Syllabus

Course Goals

By the end of this course, you will be able to:

• Convert ideas between logical syntax and natural language.
• Write a proof (that is, a rigorous argument) of simple statements (for example, that your code is correct or efficient).
• Write proofs by induction, contrapositive, and contradiction.
• Identify common mistakes in proofs.
• Understand and analyze mathematical models of computation (including regular expressions and context free grammars).

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.

Assessments

Assessments are on a continuum from formative to summative. Formative assessments are meant to form your skills. That is, the main focus is not whether you get it right the first time, the focus is helping you gain the skills to get similar problems correct the next time you see them. Summative assessments are designed primarily to evaluate: to see if you can sum-up what you've learned into doing problems. It is very rare to understand the content of this course just by watching someone else explain it. It's expected that the first few times you try a problem, you may not get it right, but you'll be able to improve. The formative assignments are designed to give you chances for improving and feedback.

The list below is ordered from purely formative to purely summative.

Section Participation

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 keep a record of who came to section and participated. "Participated" doesn't mean you ever have to get questions correct, or answer questions to the whole class. It means you're working on the problems (forming your skills!), and talking with those around you.

You are expected to attend the section which you are officially registered for. If you cannot attend your section for a specific week, you may attend another with permission of the section's TAs.

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 10 sections during the quarter. Your section participation grade will be: min(9,number-participated)/9. I.e., you can miss one section without penalty (or doing the replacement problems), but do not get extra credit for participating in more than 9.

Concept Checks

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).

You can (and ideally should!!) submit concept checks until you get answers correct. Concept checks are formative; their goal is to help you recognize that you didn't understand something and review or ask for help.

At the end of the quarter, your concept check grade will be: min(.8*total CC points available, your CC points) / [.8*total CC points available]. I.e., you get full credit by getting 80% of the points available, but do not get extra credit for getting more than 80% of the points.

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 (but see the late policy for how unused late days can give extra concept check points).

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).

Homework

There will be approximately eight week-long homeworks.

Since technical communication is one of the main focuses of the course, we will grade your homework both in accuracy and clarity. 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. You are not permitted to use artificial intelligence systems (e.g., Chat-GPT) on homeworks. More details (including limitations around collaboration, and instances where LLMs can be legitimately used for learning course content) are included in the policies below.

Homework

Becuase homeworks are still partially formative, mistakes are normal. Indeed, feedback on mistakes are one of the main ways to learn. We want students to submit their genuine best-effort work (even if that work has some small errors). To that end, for students meeting the following conditions, we will set the homework grade to be min(.9*total HW points available, your HW points) / [.9*total HW points]. I.e., you get full credit by getting 90% of the points available, but do not get extra credit for getting more than 90% of the points.

• Submit a good faith submission of every homework assignment by the late submission deadline.
• "good faith" means that it represents your own work, and is a meaningful attempt at the majority of the problems.
• Submit the optional pre-exam reflection assignment before each exam.

Exams

Midterm Exams

We will have two in-person midterm exams in the evenings (exact time TBD) of Thursday October 29th and Monday November 23rd. The exams will be individual, but you will be allowed a small amount of your own notes to use on each exam (details will be announced closer to the exam dates). We will have makeup exams for students unable to attend the main exam (see the Exam Conflicts section for more information).

Final

We will have an in-person final exam 12:30-14:20 on Monday December 8th. 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 date). We will have makeup exams for students unable to attend the main exam (see the Exam Conflicts section for more information).

Extra credit

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.

Regrade Requests

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.

Regrade timing

• Regrades will be submitted on gradescope. We will open regrade requests approximately 24 hours after scores and feedback is released, and will remain open for at least 3 days (except that at the end of the quarter [e.g., for the final exam], regrade request windows may be shorter to ensure grades are submitted to the registrar on-time).
• Regrade requests should address the TA feedback and your solution, e.g., "The feedback says that x was not introduced as arbitrary, but x is introduced as arbitrary on the second line of the proof."
• Regrade requests must be specific---regrades simply requesting more partial credit without reference to the specific rubric/feedback and submission will be rejected.
• Please remember that people are reading your regrade requests, and phrase regrade requests professionally and respectfully.

