Course Overview

Email
Discussion board
Readings
Grades
Exams
Problem Sets
Projects
Academic Honesty

Email

The a good deal of administrative information regarding this course (homework assignments, project assignments, helpful hints, etc.) will be communicated via the class email list. Be sure to check your CSE 451 email at least daily!
Also helpful is the course calendar which contains the reading assignments and due dates for problem sets and the project assignments.

back to top     


Discussion board

There's a class discussion board with separate threads for various topics. The board is linked from the navigation section of course pages.

back to top     


Readings

The text for the course is Operating Systems: Principle and Practice, Anderson and Dahlin. The book is available both at the University Bookstore and via Amazon.com
Readings assigned for each lecture are listed on the course calendar. Hack weeks, lecture topics, exams, homework and project due dates can all also be found on the calendar. Note that you can subscribe to the calendar - this is very convenient.

Grades

  • Project: 50%
  • Problem sets: 5%
  • Midterm: 15%
  • Final: 30%

back to top     


Exams

There will be one midterm exam and a final exam for this course.

back to top    


Problem Sets

There may be a few short problem sets assigned. The problem sets are to be done individually. They are primarily diagnostic -- intended to reinforce the basic material covered in the class and to help prepare students for the exams.

back to top    


Projects

The core of the course is the project: to build a working operating system. The project is to be done in groups of 2 people. Every quarter, a few students ask us if they can do the project individually. We strongly discourage this; you will find the project very difficult even for a group. (Note that assignment 0 and 1 are relatively easy; the real difficulty kicks in later.) If you still insist, please provide us your unofficial transcript, including what courses you are currently taking. We will only allow you to work individually if you can prove to us you have scheduled an adequate reserve.
To help provide you time to complete the project, we plan to set aside two weeks during the quarter as hack weeks with no lectures. We will also automatically grant each group four slip days for the project assignments, for you to use at your discretion. These are calendar days -- weekends count. There are no slip days for problem sets. Regardless of your remaining slip days, all assignments must be turned in by Monday, June 8 at 9pm.

back to top    


Academic Honesty

Cheating vs. Collaboration: Please read CSE's Academic Misconduct Policy.

Collaboration is a good thing. On the other hand, cheating is a serious offense. Please don't do it! Concern about cheating creates an unpleasant environment for everyone. If you cheat, you risk losing your position as a student in the department and the college. The department's policy on cheating is to report any cases to the college cheating committee. What follows afterwards is not fun -- for anyone!

So, how do you draw the line between collaboration and cheating? A great one-sentence guideline is highlighted in our Academic Misconduct Policy:

"In general, any activity you engage in for the purpose of earning credit while avoiding learning, or to help others do so, is likely to be an act of Academic Misconduct."

For this quarter, and this quarter only, I will have very relaxed rules with respect to collaboration on the project. You are encouraged to ask for help, from the instructor, from the TA's, from other students. However, do not cross this line: On the project, do not share code or text. Never consult project code or text that might be on the Internet. Never use someone else's code or text in your solutions. Sharing ideas, explaining your code to someone to see if they know why it doesn't work, even helping someone else debug if they've run into a wall, all that is ok.

The exams will be closed book. All work on the exams and on the problem sets must be done individually without help of any kind. You may ask clarifying questions of the TA's and the instructor.

The Credit Your Sources Rule: If you obtain help of any kind on any assignment (project or homework or exams), you must always write the name(s) of your sources on your assignment. Provided it followed the rules above, e.g., on the project, this will allow us to give them extra credit. This and other rules are listed in CSE's Academic Misconduct Policy.

back to top