Course Policies
CSE 415: Introduction to Artificial Intelligence The University of Washington, Seattle, Winter 2025
Rationale: Effective learning requires that each student be actively engaged in the subject matter and activities of the course. The course is structured to foster that engagement in several ways, including working together as a community on in-class activities, and appropriate challenges in assignments and the project.   Course Community and Participation: All the students in CSE 415, the teaching assistants, and the instructor form a community. As a community, we can work together to help each other learn. The first step in allowing this to happen is for each person to be present at class meetings. Regular attendance in class is strongly encouraged, and systematic absences will have a direct effect on the class-participation part of the course grade.   Time Investment: As for most three-credit courses at the University of Washington, students are expected to devote approximately 9 productive hours to the course per week. Actual demands will vary with the material and individual student. Each student is required to stay up to date with assignments, in order for the class to work as a community.   Lateness: Students are allowed a grace period of two days to submit an assignment late without a reduction in points. This is for each of the programming projects and written-exercise assignment. After the grace period, it is still possible to submit work, however, assignments turned in after the grace period will have their scores multiplied by a fraction F that depends on the number L of days past the grace period. If L = 0, then F = 1. If L > 0 but L ≤ 1, then F = 0.8. If L > 1 but L ≤ 2, then F = 0.6. If L > 2 but L ≤ 3, then F = 0.4. If L > 3, then F = 0.0. When you submit an assignment, be particularly careful to submit the file that you intend to submit, and don't fail to submit all files required in that assignment. Forgetting to submit the right version of your file could mean a zero for the whole assignment. Canvas is good about letting you resubmit a better version of your work, provided such resubmission is before the deadline.   Turn-in Deadline Extension Requests: The late-days policy and the fact that we drop the lowest 3 participation item scores at the end of the quarter mean that we will not normally give other extensions of turn-in deadlines. However, if you are sick for multiple days or need the staff to consider extenuating circumstances for a late turn in on an assignment or worksheet, post a request on ED as a private message in the Requests topic with the relevant information. The staff may or may not grant the request, especially since this quarter we are instituting the Late Days policy.   Collaboration or not: Although the staff encourages students to form study groups, and to work together on understanding concepts in the course, homework problems must be done individually, without collaboration, unless collaboration is explicitly permitted on a particular assignment. Solutions to homework assignment must not be taken from the web or from other students.   Turning in the work of another as one's own is considered as a serious form of academic misconduct. The University has strict rules and penalties that apply when evidence of such misconduct is found.   ChatGPT: Large language models such as ChatGPT may only be used for general study and certain questions in assignments in which they are specifically mentioned, in writing, as allowed. They should not be used in programming assignments or the written exercises where they are not specifically requested.   Grading: The following is a tentative formula for weighting the various course components for computing final grades: Programming Assignments: 35 percent Written Assignments: 20 percent Exams (Midterm, 10 percent; Final, 25 percent): 35 percent. Class participation: 10 percent. Quizzes: each assigned quiz counts as one participation unit. The score for each assignment, quiz, participation item, or exam will be posted in Canvas when it is available. Points within each category (exams, etc.) will be rescaled at the end of the quarter in order to bring them into conformity with the weighting above. (The general policy on worksheets is ... no makeups for missed worksheet turn-ins, but the lowest three scores of the participation items (worksheets and quizzes) will be dropped during the grading at the end of the term. Also, the deadlines during the first 2 weeks of the quarter are flexible, as adds and drops are going on.   Online Resources: This offering of CSE 415 makes use of the following online resources: (a) This website, hosted in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering, for course information, including policies, readings, lecture slides, and assignment specifications; (b) Canvas, hosted by UWIT, for turning in assignment files, for hosting assignment feedback from the graders, and for access to Panopto recordings of lectures; (c) us.edstem.org, for online discussions; (d) Gradescope.com, for post-examination reporting; (e) Python.org, for downloading Python 3.12 (or 3.11, 3.10, 3.9, 3.8 or 3.7), which is needed in most of the assignments; and (f) Possibly, other resources.