Regrade appeals

• TAs will respond via gradescope to regrade requests when they can. Note that this is frequently weeks after a regrade is filed, as TAs are grading the next homework by the time all regrade requests are filed.
• If you wish to appeal a regrade request (because the TA has responded to your request, but you still believe your answer is correct) or you miss the regrade window but still want a regrade, contact the instructor.
• Appeal and late regrades are only granted for clear errors (e.g., your calculation was correct even though a TA marked it incorrect). We do not alter rubrics, switch which rubric item was applied, or change any "judgement calls" at this stage.

Assigning course grades

Course Average

Your course average will be a combination of your scores on the homeworks and exams. We will weight those categories as follows:

• Section Participation 5%
• Concept Checks 5%
• Homework 35%
• Midterms 15-25%
• Final exam 30-40%

Exam Improvement Policy

The ranges in the midterms and final exam categories are adjusted by individual student: if the final exam grade shows improvement over the midterm grade, we put more weight on the final (and if the midterms are stronger, we keep significant weight on the midterms). It might help to think of the midterms as being worth 25%, the final exam as 30%, but know that improvement on the final causes us to move weight from midterm to final exam.

Extra credit is incorporated to your course average 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).

Separate Requirements for Course Average and Summative Assessments (exams)

We use two criteria in assigning grades: (1) your course average (where we combine all aspects of the course, both formative and summative) and (2) your grades specifically in the exams (the summative activities). Summative assessments ensure that you have mastered some of the most important topics in the course (to the point that you can do them fully individually and under time constraints). To ensure you accomplish both of those goals, some course grades require both a certain course average and some level of success specifically in the exams. (See the table of grade guarantees for a sense of what these are likely to be).

Grade guarantees

In order to give you a sense of how you are doing during the quarter, we offer the following minimum guarantees. These are minimum guarantees, not predictions. If your course average (calculated as described above) meets these thresholds, we guarantee that you will get a GPA of the grade shown or higher. Most quarters, at least a few of the actual gradebreaks are more generous than these.

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.

In the table above, the combined midterm score is the number that goes into the gradebook for the midterm category: (points on MT1 + points on MT2) / (points possible on MT1 + points possible on MT2).

Assigning Course Grades

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 (especially where homework or exam problems were similar) 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.

At the end of the quarter, we decide on a course average requirements for every grade break (the minimum for 4.0, 3.9, 3.8,...,2.0, and some below that), and the minimums for formative and summative requirements for the key gradebreaks listed above (3.5, 3.0, 2.0). You will then get the highest grade for which you meet all of the requirements.

Late Policy

Homeworks

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.

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 Friday could be turned in at 10 PM on Sunday with no penalty by using two late days. However, you cannot submit at 12:01 AM Tuesday as it would be more than 72 hours.

If you run out of late days, you may still turn in an assignment late, at a penalty of 15% per day (but still may not turn in an assignment after the 72-hour-late-deadline without prior permission from the course staff).

Concept Checks

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.

If you have extra late days after all homeworks are turned in, we will convert any remaining late days into a full credit concept check (adding the most points to your total score that we can). You do not need to do anything extra in this process, we will calculate it at the end of the quarter.

Part of the reason for only requiring 80% accuracy on concept checks is as a late policy.

Section participation

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.

Exceptions

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.

Academic Integrity Policies

We want to make sure that you fully understand and internalize the approach to the materials. So, we take academic integrity very seriously. We refer violations of our policies to the Office of Community Standards and Student Conduct.

