Course Policies

Grade Breakdown

The Professors reserve the right to adjust grading policies. Final grade determinations are made by the Professors.

Homework Grades: We use points on homework as a mechanism to provide feedback. You should be learning from doing the assignments and also from the feedback on them, which means homework grades may well be lower than you are used to. Don't worry! In past semesters 30%-40% of CIS 110 students have received an A- or better in the course, and we expect this semester to be similar. We will post the median and standard deviation for each homework after they are graded, and we will factor homework grades into your course grades in a way that ensures consistency with past semesters.

Dropping the lowest homework: As long as you submit all assignments and receive a raw score of at least 30% on each of them, your lowest homework score will be dropped. If any homework scores below 30% or you do not submit one or more homeworks, all scores will count. This policy is complicated, but nearly always results in higher homework averages than simply dropping the lowest score that is at least 30%.

Exam Grades: Exam grades are always curved. Your curved grade will show up alongside your raw score in the course dashboard. CIS 110 exams are usually challenging, and curved scores are almost always higher than raw scores.

Recitation Score:

• Half of your recitation score (2.5%) is based on your attendance as recorded by your TAs. We allow for two unexcused absences. Any excused absences (e.g. illness) must be reported to your TAs at the time; your TA will mark you present for those days.
• The other half (2.5%) is for participation. You received full credit as long as your TAs recorded that you participate in at least four recitations.

Lecture/Polls: Your score is calculated based on your participation during in-class polls. We will start recording poll participation after the course selection deadline, and we make a reasonable allowance for missed lectures. This allowance covers all missed polls, no matter what the reason. We cannot mark you present for a poll if your input is not recorded.

Making up work: Grades are based on your performance on work completed during the semester in accordance with course policies. It is not possible to make up work in order to improve your grade or compensate for violations of course policy.

Incompletes, with permission to complete coursework after the semester ends, will be granted only in verifiable cases of serious, extended illness or similar extraordinary circumstances.

Grounds for failure: A serious lack of effort may be grounds for failure in the course. If you find yourself in any of the situations below, you should meet with an instructor promptly to discuss your situation:

• Numerous missed assignments or substantially blank assignments.
• Missed midterm or final exam. Be prepared to provide documentation of a serious emergency to justify any unexcused exam absence.
• Academic dishonesty (see the collaboration tab). If you believe you may have violated the collaboration policy, you are encouraged to explain what happened to the instructor. Even if your actions constitute a serious violation, the sanctions are likely to be considerably less if you turn yourself in.

Lecture attendance: Lecture attendance is required and is part of your grade. Frequently missing lecture, arriving late, leaving early, or failing to participate in polls may affect your course grade.

Attending the "other" lecture section: If you must miss your own lecture section but can attend the other lecture, you may do so occasionally. However one lecture is completely full, and the other nearly so, so you cannot make a habit of this. Your poll participation will still be counted and you should not inform us before attending the other lecture.

Missing lecture: If you occasionally miss lecture due to illness, family emergency, religious holidays, or other reasons, you should fill out a Course Absence Report, but you do not need to contact us. We make reasonable allowance for absences when we compute your attendance score, but we do not track the reasons for individual absences. We also encourage you watch the lecture recordings and come to instructor office hours to catch up on any material you missed.

Extended Absence: If you will miss a week or more of class for any reason, you should contact the instructors to arrange a plan to make up work. If this is a foreseeable circumstances (such as attending a conference), you should contact us as early as possible, and certainly well before you leave. In emergency situations such as illness, you should contact us as soon as is practical. You should also contact your academic advisor who can help you coordinate with all your professors and other resources on campus.

Recitation attendance: Recitation attendance is required and is part of your grade. If you cannot make your own recitation for any reason, you must contact your TAs. They do not receive copies of your Course Absence Reports. When possible, you should arrange with your TAs to attend a different recitation that week. It is appropriate to arrange to attend a different recitation once during the semester due to a scheduling conflict (such as a job interview), and also because of illness. It is not acceptable to simply show up to a different recitation or to attend a different recitation on a regular basis.

Lecture recordings: Slides and associated textbook readings are normally posted on the syllabus page before class. The lecture recordings are posted automatically about an hour after lecture. The list of recordings is linked from the Syllabus page. Note that the recordings do not replace your attendance in class! You will not be able to ask the recording questions, see anything written on the chalkboard, hear other students' questions (only the instructor's microphone is captured), or see demos or the contents of the second projector screen. Also, the recording system is unreliable and frequently fails.

Registering for polls: For running in-class polls, we use Poll Everywhere. In order for us to track your poll participation, you will need to sign up for a Poll Everywhere account. You must sign up using your Penn email in order for us to properly track your attendance.

Participating in a poll for a friend: Answering polls for another student so they appear to be present, or having another student poll for you when you are absent, is a serious violation of course policy. All students involved will normally be referred to the Office of Student Conduct and will have implications for all students' grades.

Participating in a poll remotely: You cannot participate in polls remotely. Any poll submissions from outside of the classroom will not count towards attendance.

It is imperative to understand that computer programming is not a spectator sport. To get good at it, you need to practice, and the primary vehicle for that is the homeworks.

Due dates: Homework assignments are due at 11:59pm Eastern Time unless otherwise posted. Most, but not all, assignments will be due on Thursdays. All deadlines are automatically enforced. The submission link disappears when you can no longer receive credit.

Where to submit: All homework must be submitted electronically through the course dashboard. There is a link at the top of the page.

How often to submit: You can submit each assignment as often as you like. We will grade the last version of each file that you submit. Once you have submitted a file, you do not need to resubmit it unless it has changed.

What to do if the submission system isn't working: If you have trouble with the submission system, e-mail your code to your TAs before the deadline. We will normally give you an extension to resubmit online once. Submit your next assignment early and seek help if you still have problems. (You can always resubmit later on.) We will not normally give you a second such extension unless you have sought help resolving the problem well ahead of the deadline.

Always back up your work. One or two students CIS 110 lose their work to a crashed computer each week. It is not grounds for an extension. Seriously. Always back up your work. Fortunately, there are multiple easy ways to back up your work:

• Always save your work to a USB drive as well as your hard drive.
• Always save your work to your SEAS home directory (non-SEAS students: you will request a SEAS account as part of Homework 0). Your work will be automatically backed up and accessible from the Moore 100 labs as well as your own computer. You can find instructions for accessing this space from Windows computers or Mac computers.
• Save your work to a cloud service like Penn+Box or Dropbox. Make sure your files are private and not shared with anyone else, so you do not inadvertently violate the collaboration policy.
• Submit early and often! If you computer crashes, we will be able to send you the most recent version of every file you submitted. You can submit as often as you like.

Late Submissions:

• Deadlines are automatically enforced. Forty-eight (48) hours after the deadline, the submission link will disappear. (E.g., if an assignment is due on Thursday at 11:59pm, the submission link will disappear Saturday at 11:59pm).  If you have fewer than two late days remaining, the link will disappear sooner.
  
• If the deadline is approaching, submit! Remember, it is much better to submit an incomplete assignment than nothing. You can always resubmit later if you make further progress before the deadline.
• You have four late days to use as you wish throughout the semester. Each late day allows you to submit an assignment up to 24 hours late. Late days are designed to help you through an especially busy week, a cold, and other issues that commonly crop up at some point in the semester. Use them wisely.
• You may use at most two late days on any given assignment. After two days, you will receive no credit.
• Late days are deducted automatically for late submissions. You do not need to ask permission or give any reason for using them.

Extensions:

• Extensions will be granted only in exceptional, verifiable circumstances (e.g., extended, serious illness). It is your responsibility to provide documentation. Extracurricular obligations, heavy workloads in other courses, and mild illnesses like the common cold are covered by the late day policy.
  
• You may not use late days together with an extension. This rule is enforced by the submission system.
• Extensions are valid only if entered into the system and are visible when you view your grades or submit online. If your extension does not show up with 24 hours, contact the instructor or TA who granted it to make sure it gets entered.

Extra Credit:

• Opportunities for (optional) extra credit may be offered on some assignments. The amount of work and difficulty may vary widely: some extra credit will be easy to obtain, while other extra credit may be more challenging.
• The overall effect of extra credit on your final grade is limited. Extra credit will only be able to increase your final grade percentage by a maximum of 1%.
• Extra credit points are not counted the same as regular homework points, and will have a smaller effect on your grade. We encourage you to do extra credit the extra credit when it you find it fun and rewarding, but never at the expense of the main assignment. If you choose to estimate your own grade based on these guidelines, ignore your extra credit and you may get a nice surprise on your final grade.

Homework Regrade Requests:

• You may request a re-grade for homeworks up to one week after they are returned. Regrades must be requested in writing (email will not be accepted) to your TAs during recitation time the week after your grades are distributed.
• Your request must include a concise explanation of why your grade should be different.
• Note that a re-grade can result in a lower score on the problem in question. We also reserve the right to re-grade the entire submission. As a result, your final grade may be lower or higher than your original grade.
• Keep in mind, that exam regrade requests are governed by slightly differently policies, which are posted on the exams page.

CIS 110 is a challenging course that requires a substantial amount of time for most students. Many of you are learning a new kind of abstraction (algorithmic thinking), a new way to express procedures (programming), and a new level of discipline in thought (precision and rigour). Working through the assignments, encountering errors and bugs, and finding the solutions yourself are absolutely essential to learning these skills. To this end, CIS 110 institutes and enforces a strict collaboration policy to ensure that all students are learning effectively. Suspected violations of this policy are systematically referred to the Office of Student Conduct, and generally incur both a disciplinary sanction and a grade deduction.

On the homework assignments, we use automated "cheat-checking" software to help detect plagiarism and inappropriate collaboration. This software is very, very effective. According to the Annual Report of the Penn Office of Student Conduct, there were 127 referrals for undergraduate academic misconduct in 2013–2014. 55 of these cases, or nearly 45%, were referred from CIS 110. By taking the collaboration policy as seriously as the course staff does, you will not only help reduce this number, but you will also help yourself and your fellow students learn more effectively.

Collaboration Policy

• You may not look at, access, or acquire a copy of anyone else's work. There are certain exceptions described in the "Appropriate Collaboration" section below.
• You may not show your work to anyone except current CIS 110 Professors and course staff. You may not post any portion of your assignment online. This applies even after the course ends. There are certain exceptions described in the "Appropriate Collaboration" section.
• You may not consult or ask questions in websites or online fora except the CIS 110 Piazza board.
• You must properly and promptly acknowledge all non-trivial help you receive, all collaboration involving you, and all resources you use in your help log.
• Don't be clever about this policy. Instead, if your unsure whether something is appropriate, come by instructor office hours and ask.

Collaboration Policy (Annotated)

This annotated version of the policy includes many examples and elaborations to help you understand how to interpret the rules. It covers many situations that have come up in past semesters, but it is not exhaustive.

• You may not look at, access, or acquire a copy of anyone else's work. There are certain exceptions as provided in the "Appropriate Collaboration" section.
  • You should think closely about the assignment, and your work should be completely the product of your own understanding.
  • You may not look at another student's code "for reference," then putting it aside and writing your program, even if the other student is not currently or never was in CIS 110.
  • You may not look at code posted to online forums by people asking questions or providing (more on this below).
  • You may not look at another person's solution to the problem in the assignment, even if it is not based on the actual assignment or is in a different programming language (e.g. you may not look at a C++ or OCaml implementation of an assignment to help you with your own Java version for CIS 110).
  • You may not let someone else (even someone who has never taken CIS 110) explain a solution to you in so much detail that they are effectively dictating the code to you line by line, whether or not that person is looking at his or her code while doing so. If the similarity of your code to the person's who helped you is much higher than the similarity between random pairs of submissions, we must treat the case as on of inappropriate access to someone else's work.
• You may not show your work to anyone except current CIS 110 Professors and course staff. You may not post any portion of your assignment online. This applies even after the course ends. There are certain exceptions as provided in the "Appropriate Collaboration" section.
  • You may not allow anyone to look at your work, either on your computer screen or on printouts.
  • You may not publicly post your work online anywhere.
  • You may not store your work in any public location (a private, password-protected Dropbox account is fine, a shared Dropbox folder or public GitHub repository is not).
  • You may not explain how you solved a problem in so much detail that you are effectively dictating the code, whether or not you are looking at your own code at the time
  • You may not allow anyone else to access your files. It is your responsibility to properly password-protect your own computer when it is unattended. If you are working on any other computer, delete your files computer when you are done, then empty the Trash / Recycle Bin.
• You may not consult or ask questions in websites or online fora except the CIS 110 Piazza board.
  • The CIS 110 Piazza board is a safe space for you to discuss the assignment with the course staff.
  • You may not search for solutions to a programming issue (e.g. an implementation solution, a bug, or an error message) online.
  • You may not post questions on websites such as Stack Overflow or Yahoo Answers. Answers you receive will likely be snarky, irrelevant to the assignment, or detrimental to the learning goals of the assignment.
• You must properly and promptly acknowledge all non-trivial help you receive, all collaboration involving you, and all resources you use in your help log.
  • The principles behind the help log are to track your own progress to maximize your learning, acknowledge your sources, and maintain a verifiable record of your progress.
  • A proper acknowledgment includes the date and time of the help, the full names of everyone involved (including course staff), the complete titles and authors of resources you consulted or URL(s) of websites you referred to, the question or topic you discussed, and the resolution (what you should try next, how you solved the problem, any learning outcomes from the discussion, etc.).
  • Any help you receive help from course staff outside office hours, e.g. questions answered by your recitation TAs after recitation or by email, must be logged by you manually.
  • Any time you receive help from course staff within office hours, and the help you received was logged in the online office hour system, you must update the question and resolution of your queue entry once you have been helped to reflect your discussion with the course staff.
  • Any time you participate in the question and answer of someone next to you in office hours, or get help from another student in office hours, you must log it. Being in office hours does not give you permission to work together in impermissible ways or to skip logging collaboration or help.
  • When you work with someone else in CIS 110, both you and the other person must log each other in the help log. It is all right for both people to write the same help log entry.
  • Any help, collaboration, or outside resource that is not properly logged in your help log or in the office hour system is a violation of the course policy. Some examples include:
    • Not providing the full name of the person who helped you in the help log – e.g. logging "My roommate/tutor/friend/Albus helped me understand the merge sort algorithm"
    • Not describing in detail the question and resolution – e.g. logging "quick question" for a question or "fixed it" for a resolution
    • Not logging help you received from working with other students – e.g. you worked together with Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger in office hours, but Hermione asked all the questions in the online office hour queue system and you did not also log the same questions
    • Not using the office hours sign-in system during office hours – e.g. receiving help from someone who does not have a CIS 110 course staff name tag
  • The only thing that you do not need to log is the course material. Course material is defined as follows:
    • The assignment writeup page itself or anything directly linked to from the assignment page
    • Any questions that you read or ask on the CIS 110 Piazza board
    • The previous exams and their solutions
    • The CIS 110 code style guide
    • The PennDraw wiki or any other direct links from the Resources menu
    • The assigned textbook and the booksite
    • Anything taught by your recitation TAs to your recitation section at large
    • The lectures, the lecture recordings, and the lecture slides
  • You do not need to log questions that are not directly related to the assignment. For example, these questions do not need to be logged:
    • Information about the course: course policies, examination information, or the arrangements for office hours, lectures, recitations, or Piazza
    • Information about computer science in general: continuing your education in computer science, activities to become more involved in computer science, doing research, or looking for employment in the technology industry
    • Information about finding support outside the scope of CIS 110: referrals to other University resources, academic or personal advising, counselling, or learning strategies
• As always, the Penn Code of Academic Integrity applies.

These restrictions may seem artificial. After all, in the real world, computer scientists and programmers collaborate freely all the time, and so do CIS majors. In many upper-level CIS classes as well as in industry, looking up answers online, debugging code together, and sharing code are all permitted and encouraged. However, these behaviours are forbidden in CIS 110: CIS 110 is not an upper-level class, and it is not the real world. These restrictions help you learn.

Appropriate collaboration

The collaboration policy sounds scary because we take it very seriously. But it is not meant to prohibit all discussion and collaboration. It is intended to limit only the forms of collaboration that undermine the learning goals of the course. Here are some ways that we encourage you to work together and to get help:

