By the end of this course, you will be able to:
Communication is a key aspect of this course. A proof is not simply correct or incorrect; it is an act of communication to an intended audience. For this reason, the production of clear, convincing, and unambiguous writing is a key aspect of this course.
Grades will be based off homework assignments, section participation, concept checks, a midterm, and a final.
There will be approximately seven week-long homeworks.
Since technical communication is one of the main focuses of the course, we will grade your homework both in correctness and style. More details are included in our grading guidelines.
Homeworks are both a chance for you to improve your understanding and for us to evaluate how well you understand the material. For that reason, although you are encouraged to discuss the problems with one another, you must still write up solutions on your own. More details are included in the collaboration policy.
We will have an in-person midterm exam in class on Friday, August 1st. The exam will be individual, but you will be allowed a small amount of your own notes with the exam (details will be announced closer to the exam). We will have makeup exams for students unable to attend the main exam.
After midterm grades and feedback have been released, we will offer a midterm retake opportunity during week 8 (Monday, August 11th, to Friday, August 15th). The midterm retake will be an exam similar to the midterm in terms of content and logistics (timing, note sheet, etc.). If you choose to retake the midterm, your final midterm score per question will be the maximum score you received on that question between the midterm and the midterm retake.
We will have a two-part final exam taken in class on the last two days of the quarter on Thursday, August 21st, and in lecture on Friday, August 22nd. The exam will be individual, but you will be allowed a small amount of your own notes with the exam (details will be announced closer to the exam). We will have makeup exams for students unable to attend the main exam.
This course is designed to introduce concepts in lectures and give you practice with them in sections. As a result, trying the problems associated with each section is extremely important for success in the course.
Each week, TAs will record everyone who came to section and participated. "Participated" doesn't mean you ever have to get questions correct, or even say something out loud for the whole class. It means you're working on the problems, and talking with those around you.
If you cannot attend any section in-person, you may do the section problems on your own and submit them to a TA for credit. The problems to do will be posted on the course calendar each week, and must be submitted by the Sunday after the section.
There are 8 sections during the quarter that will be considered for section participation (we are not counting the last section because that's when you will be taking part 1 of the final exam). To receive full credit for section participation, you must participate in at least 7 out of 8 quiz sections. More details are included in the Assessment Grading Schemes section.
Associated with every lecture will be a "concept check" due at the start of the following lecture. The goal of a concept check is to expose any misunderstandings you might have from lecture and get very quick feedback before we build on the concepts in the following lecture.
As the goal of a concept check is quick feedback, concept checks are graded automatically. On a submitted attempt, correct answers produce an explanation of why the answer is correct. Concept checks can be resubmitted as many times as desired until the deadline (the grade recorded is the final submission).
At the end of the quarter, you will get full credit by getting 80% of the concept check points available, but do not get extra credit for getting more than 80% of the points. More details are included in the Assessment Grading Schemes section.
Because there are so many concept checks (and so many students), it's not logistically possible for the staff to manage extensions on concept checks. We will not accept late concept checks.
After the deadline, Gradescope shows the correct answers to anyone who has submitted at least one attempt at that concept check. Gradescope does not show answers to students with no submissions. We therefore strongly encourage you to submit something on each concept check (or be prepared to ask other students to see the questions/answers of missed checks if you would find them helpful).
We will have occasional extra credit problems on homework assignments. These problems are intended to allow students who want to dig deeper into the material and work on more challenging problems.
Extra credit will have minimal effect on your final grades, and will affect a course grade by at most 0.1. They are graded separately from the main homework and factored in only after grade cutoffs have already been determined.
The course staff is made up of people, that means we sometimes make mistakes! When those mistakes happen in grading, we want to correct them.
After homework feedback is released, there will be a three-day resubmission period in which you can resubmit up to two problems from that assignment for an improved grade.
There are two steps you must do to resubmit a homework assignment:
In the Google form, you will indicate which problems you would like to resubmit. Both steps above must be completed by the indicated resubmission deadline for your revised work to be graded.