Integrity: Collaboration (with classmates and other people)

You are allowed (and encouraged!) to discuss homework problems with other students currently taking the class. With your classmates, you can discuss the exact problems asked in the homeworks (including brainstorming and solving them together), as long as you:

• Do not take away any notes or screenshots during your discussion.
• Take a 30 minute break between discussing the problem and writing down your solution
• Write up your solution individually.
• List the names of all of your collaborators in the feedback problem on the homework.

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.

Integrity: Resources Outside of CSE 311

You are strongly encouraged to seek out resources beyond official course resources, with the following caveats:

• You may not look at solutions to homeworks from prior quarters, nor share homework solutions from this quarter with others after this quarter.
• Definitions and terminology can differ significantly (and in subtle ways) depending on the author. Be careful that other resources are saying what you think they are saying.
• You may not search with the intent of finding a solution to the homework problem we've given you (or one that is essentially identical, say by just swapping out numbers). This provision also applies to asking human collaborators about completed solutions and AI systems.
• You may not use commercial tutoring resources like Chegg for the problems we ask, nor post our materials or your answers to those websites.
• You may not publicly post your solutions, even after the course is over.

Integrity: AI Use Policy (tools like Chat-GPT, Claude, etc.)

This policy is based on one of multiple common Allen School templates: 2) AI as a Reference Tool

AI Policy: Overview

You may use AI for general course questions and ungraded work, but not for graded assignments, quizzes, exams, or any deliverable that counts toward your grade. Read the full policy carefully so you understand what counts as general support versus graded work.

AI Policy: Definition of AI

For this policy, "AI" refers to generative AI systems that can produce or modify text, code, images, audio, video, or other content — whether in a single response to a prompt or by operating autonomously across multiple steps (e.g., chatbots such as ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini; code assistants and agents such as GitHub Copilot, Cursor, and Claude Code; and AI-powered writing, translation, and image-generation tools). This includes AI features built into IDEs, operating systems, or browsers when they generate or substantially rewrite content, but excludes non-generative tools such as basic spell-check, grammar/syntax highlighting, and linters. A tool's ability to act autonomously (e.g., independently writing, running, and debugging code) does not exempt it from this definition.

AI Policy: Rationale

AI can be used as a helpful learning aid for understanding concepts, exploring ideas, and practicing on ungraded work. However, the course is intended to develop and assess your individual skills, and graded assessments must reflect your own knowledge and work. AI may not be used in any way to produce or modify your graded work.

AI Policy: Permitted Actions

You may use AI tools for purposes such as:

• explaining concepts
• clarifying terminology
• helping you understand examples
• answering study questions
• producing additional examples
• suggesting ways to approach a topic at a high level

You may use AI on ungraded work, including:

• practice problems (that you choose to do yourself)
• ungraded in-class exercises
• exploratory work that is not turned in for credit.

AI Policy: Prohibited Actions

• You may not use AI on assignments or graded assessments, including homework or labs submitted for a grade, quizzes, exams, graded projects, take-home assessments, or any other deliverable identified by the instructor as graded.
• You may not paste a graded assignment prompt into an AI tool to request guidance or a solution.
• You may not ask AI to write, debug, review, or modify work that you will submit for credit.
• If an assignment has stricter rules, those rules override this policy for that assignment.

Examples

• Allowed: using AI to explain dynamic programming, help you review a concept for a quiz, or suggest practice problems for studying.
• Allowed: using AI to brainstorm ideas for an ungraded worksheet or to check your understanding of a concept before class.
• Allowed: prompting AI to “Explain recursion with a new example.”
• Not allowed: pasting a graded assignment prompt into an AI tool and prompting for guidance or a solution.
• Not allowed: using AI to write or debug homework solutions that you will submit for credit.
• Not allowed: using AI to review graded work to suggest changes or correct errors.
• Not allowed: using AI to answer quiz or exam questions, even if the quiz or exam is take-home.

AI Policy: Required Attribution

For ungraded work, include a brief note if AI meaningfully contributed to your process. Identify the specific tool and how it was used. Example: “Used ChatGPT to clarify the definition of induction and check my understanding.”

