Course Information - Comp2911

Overview of the first 3 courses

• After taking...	You become...
  COMP1917	You become a craftsman. Your programs and your approach to computing are professional and workman-like. You strive for clarity, simplicity, and beauty.
  COMP1927	You become a scientist. You understand how to analyse programs and algorithms. You master a broad range of important algorithms and data structures.
  COMP2911	You become a designer. You are familiar and practised in the process of design. You know how to approach the design of new data structures and algorithms appropriate for the problem at hand. You have an appreciation for the qualities of a good design.

The specific objectives and syllabus for this course are set out on the course homepage.

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Information specific to the current session

This document contains general information about COMP2911 that applies every time it is taught. Information specific to a particular offering of the course such as:

• A detailed list of topics covered
• The course assessments and due dates
• Teaching staff details
• Lecture times and places

is available in the course information for that semester (click on the Current Session link at the top of the course homepage).

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Texts

Your lecturer will discuss textbooks in week 1.

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Getting Help

If you need help speak to your tutor in the first instance. They are your point of contact with the course, and are there to help you.

If you can't wait till your tutorial then ask on the course forum. The course staff, and your fellow students all monitor the forum regularly and questions there usually get a prompt response.

If your tutor can't help you with an admin matter email the course account (cs2911@cse.unsw...) or attend an admin consultation. Admin matters include requests for extensions and special considerations and requests to change your tutorial class after the period when you can change them via myUNSW.

If you are having problems with understanding the course content you can also attend a face-to-face remedial teaching consultations. These are usually run each week, see the course information for the current session for details.

Please do not email staff at their personal email address, instead use the forum. That way everyone can benefit from the question and the answer. The course lecturer will also stay back as long as needed after lectures to answer questions or you can arrange an appointment with them.

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Plagiarism

Several years ago we penalised over 30% of assignment submissions in a first year course for plagiarism! Penalties ranged from 0 for the assignment to 0-Fail for the entire course. Many students did not appear to understand what is regarded as plagiarism. This was no defence.

Before submitting any work you should read and understand the following very useful guide by the Learning Centre How Not To Plagiarise.

All work submitted for assessment must be entirely your own work. We regard unacknowledged copying of material, in whole or part, as an extremely serious offence.

In this course submission of any work derived from another person, or solely or jointly written by and or with someone else, without clear and explicit acknowledgement, will at the very least result in automatic failure for the course and a mark of zero for the course. Note this includes including unreferenced work from books, the internet, etc.

Do not provide or show your assessable work to any other person. Allowing another student to copy from you will, at the very least, result in zero for that assessment. If you knowingly provide or show your assessment work to another person for any reason, and work derived from it is subsequently submitted you will be penalized, even if the work was submitted without your knowledge or consent. This will apply even if your work is submitted by a third party unknown to you. You should keep your work private until submissions have closed.

If you are unsure about whether certain activities would constitute plagiarism ask us before engaging in them(!)

Copying without consent, severe, or second offences will result in automatic failure, exclusion from the university, and possibly other academic discipline.

These are not idle threats, we search the internet and use plagiarism detection software and a range of search engines to hunt for non-original work.

See also the latest version of the Unix Primer and the Yellow Form and the school and the faculty and university plagiarism policies for additional information. If the penalties set out on this page, the Unix Primer, the Yellow Form, the school, faculty, or university plagiarism policies differ for any situation, the more severe penalty applies.

Note that we have experienced cases of plagiarism where the code has been copied from printouts or CDs/USB sticks that have been lost in the lab or stolen from the computer or printer. Generally it is your responsibility to prevent other students from accessing your files, but if you lose work in this way, email your tutor immediately.

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Marking policy

Subjectively assessed work is awarded grades as follows:

In this course non-exam assessment is intended to be formative (to help students learn material) rather than summative (give an objective benchmark measuring what has been learned)

When marking assignments we want tutors to build up an intimate model of what each of their students is up to, their strengths and weaknesses.

For this reason assignments are not marked anonymously. If you have concerns about non-anonymous assignment marking please discuss them with us in advance.

In this course we publicly release examples of student work wherever possible. Sometimes it is appropriate for this work to be made anonymous first. To enable your work to remain anonymous in such cases do not identify yourself in assessment submissions (except in the header section of a report, or the header comment in source files).

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Intellectual Property

Copyright of any material you submit will belong to us. Submitting means you accept this condition. If you have special circumstances and wish to negotiate variations to this condition you must do so before submitting.

One of the reasons we require this is so we can share your work with students in this and future sessions. We may also use it to demonstrate poor style and/or common mistakes.