We will not accept any late resubmission requests.
| Grade | Description |
|---|---|
| E Excellent | Evidence of meeting or exceeding all learning objectives is present. Work has only trivial or inconsequential flaws, if any. Little to no room left to improve understanding. |
| S Satisfactory | Evidence of meeting most or all learning objectives is present. Work includes minor errors or inconsistencies, but no significant correctness shortcomings. Understanding could potentially be improved, but demonstrated proficiency is acceptable. |
| N Not yet | Evidence of meeting some learning objectives is present, but there are significant gaps and/or evidence of not yet meeting other learning objectives. Demonstrated understanding needs further development to meet expectations. |
It is important to note that, under this system, it is the work that is assessed as a proxy for the student. This is an imperfect system, but is necessary to manage a course of the size and scale of CSE 311. It is in your best interest to ensure that your work accurately reflects your proficiency by being careful and diligent in following instructions, meeting deadlines, and double checking your work.
Over the course of the quarter, you will accumulate E's and S's, which will determine your final course grade. Below is the number of ESN letter grades that can be earned from each assessment type:
| Assessment Type | Description of ESN Grading |
|---|---|
| Homework | 1 ESN grade per problem. Because there are 7 homeworks and 6-7 problems per homework, there will be 42 - 49 ESN grades that can be earned from homework assignments. |
| Midterm Exam | 4-6 ESN grades, one per problem. |
| Final Exam | 8-10 ESN grades, one per problem. |
| Section Participation | 1 ESN grade. You will earn an E if you participate in >= 7 sections, an S if you participate in 4-6 sections, and an N if you participate in < 4 sections. |
| Concept Checks | 1 ESN grade. You will earn an E if you earn >= 80% of concept check points, an S if you earn between 50% and 80% of concept check points, and an N if you earn < 50% of concept check points. |
| Total | 56-67 ESN grades |
Extra credit is incorporated after we have set the grade breaks according to the weights above. Extra credit has a minimal effect on grades (changing GPAs by 0.1 or less).
Students often wonder whether the class is "curved." For example, whether the median course grade must be some specified value, or if we have a maximum amount of "good" grades we can assign. We do not "curve" in either of these senses. We do, though, look at the performance of students this quarter relative to other quarters to try to keep grades consistent between different quarters (that is that similar levels of understanding of the content would lead to similar grades). This process means that before we have collected all the grades, we don't know exactly where gradebreaks will be.
Minimum requirements for each grade are below. Note that all requirements for a particular grade must be met to guarantee that minimum, though failing to do so does not mean that grade cannot be earned.
These guarantees are intended to give you a simple way to interpret how you are doing throughout the quarter; we will still decide at the end of the quarter on exact grade breaks as described above. In the event that exams or homeworks (or both) turn out more difficult than intended, we may make grades higher than indicated here, but we will not make them less generous.
Note that S+ indicates S or E. For example, for a minimum of 2.5 in the table below, you need both at least 32 Es and at least 10 additional combined Ss and Es. (Or, put another way, at least 42 combined Ss and Es, of which at least 32 are Es.)
| Minimum Grade | Requirements |
|---|---|
| Total ESN available | ~60 |
| 3.5 | 49 Es AND 5 additional S+ |
| 3.0 | 44 Es AND 5 additional S+ |
| 2.5 | 32 Es AND 10 additional S+ |
| 2.0 | 36 S+ |
| 1.5 | 25 S+ |
| 0.7 | 14 S+ |
These grade guarantees will not change if the total number of ESN grades turns out to be greater than 60 at the end of the course. If the number of ESN grades turns out to be fewer than 60, we will add E grades to your accumulated total until the total number of ESN grades become 60. For example, if the total number of ESN grades in the course is 58 instead of 60, we will add 2 E's to your grade total before applying these grade guarantees.
You will have six late days to use during the quarter for homework assignments. A late day allows you to turn in an assignment up to 24 hours later without penalty. Simply submit late and we will keep track of your usage internally.
You will not be able to submit work late if you run out of late days, unless you find yourself in a "non-normal" situation (read the Exceptions section for more details on what to do in this case).