For graded assessments, no AI use is allowed, so no attribution should appear because any AI assistance would be a policy violation.

AI Policy: Guidelines for Effective AI Use

• Consider first whether you have the time to ask your TAs, the professor, or peers for help and then use AI for subsequent clarification.
• Use AI as a tutor, not a substitute for your own work.
• Ask for explanations, hints, or examples rather than full solutions.
• Verify AI output against course materials and official documentation.
• If AI starts doing the work for you, stop and switch to a more limited prompt.

AI Policy: Data Privacy Expectations

• Do not upload course-specific materials—including assignment prompts, course code, datasets, class notes, hidden tests, solution keys, or other restricted content—to AI tools without the instructor’s explicit approval.
• Some AI tools (e.g., Cursor, Claude Code, and similar coding agents) can automatically access files beyond what you explicitly share — including your entire local repository, file system, or connected accounts. Before using such a tool, confirm what it can access and restrict or scope that access so it does not read private repositories, hidden test files, other students' code, solution keys, or other restricted materials without your intent.
• Do not submit personal, sensitive, or university-protected information into AI tools.
• Be aware that prompts and outputs may be stored or reused by third-party AI providers.
• UW’s Purple tool and certain GenAI tools provided by the Allen School for use in courses are designed specifically for UW students and staff and have stronger privacy protections than public commercial tools. When AI usage is permitted, using Purple or Allen School-provided tools is advised if possible.

AI Policy: Academic Integrity

AI Policy: 311-Specific Clarifications

The text above is adapted from lanugage intended to be shared across multiple courses. Below are some specific-to-311 clarifications:

• All items in the "Assessments" section of the syllabus count as "graded work" for purposes of the AI Use policy. That means, in particular, that you may not use AI on section problems (even though they are graded on completion, they are still graded).
• The general prohibition on attempting to find a solution to the exact homework problem we have set (or one that is equivalent) still applies to practice problems generated by AI. You may not use an AI system to generate a practice problem and solution equivalent to the homework problems we have set. If you do generate such a problem unintentionally, you must disclose that to the course staff (there is no penalty for unintentional actions, as long as you disclose before you submit the assignment).
• For all of allowed instances of AI use, you are still responsible for the content taught in official resources (if an AI system generates an incorrect example, or an example that uses different style, you're still responsible for learning the correct information and style for this course). AI systems can give text to you fast, but often a TA or an old-fashioned google search might give you something more reliable. If you do use AI systems, please consider these warnings (the first two of these also apply to any other outside resource---say other textbooks---but the issues are worse for AI-generated text)
• Be careful that text means what you think it means. Definitions sometimes vary slightly by source (for example, some resources will have different orders-of-operations for logical operations, which can change the meaning of a propositional logic statement); when you access any outside resource, you have to watch that a sentence means what you think it means. If you're looking at another textbook, it's easy to check the meaning the author has; AI systems inherently don't use a single definition (because they draw from texts that use both definitions).
• Expect style conventions to differ. Other authors have their own style guides that won't match our style guide.
• Be suspicious of any generated text. It hasn't been checked by anyone (except for you). Verifying the logic of someone else (or here, something else) is one of the skills we are trying to help you learn in this class! If you already don't feel confident about a topic, that's all the more reason to not use unverified information (of course, official course resources are made by people who also sometimes make mistakes, but at least you can ask us clarifying questions directly and know that an expert has checked it).

Integrity: How We Handle Violations

Violations of academic integrity are supported to CSSC.

If you are found responsible for violating the academic integrity policy, you should expect a grade of 0 on the whole assignment (even if the violation only applies to a portion of that assignment). In assigning that 0, any course policies that normally would de-emphasize that grade would not be applied. Including:

• We will not make any adjustments to category weights to move weight away from the category you were found responsible for violating (e.g., moving weight between midterm and final).
• If the assignment is one that normally can be dropped (e.g., a concept check or set of section problems), the assignment will not be dropped (for example, if you violated the policy on one section participation, you'd receive a score no higher than 8/9 at the end of the quarter).
• A homework would not count as a good-faith attempt toward the homework adjustment policy.

Along with direct grade consequences, we also impose maximum course grades for students violoating course policies.

• If you are found responsible for a violation of academic integrity, you will receive a grade below 3.0 in the course.
• If you are found responsible for multiple violations of academic integrity, you will receive a grade below 2.0 in the course (which will require retaking 311 to match CSE's continuation policy). Additional or more egregious violations will result in a 0.0.
  • This policy can be applied even if the multiple assignments are the result of a single case.

The penalties above are the default ones; if circumstances show that these penalties would be too severe we may lessen them (we will not increase them, but CSSC can apply sanctions outside of the course; CSE 311 staff have no influence on that process).

Integrity: Process notes

While staff don't intentionally go slowly on processing CSSC cases, there is no "statute of limitations" on them---we may file a case regarding any submission at any time before grades are submitted. That includes case submissions after the deadline to drop the course. Because staff are focused on making a good learning experience for the majority of the class who are engaging in it according to the course policies, cases are often filed late in the quarter.

If a case has not yet been completed by the time grades are submitted, staff must submit an "X" grade to the registrar.

Academic Integrity Sample Scenarios

Concluding Thoughts

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.

Office Hours

Office hours are a chance to talk to the course staff (TAs or instructors) about course content. We'll have a schedule on the website to start week 2 of the quarter. You can go to anyone's office hours (not just your section TA's). You don't have to have a specific question to come to office hours, but it can make things easier. We will answer questions about homework at office hours, but there are some things we can't answer:

• We won't "pre-grade" your answer at office hours. We won't say "that's correct" or "you'd get 3/5 if you submitted that right now" or anything to that effect. TAs might instead ask if you have a specific conceptual question they can answer, or a specific part of your answer you'd like to focus on, or remind you of general course policies (like "it's ok to cite a theorem proven in class, you don't have to reprove it").
• We won't just give you a hint if you ask "can I have a hint?" Usually, if you find yourself wanting a hint, it means you're stuck on a core part of the problem, where you'll learn by getting yourself unstuck. If you find yourself wanting a hint, still come to office hours! Staff are very happy to help---just expect that help to come in the form of questions "what have you tried so far? Have you compared to problem 3 from this week's section? Have you used all the information given to you in the problem?" and so on, until you find the hint you've needed.

These are conceptual questions:

• Can we talk about the solution to this problem from the section handout? (this question if always fine, even if you picked that problem because it reminds you of a homework problem)
• Can we talk about this old homework problem (where solutions have been released)?
• I don't understand induction, can you explain it again?

• I'm stuck on problem 3 of the current homework, can you help?
• I'm using a late day to turn in this homework assignment, can you clarify what this problem was asking?

Communication

Announcements will be made via Ed Discussion Board; important announcements will also be sent to your email (via the discussion board), but you are expected to regularly check the discussion board.

If you need to contact the staff:

• For Content questions, use Office Hours or the Ed Discussion Board. Content questions are things like "Why did we do X instead of Y in this lecture example?" or "What's the difference between weak induction and strong induction?"
• For Homework help, use Office Hours or the Ed Discussion Board. When using Ed, be sure to use a private question if you are going to describe your partial progress on a problem.
• For General policy questions use the Ed Discussion Board. These questions would be things like "can concept checks be submitted as many times as we want?" or "what's the deadline for section participation problems?" (though the answers to questions like these can also be found in the syllabus :) )
• For Individual Accommodation Questions use either a private post on the Ed Discussion Board or contact the instructors.
• When emailing, remember to send from your at-uw or at-cs email accounts.

Health, Emergency, and Related Policies

What happens if I get sick?

We will be recording lectures and posting to panopto so you can keep up/catch back up when you're healthy.

When do we give extra accommodations?

If you think you're in a situation where extra late days or other accommodations might be appropriate, please contact the instructors as soon as possible. Late days are intended to handle "normal" issues during the quarter. In some cases, we are able to offer extra accommodations.

What if I get sick right before an exam?

Don't come to an exam if you're sick! Contact the instructors 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 and you cannot take a makeup exam by the end of the week, we may utilize other options like 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. More details are contained in the exam accommodations policy.

What happens if a staff member gets sick?

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 Robbie has an extended illness, we may switch to zoom lectures for a short time.

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).

Course Tools

Zoom

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.

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

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 contact the instructor. Only you and the course staff can see a private question on Ed.

Gradescope

Gradescope is the tool to turn in completed assignments (homeworks and concept checks). 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 the first concept check is due.

Canvas

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.

Please don't message the course staff using Canvas (as we don't use Canvas heavily in this class, messages can easily be missed) - make sure to email or use the Ed discussion board if you want to get in contact with us.

Accommodations

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.

Health, disability, and similar accommodations

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.

Exam Conflicts

The midterm exams will be in the evenings (exact time TBD, pending finding room(s)) on these dates.

The final exam will be on Monday December 8th 12:30-2:20 PM. This is a specially-scheduled combined exam (for both sections), which does not match the default schedule.

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 (with 300-plus students, logistics limit what we can do).

"Hard" conflicts, known in advance

A "hard" conflict is one which is unavoidable, and which is 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 hard 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

• An exam for another course scheduled at the same time
• A regularly-scheduled course meeting for another course (e.g., if you're taking a Wednesday evening class that overlaps with the midterm).
• A work shift for a job (though we do ask that you try to swap shifts or otherwise find someone to cover for you if that is possible).
• Caretaking responsibilities for a family member (though we do ask that you try to arrange your schedule to attend the main exam, if that is possible).

"Soft" conflicts, known in advance

A "soft" conflict, is one which would make it difficult---but not impossible---to attend the main exam. We hope to give conflict exams to students with soft conflicts, but don't guarantee we can do so.

Examples of soft conflicts include

• Having a very long commute that is difficult at night (for an evening exam).
• Having another exam across campus immediately before or after our exam (more likely for the final).
• Something that would usually be a hard conflict, but you tell us about after the deadline to fill out the form

We will tell you before the main exam whether we can accommodate your soft conflict, and the time of the conflict exam.

Conflicts due to illness or emergency

If you are sick on the day of the exam, we will treat it as a hard conflict. Just let us know (contact the instructors) 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 the instructors of the situation as soon as you can (and before the exam begins).

Non-conflicts

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:

• Meeting of an RSO
• Travel (e.g., home for Winter break, unless a family emergency or responsibility is involved)
• Having multiple midterm or final exams on the same day (where you can physically attend all of them); UW rules specifically do not limit the number of exams you take in a day (see the last clause of rule 4 under this university policy)

Conflict process

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.

Other exam accommodations

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 a midterm is missed, we may decide to use the other exam grades (other midterm and final exam) to count in place of the missed midterm.

If the final is missed, we may decide to give you an incomplete and take the final exam in the next quarter. Note that incompletes are not guaranteed (in instances where we aren't confident you will pass the course, we might suggest withdrawing instead of taking an incomplete; an incomplete likely won't be converted until the end of next quarter, so if you don't pass the class with that exam, you'd have to retake 311 after that, which can majorly impact your course plan).

We may also offer some other different accommodation if that is more appropriate. In any of these cases, we'll work with you to find something that makes sense.

Religious Accommodations

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's policy, including more information about how to request an accommodation, is available at Religious Accommodations Policy (/staff-faculty/religious-accommodations-policy/). Accommodations must be requested within the first two weeks of this course using the Religious Accommodations Request form (/students/religious-accommodations-request/).