CSE 370 Introduction to Digital Design

Spring 2006 - Policies, Grading, Workload

Workload

The course is made up of the following components:

1. Lectures There will be 28 lectures plus one review session. Attendance at the lectures is highly encouraged, and participation is even more strongly encouraged. Never hesitate to ask questions during the lecture. Repeat: Never hesitate to ask questions during the lecture.
2. Reading Weekly reading assignments will be posted on the master calendar and displayed at the beginning of each class. We will cover a large amount of the textbook, Contemporary Logic Design.
3. Laboratory Assignments There will be nine laboratory assignments. The first laboratory will begin the first week of class and the last laboratory will last two weeks. Although you will be able to access the lab all week, attendance at one of the scheduled times is very important as that is when the Teaching Assistants will be available. We will work to ensure that the laboratory assignments take no more than the three hour sessions to complete. Laboratory assignments will be closely tied to the written homework assignments and are intended to give you a task of working in the real world on real digital hardware. You should attend the laboratory session for which you are registered. With the permission of the Teaching Assistants, you can attend the other session in case of unusual circumstances.
4. Homework Assignments Weekly problem sets stressing the principles involved in digital logic analysis and design. Some of these will be solved with the use of computer-aided design tools. The last assignment will be a large design project and will span two weeks.
5. Quizzes Four unannounced in-class quizzes, throughout the quarter. These will be basic quizes testing your grasp of the material. Each of the quizes will last approximately 15 to 20 minutes. Your lowest score among the quizes will be dropped.
6. Final Exam Two-hour exam on Monday, June 5 8:30-10:20.

This is a four credit course, so you should expect to spend nine to twelve hours per week outside of the lectures. If you find that you are spending more than this ammount of time, please let us know (via email, via personal communication, or via the anonymous feedback form.) We prefer, of course, to hear these complaints early, before things get out of hand.

Now, there are many ways that you could spend the nine to twelve hours per week that the course requires. However, we have attempted to structure the class so that spending an hour or two per day will maximize your efficiency. Learning to work in this manner is good practice: cramming just simply doesn't lead to productive nor happy life. Defeat the procrastination bug: work a little each day!

Homework Assignments

Homeworks will be assigned at the beginning of the week on Monday. They will be due at the end of the week on Friday (with the exception of the last homework set which will be due a week later than the other homeworks.) The homework is due at the beginning of class. Homework that is handed in during class, or after class will be penalized 10 percent. Homeworks handed in over the weekend will be penalized 20 percent. Homeworks handed in on the following Monday will be penalized 30 percent. Each additional day will incur a 10 percent additional penalty.

Assignment problems will sometimes be graded on a random basis. To get full credit for an assignment, you must, of course, turn in solutions for each assigned problem. But only a subset of the problems may be graded in detail. You won't know in advance which problems these will be, so make sure you do all of the problems!

Please make sure that your homeworks are neat and legible. If we can't read what your answer is, then we will assume that the answer is wrong. Being neat is a good habit to get into: not for the neatness sake alone, but simply because communication is an extremely important trait to master. Please make good use of the schematic diagram editor in the tools we will be using to make neat circuit diagrams to include in your assignments.

Collaboration

Collaboration on homeworks is encouraged provided that you first (1) spend fifteen minutes on your own working on the problem and (2) you write up each and every problem in your own writing, using your own words, and understand the solution fully. Copying homework without following these rules is cheating (see cheating section below.) There is no collaboration on the quizes or the final (just in case you were dreaming of such a loophole.)

Quizzes

No makeups for quizzes! Quizzes will be unannounced and will take fifteen to twenty minutes. If you miss a quiz, you get a zero. We will drop the lowest scoring of your quizzes.

Grades

We will compute your course grade as follows:

• 30%: homework assignments
• 20%: laboratory assignments
• 20%: unannounced quizes
• 30%: final examination

Your grade will be assigned depending on how well you understand the material as evidenced by the assignments, labs, and tests. We would be very happy if the entire class received a 4.0.

Challenging Grading

Please make sure that you are one hundred and ten percent sure that you are justified in questioning the grading of a problem. Please do not challenge a grading if you haven't carefully gone over the solution set beforehand.

Cheating

Cheating is a serious offense. Cheating hurts everyone: you are not learning the material, you are punishing your fellow classmates who are not cheating, you are punishing everyone else in the department and major, and you are punishing the instructor and teaching assistant who have devoted serious time to your education. So don't cheat.

If you are caught cheating, you can expect a failing grade in the course and an initiation of a cheating case in the University system. Not good. So don't cheat.

To avoid creating situations where copying can arise, don't email or post your solutions files. You can post general questions about interpretation and tool use, but limit your comments to these categories. If in doubt about what might constitute cheating, please email the instructor describing the situation.