There is no required text for the course. For the first 6-7 weeks of the course, the following textbook can be useful: Rosen, Discrete Mathematics and Its Applications, McGraw-Hill. (We will reference problem numbers from the 6th edition, but more recent versions include the same material.) It should be available through the bookstore and on short-term loan from the Engineering Library.
Your overall grade will be determined as follows (subject to change as necessary, though substantial changes are unlikely):
| 50% | Homework |
| 15-20% | Midterm exam |
| 30-35% | Final exam |
You are encouraged to work with other students on homework assignments subject to the following constraints:
When working on solutions with others, we require that:
Since you cannot list "The Internet" as one of your collaborators, you may not consult the Internet for problems or key-phrases. This includes Google, MathOverflow, reddit, and any other website. However, you may consult the internet for ideas, definitions, and understanding general concepts.
Abiding by those rules will help you avoid any academic misconduct as described by the Allen School policy.
You will receive an email invitation, during the first week of the course, to a course web page in GradeScope, where you can submit your homework solutions. To do so, you will first need to scan your solution into a PDF. Portions of the scans that are not readble by the TAs (either due to the quality of the scan or the legibility of the handwriting) cannot be graded and will not receive credit.
Assignments must be turned in by the due date and time in order to contribute to your grade. Assignments will not be accepted late unless special arrangements are made at least 48 hours in advance of the deadline or in cases of a severe emergency (e.g., hospitalization). In the latter cases, contact the course staff (cse311-staff@cs).
We will entertain questions about grades only for one week after they are posted in the course grade book. You can request a regrade in GradeScope.
Our determinations of the correctness of each answer will be made based on the intention of the problem, as long as the staff believes that the intention was clear. We will not listen to legalistic arguments about why poor solutions should be considered correct.
We will not debate the amount of points deducted for mistakes. Those are entirely at the descretion of the course staff.
Homework assignments will often have extra credit problems. They will be scored separately from the regular problems, and they will have little impact on course grades. The main incentive for doing the extra credit problems is for the challenge of doing the problems.
There will be a midterm exam held in class and a final exam during finals week. See the calendar for dates and times. See the exams page for more details on the exam contents.