questions about grading or scoring. If that does not resolve your question, then see the instructor. To compensate for differences in grading between different TAs, we will calculate final grades for each TA's students separately rather than for the entire class as one group. Thus, comparison of scores between TAs is meaningless.

Lab scores will be recorded on the web in the EEE gradebook. We will be happy to correct any errors that do occur, but we must ask that you bring your TA your grading questions within a week after the item is returned; the course moves quickly and we simply can't deal with assignments long past.

Our goal is to obtain the fairest overall grade outcomes. We find that we achieve this best by not committing in advance to a specific fixed point scale for assigning final letter grades in the course. Thus, no letter grades apply to anything until the end of the course and it is not possible to calculate your letter grade precisely until all the work has been done. Don't ask, "What grade am I getting so far?"; instead ask, "What more can I do to master the material?" or "What should I have done differently on this assignment (or exam)?" We urge everyone to focus not on letter grades but on learning what's necessary to earn high scores; the grades will follow from that. You should check the EEE gradebook periodically to make sure your assignment scores have been recorded correctly. EEE also indicates where your score falls compared to other students; if you find yourself in the bottom quarter consistently, talk with your TA or the instructor. Likewise, check the EEE Quiz tool and the Partner App periodically to make sure you're getting credit for the quizzes and your lab partnerships and evaluations.

We're required to say that in unusual circumstances, these policies may change, but we do not expect that to happen.

Special needs: Any student who feels he or she may need an accommodation due to a disability should contact the UCI Disability Services Center at (949) 824-7494 as soon as possible to explore the possible range of accommodations. We encourage all students having difficulty, whether or not due to a disability, to consult privately with the TA or instructor at any time.

What to do this week to get started in ICS 31:
— If you do not have a UCInet ID, get one (see http://activate.uci.edu/).
— Learn how to read electronic mail sent to your UCInet ID (see http://www.oit.uci.edu/email/). If you prefer to read your electronic mail on an account other than your UCInet account, redirect your mail at http://www.oit.uci.edu/email/deliverypoint.html. If you don't read your course Email most every day, you may miss vital announcements.
— If you do not have an ICS account for access to the Windows network in ICS, get one. See http://www.ics.uci.edu/~lab/students/acct_activate.php. The labs will have temporary IDs for the first week or two; get your own ID some time in that period.
— Go to the ICS Partner App and fill out your personal profile. You will do each lab assignment with one partner, a different person every week, with no repetitions. You can pick a partner using the Partner App or in person, but either way you will use the Partner App to register each partnership officially (or you won't get credit).
— On the Web, go to checkmate.ics.uci.edu, log in with your UCInet ID, choose "Winter 2016" and "Course Listing," click "Go" next to ICS 31, and then click "List me for this course." Use your UCInet ID (your Email adddress @uci.edu) for this. You'll submit most of your work electronically; this step is necessary to set that up.
— Sign yourself up for ICS 31 at Piazza.com and read a little bit there about how the site works.
— Get a lab printing key-card if you plan to do any printing in the lab. See http://www.ics.uci.edu/~lab/students/printing.php.
— Complete the survey at http://eee.uci.edu/survey/ics31.w16.q.

Good advice and helpful hints:

Make every effort to attend each class meeting; we will often cover material that isn't directly in the textbook. It's not fair to ask the TA simply to repeat lecture material you missed, though of course the TA will always answer questions about it. And even though UCI Replay recordings will be available for most class sessions, they don't capture everything that goes on in class and they aren't 100% reliable (i.e., some days there will be no recording).

Attend your lab section, too; you will do most of your lab work there, and you can get a fresh perspective from the TA or lab tutor. Don't hesitate to ask your TA to address topics that will help you. Since most of your work will be done with a partner, your partner also depends on your consistent presence.

Check your electronic mail regularly; this is an official channel for course announcements.

Keep up with the reading; you'll need it to do your assignments, and the quarter system goes so fast that a few missed pages can quickly become a few chapters if you're not careful. You will want to read the assigned sections early so you can ask us about parts that aren't clear.

The assignments, like all technical specifications, require careful and thorough reading and re-reading. Expect to refer back to the assignment often, and check it first when you have questions about what's required or how to proceed. Before you come to lab, be sure to read the assignment to get an idea of what's required.

Start each assignment early. Assignments will be due weekly, but you'll need to spend some time on them nearly every day, especially after the first couple of weeks. Programming always takes longer to complete than you think it will, even if you have previous programming experience. By starting early, you'll have time to ask in discussion section about problems you encounter.

If you find yourself having trouble or getting behind, speak with your TA or the instructor. We have lots of ways to help. But never take the shortcut of copying someone else's work and turning it in; the consequences can be far worse than just a low score on a lab assignment or exam. ICS takes academic honesty very seriously; for a more complete discussion, see our course collaboration policies (http://www.ics.uci.edu/~kay/courses/31/collab.html) and the ICS departmental web page covering academic honesty issues (http://www.ics.uci.edu/ugrad/policies/index.php#academic_honesty).

Turn in whatever portion of an assignment you have completed on the due date. It's much better to turn in something rather than nothing; zeroes are hard to make up. In some circumstances you may arrange with your TA to work further on an assignment after the due date, but you must turn in whatever you have when the official due date comes. Likewise, don't skip any quizzes or partner evaluations if you can help it; too many zeroes will significantly lower your overall score.

Always keep your own copy of each assignment, both electronically and on paper; if an assignment should get lost in the shuffle (or if a file server in the lab should crash, which has happened), we'll expect you to be able to supply a replacement easily.

Approximate course outline: