General Course Policies ( please read these carefully!! )

• Material covered:
  The course consists of all material covered in lectures, labs, homework, assignments and assigned reading.
  These components are to be considered separate and individually essential building blocks of your introduction to the art and science of computer programming - and are all examinable.
  
  
• Collaboration policy:
  In general, we have found that one of the best predictors of success in these courses is participation in a study group of some kind. We encourage you to work together and learn from each other in as many ways as possible, and we will provide any assistance we can to make this happen. However, we also have to assess each student individually, so there are very explicit boundaries to collaboration:
  • Midterm & final exams, quizzes, lab practicals -- Obviously no collaboration.
  • In-lecture activities -- Generally collaborative.
  • Homeworks -- Collaboration is strongly ENCOURAGED, although of course, you must still submit your own solutions.
    Note that questions on exams and quizzes are frequently taken directly from homeworks, so it is well worth your while to fully master them.
  • Lab exercises -- Collaboration is strongly ENCOURAGED, and in fact you will be working in pairs in the lab.
    If you complete an exercise, feel free to help others -- teaching enhances your own learning.
  • Home programming assignments -- Collaboration is strongly ENCOURAGED: again, you will be working in teams, but the programs you submit must still represent YOUR OWN original work. Teams should work on the algorithm together, help solve problems, and help debug/test each others code, so we expect some similarities between submissions from members of a team.
    However, directly copying code from a team-member, or copying code from ANY outside source (any book, current or past students, past solutions, web sites, etc.) is STRICTLY FORBIDDEN: we test every submission for copying, and when we find it we treat it as flagrant academic dishonesty (see below).
    
  
  
• Academic dishonesty:
  We use a powerful tool that automatically compares all programs (this quarter and from past quarters too ), neglecting differences in variable names, spacing, etc., and detects copied code. If you are smart enough to outwit the tool, you are smart enough to write the program yourself. We regularly catch several cases of copying in the course EVERY QUARTER, with severe penalties given. Other forms of cheating, such as lying to an instructor in order to be allowed to make up a test, or copying on a quiz, etc., are all treated with the same severity. PLEASE, don't risk it!! We hate failing students!!
  Cheating may be reported anonymously at https://www.cs.ucr.edu/cheating
  
  
• Regrade policy:
  Regrade requests must be submitted in writing and within one week of the posting of the relevant grades. Likewise, grade-database errors should be pointed out within one week of posting.
  
  
• Communicating with the instructors and TAs:
  When emailing your instructors or TAs, please remember that many students have the same name, and your instructor may be teaching other courses too. So please give: your full name, the course you are taking, and your student ID number.
  You should use your CS.UCR email account ( remember that UCR sends many official notices now only by email ). Please try to be polite and professional, and use reasonable grammar and formatting.
  
  
• Assignment submissions:
  All homeworks & assignments are to be turned in electronically. Each file should begin with our report template header. Source code should comply with the course's coding standards. Also, you must include a section explaining the design, structure, etc of your program and how it works. Comments in source code are important, but they are not a replacement for an explanatory section. Please remember that successfully writing a computer program that compiles and runs correctly is not something anyone can do in just a few minutes, even when it looks easy. Debugging typically takes three times longer than figuring out how to write your program. So don't leave your programming assignments to the last minute!
  
  
• Quizzes and in-class activities
  You will need the "personalized" multiple choice answer sheet available here.
  You should print multiple copies of your personal answer sheet, and bring them with you to every class.
  
  
• Lab attendance:
  Attendance is required for the full 3-hour lab. If you finish early, help others ( teaching increases your own learning ), read ahead, work on your at-home program assignments, etc.
  
  
• Lab enrollment:
  To reduce disruptions and provide for the best educational environment, all persons in lab during scheduled lab time should be formally registered in that section. In general, no swapping sections and no unregistered people in the lab are allowed, even if there are extra computers.
  
  
• Switching/adding/dropping lab and lecture sections:
  All add, drop, and section changes of all lower division Computer Science courses, after the period when students can do so electronically is over, are done through the College of Engineering's Student Affairs office. Neither the instructors nor the CS department itself can sign any add/drop forms, nor can they arrange for section changes. Please go to Student Affairs, Bourns Hall A159, for any such changes.
  
  
• Time Requirements:
  This is a four-unit CS course. As such, you should expect to spend 3 hours/week in lecture, 3 hours/week in lab, and 6 to 10 hours/week doing individual study ( readings, homework, programming, lab preparation, etc ) -- and we're NOT exaggerating here!
  Please don't underestimate the time you will need to spend on this course. These are real time amounts spent by successful past students. Computer Science and Engineering are challenging disciplines requiring extensive time to master -- it's worth it in the end ( great jobs, great pay, respect, etc. ), but those things don't come for free.
  
  
• Final Exams:
  Final exams are scheduled by the University, not by the instructor, and are correlated to the course sections. This means you take the final exam scheduled for the section you are enrolled in.
  
  
• Final grades:
  Per university policy, changes to your final grade can be made only in the event of a clerical error. Asking your instructor how far you were from a cutoff and what extra work you can do to improve the grade is not appropriate.