Regardless of how many late days you have, you cannot submit an assignment more than 72 hours after it is due without prior permission from course staff.
For example, an assignment due at 11:59 PM on Wednesday could be turned in at 10 PM on Friday with no penalty by using two late days. However, you cannot submit at 12:01 AM Sunday as it would be more than 72 hours.
Late days are designed to handle the “normal” difficulties in a quarter (e.g. prioritizing different courses, fundraising for an RSO, a minor cold, or attending a relative’s birthday dinner). If your situation goes beyond those “normal” circumstances, you should contact the course staff as early as you can. We'll be able to provide you with additional late days or accomodations.
Concept checks are due at the start of the next lecture (in quarters with multiple lectures, that time is the first of the lectures that day, which might not be your lecture time). You may not submit concept checks late.
Part of the reason for only requiring 80% accuracy on concept checks for an E is as a late policy.
You may not use late days on section participation. We drop one section in part to ensure unusual circumstances don't have undue effects on grades.
We want to make sure that you fully understand and internalize the approach to the materials. We take academic integrity very seriously and refer violations of our policies to the Office of Academic Affairs.
If a student is found responsible for academic misconduct, they will receive a grade of zero (all N's) on the assignment or exam and will be unable to resubmit their work.
You are allowed (and encouraged!) to discuss homework problems with other students. You can discuss the exact problems asked in the homeworks (including brainstorming and solving them together), as long as you:
Note that the individual writeup portion means that your homework submission and your friends will look different! (with the exception of a few problems, especially on HW1, for which people working independently will produce identical responses)
You may ask other people you know (e.g., friends who have already taken 311) for help on concepts and for high-level discussions, but they may not do a problem with you.
You are strongly encouraged to seek out resources beyond official course resources, with the following caveats:
You may not utilize artificial intelligence or machine learning systems (e.g., Chat-GPT) on any assignments (including homeworks and concept checks). That means you may not plug the homework problems into these systems (even if you later put the response in your own words), nor can you put a draft submission into the system to use the system for editing purposes.
There are a variety of reasons for this policy
| What happened? | Is it a violation? |
|---|---|
| When searching for general information, you accidentally find the exact question we asked. You tell the staff, and provide a link to what you found. | Not a violation! We’ll say thanks for letting us know and make sure you didn’t plagiarize. There won’t be a penalty but only a warm, fuzzy feeling. |
| You and a friend separately write up solutions, then compare. Your friend suggests that your conclusion is a little unclear. You formulate a new conclusion on the Zoom call together. | Violation! That is no longer your individual writeup. |
| You and a friend separately write up solutions, then compare. Your friend suggests changing \(\exists\) to \(\forall\) and switching the name \(x\) to \(p\). You wait 30 minutes, then return to your writeup, decide the changes would be improvements, and incorporate them. | Not a violation! Minor rewordings done by you at another’s suggestion are fine. The writeup is still substantially yours. |
| You find a textbook with sample solutions to similar problems. You see that they like to introduce variables with “Consider” and use “hence” instead of “because.” You copy these words, because they seem cooler. | Not a violation! Single words or stock phrases are things you can learn from. It is not a violation to emulate style (but “hence” is a little archaic). |
If you are confused as to whether or not some collaboration is allowed, ask us! No set of rules will be completely exhaustive.
If something unexpected happens or you are worried you may have accidentally violated the policy, please tell us! We will not consider any action to be a violation of the academic integrity policy if you tell us about it before turning in the assignment.
While the course of the pandemic has improved, we still are prepared to adapt to health issues (both individual and broadly).
If what you have is (or might be) COVID, remember to follow the university policies (which include rules on how long to isolate if you contract covid, and some times when masking may be required for you).
We will be recording lectures and posting to panopto so you can keep up/catch back up when you're healthy.