We usually try to keep student material anonymous unless we are praising it. However if you would like to be identified as the author of a work even if we are not praising it, then include the following line as a comment at the start of the file:

• Please identify me as the author whenever referring to this

We may distribute and share any material you submit, including but not limited to assignments, reports, papers, presentation handouts, seminar material, videos, wiki, lab solutions, emails and forum content. All copyright and intellectual property arising from this belongs to us.

Submitting material includes but is not limited to physical submission, submission via give, posting material on the forum or wiki, sending email to the teaching staff or course account, etc.

You may not make video and or sound recordings of the lectures without express written permission from the lecturer. In all cases any recordings must only be for single personal use and not distributed or made publicly available. In some sessions official recordings will be made and may be made available to all students.

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Final Examination

The final examination in this course will be held during the end of session examination period; it may examine any material covered in core lectures, tut-labs, tasks, the project, and any reading you have been given.

The exam will have a practical part and a theory part. The exam is a hurdle, you must pass the exam to pass the course.

Special Consideration

Students whose exam performance is affected by serious and unforeseeable events outside their control can apply at the student centre for special consideration. If special consideration is granted you will be able to sit the supplementary exam.

Special consideration does not mean we adjust your marks, it means that we permit you to sit the supplementary examination. If you apply for special consideration after the cut-off date set by the university or after the supplementary exam has been held then it will not be granted. Furthermore, special consideration will only be granted when each and every other component of the course (eg assignments, tutorial participation, tasks, wikinotes, etc) has been attempted and satisfactorily completed (ie passed).

Supplementary Exam

A supplementary examination will be held soon after the results have been released. If you think that you may be eligible for the Supplementary Examination, make sure you are available around that time. Be careful not to plan any overseas travel at that time. If you can't attend the sup exam you will not be offered a second chance.

It is your responsibility to check your email, the CSE website, and to contact the CSE school office for details of Supplementary Examinations. If you think there is any chance you might be eligible for a Supplementary Exam then you should prepare for it. Requests such as "I didn't find out until the day before the sup exam that I could sit the sup exam, so I need more time to study" or "I have to go overseas at that time and I have already purchased the tickets so can you write and administer a special sup sup exam just for me?" will not be granted.

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Check Your Marks

You can inspect the current state of your mark record by using the command

• 2911 classrun -sturec

You could also try this website

This will show your your tutorial attendance, your lab marks, your assignment marks and so on.

Check regularly. Alert your tutor within two weeks of the event and before the end of stuvac if there is a mistake in your tute attendance or any course marks. We lock the marks down at the end of stuvac so make sure you resolve any problems before then.

Policies and Rules

No abuse or flaming in the forum or wiki.

Try to keep the wiki for data, the forum for opinions and discussion.

No language feature may be used in assessable work unless it has been officially covered in the course. If you are unsure ask.

All Java coding must comply with the JavaStyleGuide. All C coding must comply with the C Style Guide.

The university has a number of rules and policies which affect you (see myUnsw, the university handbook, and the university home page), additionally the school of CSE has a number of rules and policies (eg see the "Yellow form"), and this course has a number of rules and policies (see this page). Where there is a conflict between these sets of rules and policies the most strict shall apply. Where there is ambiguity in the interpretation of any rule of policy the most strict interpretation shall apply. If you are in any doubt as to the meaning, interpretation, or effect of any rule or policy please ask the course administrator or the lecturer in charge. Some of the policies which apply to you can be accessed from the course home page. Be aware that this list may not be definitive or up-to-date.

Keeping Informed

Important notices related to this course will be displayed on the StopPress section of the course home page from time to time. It is your responsibility to check this page regularly.

Sometimes urgent information may also be sent to you by email. Make sure you pay careful attention to any email you receive.

All official email will be sent to your cse email address. If you prefer to read your mail at some other address you will need to redirect your mail using mlalias. Ask your tutor if you need help doing this.

Additional information will be provided in the Course Forum and elsewhere on the 2911 site for the current offering as the session progresses. Lecture notes and supporting material will be made available via the course wiki.

You should explore the course web site, and read the StopPress, wiki, forums, and this page regularly for updates.

Feedback

Please provide any feedback or suggestions to your class reps who will raise all matters with me confidentially. We do collect end of session feedback but by then it is obviously too late to change things for you (though such feedback still benefits the way we teach future students) so please alert us quickly if you have any concerns or suggestions. I do take feedback very seriously.

Tips from previous students

When I ask students at the end of session to think about what they wished they had done differently and come up with some advice they would give themselves if they could travel back in time two categories of advice are very common:

• start the assignments early, earlier than you think you need to
• do ALL the labs, even if you don't get them finished in time to be marked, still get them finished, as you need that material in following weeks.

I'll ask you the same question at the end of this semester in our own post mortem session, so you might want to think, as you are doing the course, about any bad things you do or problems you fall into which you wish that someone had warned you about in advance.

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