I strongly encourage you to attend all class sessions, but ordinary lecture attendance will not affect your grade. You do need to be present for all exams as well as the project design review and final presentation days.
For the written assignments, you have 3 ‘late days’ that you may use throughout the semester at your discretion. Notify the instructor before the assignment’s due date if you intend to take a late day; if an emergency arises so that you cannot do so, notify the instructor at your earliest opportunity. Late assignments without late days remaining will receive no credit.
For the project deliverables, each deliverable must be submitted on time. Deliverables will be accepted up to 24 hours late with a 25% grade penalty.
The mid-term and final exams will be at the published times. Makeup exams will only be given in exceptional circumstances.
As both a programmer and a student, you are expected to do your own work, attribute sources, and respect the legal and moral rights of others with respect to their work; as a student, you are also required to abide by the University honor Code. While I aim to allow you to make reasonable use of resources, cheating (including copying code, using unauthorized resources during tests, etc.) will not be tolerated. If you are found to be cheating, the penalty may range from an F on the assignment to an F on the course, and will also be reported to the university.
You may consult external resources such as other books and web sites for understanding how to solve homework problems or portions of the project. In your assignment solution, list all external resources you used; if they are available online, provide the URL. You do not need to cite the textbook, or the official documentation for the software we are using.
Besides the course forum, you may ask questions related to completing the project on publicly accessible discussion forums such as Stack Overflow, newsgroups, or publicly-archived mailing lists1. Provide URLs to the forum discussion on the relevant web site or archive (Google Groups works well for newsgroup archives) with your project deliverable submission. When you ask your question, mention that it is for a course project and that your instructor permits you to make reasonable use of discussion forums. You may provide a link back to the Course Policies page on the course web site.
Restrict your questions to questions about how to go about a particular sub-portion of the problem, how something works, why something you are trying doesn’t work, or other specific difficulties. Do not ask “how do I solve <the problem description>?”, or similarly direct translations of the project requirements, or for specific code. Questions should be written to fill in a gap in your understanding that will then enable you to continue your work, not to get a solution to the assignment.
Internet discussion forums other than the TRACS forum are not permitted for homework assignments. If you consult with other students in the class on a homework assignment, list those students’ names in your submission.
You are expected to behave in a civil, respectful manner in all class interactions, both in official meetings such as lectures and out-of-classroom activities such as project group meetings and study sessions, and to contribute to a constructive learning environment.
Texas State policy (PPS 4.02) describes general behaviors that are disruptive. In addition, the Hacker School Social Rules are a good source of guidance on how to maintain a constructive and educational environment.
If you experience or witness harassment of any form, please let me know.
If you need particular accommodations to be able to fully participate in this course, please talk with me as soon as possible. I may ask that you provide documentation from the Office of Disability Services, so if you have such documentation please bring it.
Sites that require registration, login, and/or payment to view answers, such as Experts Exchange or Quora, do not qualify as publicly-available. ↩