If you think you're in a situation where extra late days or other accommodations might be appropriate, please contact Parker as soon as possible (by email or private Ed post). Late days are intended to handle "normal" issues during the quarter. In some cases, we offer extra accommodations.
| What's happening? | What can the course staff do when you contact us |
| You have a significant illness: lasting 3+ days or likely to last that long (e.g., COVID) | Depending on the timing, we might give you some extra late days, give you an extension to turn in an assignment beyond the normal late deadline, or "drop" the assignment for you. |
| You have an illness that lasts a day-or-two. | This situation is what your late days are for! We don't give extra late days in this situation, even if your illness hits at an inopportune time. |
| You have a planned family responsibility that's going to take up a substantial amount of time for the two days right before a deadline | This situation is what your late days are for! We don't give extra late days in this situation, even if your family responsibility hits at an inopportune time. |
| You have a family emergency that means you're unexpectedly finding it difficult to work. | Depending on the timing and type of emergency you're dealing with, we might give you some extra late days, give you an extension to turn in an assignment beyond the normal late deadline, or "drop" the assignment for you. |
| You are part of an RSO that is putting on a big event. You'll be focused on that event right around a deadline. | This situation is what your late days are for! We don't give extra late days in this situation, even if some event falls at an inopportune time. |
| Your WiFi cuts out at 11:56 PM as you're uploading to gradescope. Your upload goes through, but at 12:03 AM. | We don't give extra late days; we do have a (secret) grace period when we count late days. That grace period will mean a few minutes to reset your router won't lead to using an extra late day. We will not tell you exactly how long it is though, because we don't want you to treat the end of the grace period as "the real deadline" and then have your router need a reboot. |
| You have (or think you might have) a disability or condition that makes meeting deadlines or taking exams difficult. | We are happy to implement accommodations assigned by UW DRS. We can only implement accommodations like this when assigned by DRS. |
| Something is happening that isn't covered here. | An email to Parker or a private post on Ed is a good place to start. We can't list out every possibility, and with 300 students someone is going to have something happen that we didn't write down a rule for. |
Don't come to an exam if you're sick! Contact Parker once you know you're too sick to attend (before the exam starts), and we'll schedule a makeup exam for when you're ready to return to campus.
If your illness hits for the final, we may utilize other options like remote exams or temporarily giving an incomplete until you're well enough to return and take the exam. We will work with you to decide which accommodation is appropriate to your illness.
Lectures will be recorded; we won't track in-person attendance for lectures.
We expect all exams to take place in-person.
We will have some accommodations available for people with significant reasons to not attend the main exam (e.g., a conflict exam for illnesses), but these will be limited.
If you have a health condition (mental or physical) that means you should not be in a large lecture hall, you should contact DRS (see Accomodations above) to investigate accommodations. We recommend contacting them at the beginning of the quarter, as it can take significant time for accommodations to be approved.
Depending on who is sick (and how sick they are) we may find a substitute or convert an in-person meeting to zoom. In extreme circumstances, we may cancel a section or office hour, but we do not expect that to be common. Any such changes will be announced via Ed.
If Parker has an extended illness, we may switch to zoom lectures for a short time or a TA may take over lecture duties.
If unforeseen circumstances arise during the quarter, please do not hesitate to talk to the course staff. The sooner we are made aware, the more options we will have for designing accommodations. You can also send us anonymous feedback with ideas to improve the course.
Nonetheless, one of the main methods of learning is talking to other students in the course! We strongly encourage you to find study groups you can meet with (remotely or otherwise).
Zoom is how meetings that must be virtual will be delivered. That includes at least some office hours throughout the quarter. You can find meeting IDs in a pinned post on the Ed discussion board.
You should go to the sections you are officially enrolled in when possible. If you attend another section, please give that TA a heads up.
Office Hours: You can attend any Office Hours, not just the ones held by the TA who teaches your section. They do get busier closer to deadlines, so it is better to attend them early and throughout the week.
Zoom meetings will be restricted to accounts logged in with @uw.edu email addresses. If you have trouble joining a meeting, make sure you choose the “Sign in with SSO” option.
Ed is our discussion board and the right place to ask any questions about the course.
