1 Syllabus

Instructor: Leonidas Lampropoulos

Location: CSI 2118, TuTh 3.30-4.45pm

Grading:

The course will be a seminar-style course, focused on reading and presenting research papers. As such, the biggest aspect of the grade will be participation in the class discussion and the presentation itself. The course will also have a final project, that will be discussed in due course - it can be anything from a topic picked from one of the proposed ones (see Project), to a (even tangentially) related problem from your own research. There will also be a midterm that counts for 30% of your grade; this is necessary to make this a qualifying course.

Mask Mandate

President Pines provided clear expectations to the University about the wearing of masks for students, faculty, and staff. Face coverings over the nose and mouth are required while you are indoors at all times. There are no exceptions when it comes to classrooms, laboratories, and campus offices. Students not wearing a mask will be given a warning and asked to wear one, or will be asked to leave the room immediately. Students who have additional issues with the mask expectation after a first warning will be referred to the Office of Student Conduct for failure to comply with a directive of University officials.

According to guidance, "instructors and presenters who are fully vaccinated may choose to remove their mask while teaching or speaking to a group, provided they can maintain physical distancing of at least six feet from all other persons at all times and everyone in the audience is masked". Since this is a seminar-style course where everyone will be presenting at least once, and assuming the physical constraints of the designated classroom permit it, I’m inclined to leave it up to each presenter. Let me know if you have any comments/concerns.

Students with Disabilities

Students with disabilities who have been certified by Disability Support Services as needing any type of special accommodations should see the instructor as soon as possible during the schedule adjustment period (the first two weeks of class). Please provide DSS’s letter of accommodation to the instructor at that time.

All arrangements for exam accommodations as a result of disability must be made and arranged with the instructor at least three business days prior to the exam date; later requests (including retroactive ones) will be refused.

Academic Integrity

The Campus Senate has adopted a policy asking students to include the following statement on each examination or assignment in every course: "I pledge on my honor that I have not given or received any unauthorized assistance on this examination (or assignment)." Consequently, you will be requested to include this pledge on each exam.

Problem sets are to be solved individually, therefore cooperation or use of unauthorized materials on problem sets is a violation of the University’s Code of Academic Integrity. Both the person receiving assistance and the person providing assistance are in violation of the honor code. Any evidence of this use of unauthorized materials or cooperation on exams, or other possible violations of the Honor Code, will be submitted to the Student Honor Council, which could result in an XF for the course, suspension, or explusion.

For learning the course concepts (including Coq), students are welcome to study together or to receive help from anyone else.

Violations of the Code of Academic Integrity may include, but are not limited to:

• Failing to do all or any of the work on problem sets by yourself, other than assistance from the instructional staff.

• Posting solutions to your projects to publicly-accessible sites, e.g., on GitHub. GitHub now offers private repositories for students.

If you have any question about a particular situation or source then consult with the instructors in advance. Should you have difficulty with an assignment you should see the instructional staff in office hours, and not solicit help from anyone else in violation of these rules.

It is the responsibility, under the honor policy, of anyone who suspects an incident of academic dishonesty has occurred to report it to their instructor, or directly to the Honor Council.

You are welcome and encouraged to study and compare or discuss solutions to problem sets with any others after they are graded, provided that all of the students in question have received nonzero scores for that problem set.

Course Evaluations

If you have a suggestion for improving this class, don’t hesitate to tell the instructor or TAs during the semester. At the end of the semester, please don’t forget to provide your feedback using the campus-wide CourseEvalUM system. Your comments will help make this class better.

Right to Change Information

Although every effort has been made to be complete and accurate, unforeseen circumstances arising during the semester could require the adjustment of any material given here. Consequently, given due notice to students, the instructors reserve the right to change any information on this syllabus or in other course materials.

A Note on University Policy

For a complete treatment of course-related policies, please see: http://www.ugst.umd.edu/courserelatedpolicies.html.

These policies were recently updated, and in particular there is a notable change to the excused absence policy:

For all other medically necessitated absences, a course instructor may request that students provide documentation from a physician or the University Health Center to verify an absence. In cases where students are asked to provide verification, the course instructor may request the dates of treatment or the time frame that the student was unable to meet academic responsibilities, but may not request diagnostic information.