• Come to office hours early and often! CIS 110 is designed for you to learn as much as possible with the benefit of help. We want you to get stuck, ask questions, and learn how to experiment and find solutions. We also want you to learn more by taking advantage of office hours than you would be able to learn on your own.
• Read through each assignment with one or two friends, and work out together what the different steps are; what you need to make sure you understand; and where to find the information you need in the assignment writeup, course web site, and textbook. Document in your help log who you discussed with, and what you concluded.
• Work through course notes and example code together. Work together on example programs that are not part of the assignment to understand different concepts. For example, when you are preparing for the NBody assignment, we encourage you to work through the Bouncing Ball examples together, and modify it together to help understand animation and nested loop structures. Again, document this in your help log.
• Discuss together how to test your code, and what different kinds of input might cause problems. We don't always tell you everything that could go wrong in your program; figuring that out is part of your job, and doing this together will help you understand the assignment better prepare to start programming. Log your discussions before you forget the details.
• Search the CIS 110 Piazza board for answers. When you have a question, it is likely someone else has asked it already. Only post your question if you can't find a discussion thread that helps you. Answer other students' questions on Piazza, for instance by suggesting tests the other student can do to help detect and debug the issue in their code. You do not need to log the help you receive and provide on the CIS 110 Piazza.
• Compare output from your program and a friend's. As long as you do not look at each other's code, we strongly encourage comparing output as a way to test your program. If you do this, you must log exactly the help that you provide.

Suspected violations are referred to the University of Pennsylvania Office of Student Conduct (OSC).All implicated students are referred, whether or not they are all in violation. The OSC will contact each student who has been referred, conduct an investigation, and determine any disciplinary sanctions. You may find the following information helpful if you are referred.

• Don't panic! Every student who may be connected to a violation gets referred since we don't know all the facts. However we are very careful to include any information in our report that could show a student had good intentions or is likely to be innocent so the OSC can clear the situation up as quickly and painlessly as possible.
• You remain in good standing in the course while a procedure is ongoing. Whenever possible, the instructors do not even notify your TAs about the procedure in order to protect your privacy.
• The best way to resolve any referral with the least stress and smallest possible sanction is to meet promptly with the OSC tell the complete truth whatever it is. Holding back information or misrepresenting facts invariably prolongs the case and results in a stronger sanction.
• The OSC runs the investigation, decides whether a sanctionable violation occurred, and determines any sanction. The instructors are effectively witnesses in this process, providing evidence. As a result, we cannot discuss an ongoing procedure with you under any circumstances. We know this can be very frustrating, but it is absolutely necessary to avoid miscommunication and guarantee the integrity of the process.
• You may not withdraw from the course while an OSC procedure is pending. (This is University policy.) We will only support a late withdraw petition after the procedure is resolved if you are cleared of all wrongdoing.
• If your procedure is not resolved by the end of the semester, you will receive an incomplete. We cannot give you a grade, even unofficially, until the procedure is complete. We try hard to resolve every case as quickly as possible to avoid this situation. The most common reasons a case is not resolved by the end of the semester is because it involves one of the last homework assignments or because the student stops cooperating with the procedure.
• Be warned that an incomplete due to an ongoing OSC procedure can affect your academic standing and your eligibility for athletics, certain scholarships, study abroad, and other activities. Neither we nor the OSC has any control over this, even when it seems probable that you will ultimately be cleared or receive a very minor sanction.

Violations of course policy also factor into your course grade.

• The Professors determine what grade changes are appropriate based on the OSC's report of the circumstances and only on the OSC's report. We do not consider the sanction imposed, and we may adjust your grade even if there is no disciplinary sanction.
• Grading decisions are FINAL AND NON-NEGOTIABLE.
• Grade adjustment is, by definition, not a disciplinary sanction. See Faculty Handbook, IV.D. Faculty Authority to Assign Grades and Academic Integrity:

  "Only the institution, acting through its formal processes, may discipline a student. Grades are not sanctions, even if they arise from a judgment that a student has violated a norm of academic integrity. In such cases, the grade may reflect the faculty member's view that a piece of work was done inappropriately, but it represents a judgment of the quality of the work, not a record of discipline for the behavior."

• We treat all types of violations equally for the purposes of grading. Every violation takes us away from teaching for many hours, impacting all students. Relying on inappropriate help or collaboration has an added detrimental effect on your learning. Giving improper help has an added detrimental effect on the receiver's learning. In all cases, the impact is serious.
• The grade impact ranges from a 0 on every assignment in question plus a 5% deduction from your final course grade for each assignment in question up to an F in the course.
• We will not normally allow you to withdraw from the course after you have committed a violation, unless you are granted a leave of absence by your home school. Remember, permission (or not) to withdraw is neither a right, a disciplinary sanction, nor a grade.