We will happily answer questions from lecture or about general concepts. We also will answer clarifications about homework (e.g. correcting typos). Students are encouraged to answer each other’s questions on the message board as well.
If you have a question that might reveal your approach or the solution to a homework problem, you must ask the question privately. For accommodations and other private questions, you can ask privately on Ed or email the instructor. Only you and the course staff can see a private question on Ed.
Gradescope is the tool to turn in completed assignments. After grading, you can also find our feedback there and submit regrade requests if needed.
You will get an automatic email with account setup instructions before HW1 is due.
We will not be consistently updating canvas. Information on canvas may be partial or inaccurate for large portions of the quarter, you should not rely on it for this course. We may use canvas's gradebook at the end of the quarter, but we will announce which information should be relied on and when.
Your performance in this course should not be affected by circumstances beyond your control. We can still work with you for situations other than the university-wide accommodations. If anything does come up, you should contact the course staff as early as you can.
If you have, or think you may have, a temporary health condition or permanent disability, contact Disability Resources for Students (DRS) to get started with accommodations. In some prior quarters, DRS has become overwhelmed with new requests and were slow to process them. We strongly recommend reaching out as soon as possible, as we are unable to provide certain accommodations (e.g., extra testing time) except as decided on by DRS.
There are some circumstances for which we offer conflict exams (exams scheduled at different times than the main exam). However we don't offer these for every possible situation.
These "Hard" conflicts are situations that are unavoidable and which are important enough that it takes precedence over an exam. Generally, these would be important family or academic responsibilities that you cannot reschedule. We will ask you if you have a conflict about a week before the exam. Please be sure to fill out the form on-time. If you fill out the form by the deadline with a hard conflict, we guarantee we'll find you a conflict exam (or other appropriate accommodation).
Examples of hard conflicts include
A "soft" conflict, is one which would make it difficult---but not impossible---to attend the main exam. We don't anticipate being able to give conflict exams to students with soft conflicts, but please let us know anyway in the rare case we can accomodate you.
Examples of soft conflicts include
We will tell you before the exam whether we can accommodate your soft conflict, and the time of the conflict exam.
If you are sick on the day of the exam, we will treat it as a hard conflict. Just let us know (send an email to Parker) before the exam starts to let us know you're sick. Similarly, we will accommodate family or other emergencies that come up at the last second. In all cases, please notify Parker of the situation as soon as you can (and before the exam begins).
There are some things we don't accommodate---in a class of our size, logistics require us to draw a line somewhere. If you have one of these, we expect you to attend the exam at the usual time. Examples of things which don't qualify for a conflict include:
A few days before the exam, everyone who has filled out the conflict form will get an email saying whether we think they have a hard conflict, soft conflict that we can accommodate, or non-conflict.
We schedule conflict exams in phases. We generally have one within a day-or-two of the main exam that we schedule a few days in advance. Once we know everyone who needs a conflict, we will finalize a schedule of conflict exam(s) (we can generally do that scheduling starting the day after the main exam, since we don't have the full list of who was sick until just before the exam happens).
Exams are always scheduled within a week of the main exam. Generally they will be during daytime class hours (8:30-4:30 Monday through Friday), though we may schedule at unusual times if it works better for staff and for the students involved.
In some instances, it isn't possible to make any of the scheduled conflict exams. Extended illness (e.g., contracting COVID shortly before the exam) or an extended family emergency (e.g., death in the family) and similar emergencies sometimes cause this to happen. In such instances, we usually don't offer remote exams.
If the final is missed, unless you can take the final within the next 72 hours of the original exam, we will most likely decide to give you an incomplete and have you take the final exam in the next quarter.
We may also reach some other different accommodation when that is more appropriate. In any of these cases, we'll work with you to find something that makes sense.
Washington state law requires that UW develop a policy for accommodation of student absences or significant hardship due to reasons of faith or conscience, or for organized religious activities. The UW policy, including more information about how to request an accommodation, is available at Religious Accommodations Policy. Accommodations must be requested within the first two weeks of this course using the Religious Accommodations Request form.