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Administrivia

Class Meeting Times and Location

There are two sections of CS 131 in the fall 2004 semester. Both sections meet in Parsons 1285 on Mondays and Wednesdays

The class also has two lab times, both on Thursday evening in Beckman B105

Contact Information and Office Hours

Professor O'Neill

In most cases, you should send e-mail to the general CS 131 help list. Please use e-mail for short, easily answered questions or statements, and office hours for questions which require longer answers. If you need to contact me directly, you can.

If you require help debugging your code, please submit the code first.

Office Hours

My official schedule is posted next to my office door. It includes official office hours (where I virtually guarantee to be available to CS 131 students). I'm also available at other times; if I'm in my office with the door open, I'm probably available.

My office is Olin 1243 (between Belinda's and Ran's offices).

Tutors and Graders

CS 131 has four tutor/graders, who hold their tutoring hours in the lab at the following times:

Department Secretary

The department secretary is Joyce Greene. Her office is Olin 1258. Her telephone number is x18225. If you cannot reach me, you can leave messages for me with Joyce.

Attendance

I expect you to attend every class and participate actively (part of your grade is for in-class participation). In emergencies, you can skip class, but for non-emergency absences, you should speak to me beforehand about appropriate make-up work.

The same rules apply to labs.

Late Policy

Late work is strongly discouraged. If you think it is impossible to accomplish the necessary work in the available time, consult me before the due date. It may be that everyone in the class is having the same problem, in which case we might adjust the assignment. The same advice applies if we have scheduled something at a particularly bad time (e.g., simultaneously with a major deadline for another class) or if there seems to be a bug in an assignment.

If work is submitted late, the score is scaled using the multiplier returned by the following SML function

  fun latemult (mins) =
      let val lateness = real(mins) / real(12 * 60)
          val root     = Real.Math.sqrt lateness
          val squared  = lateness * lateness
      in  Real.max(1.0–(root * (1.0–root) + squared * root), 0.0)
      end;
Graph of Lateness Multiplier

This function is swift to penalize lateness—even one minute late results in a lateness multiplier of 0.964 (i.e., a 3.6% penalty). At nine minutes late, the multiplier is 0.9, a 10% penalty. But with time the rate slows down, the 0.8 point is reached at a little before the first hour, and the 0.6 multiplier is not reached until the work is about 6.5 hours late. At, and beyond, the 12 hour point, the multiplier is zero.

Times are based on the time that the submission process finished, not when you began submitting. For assignments due at 11:59pm, we count late minutes from midnight, and round down to whole numbers of minutes. Thus, you have about two minutes of grace after the clock ticks over to reading 11:59pm. (It is, of course, risky to cut things close, especially since the submit system takes time to perform its work.)

Remember, unless you've very much underestimated the assignment, it is almost never a good idea to submit late. The added points you gain from the extra work won't compensate for the effect of the lateness multiplier.

If you wish to finish an assignment but have your predeadline work graded, do not submit your later work using the regular submit system. Instead, send mail to cs131help and ask for special instructions for submitting your finished work for grader comments.

Extenuating circumstances (such as illness) are dealt with on a case-by-case basis. In general, you are only excused for situations you could not have forseen, and only if you explain the situation at your soonest opportunity.




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