Syllabus for Evan Golub's CMSC 250 Sections Spring 2023

Lecture and Discussions

Section	Tu/Th Lecture	MW Discussion	Discussion TA
CMSC250   0301	3:30pm- 4:45pm (CSI 1115)	2:00pm-2:50pm (CHE 2136)	Gary
CMSC250   0302	3:30pm- 4:45pm (CSI 1115)	3:00pm-3:50pm (CHE 2136)	Xander
CMSC250   0303	3:30pm- 4:45pm (CSI 1115)	4:00pm-4:50pm (CSI 1121)	Nathan

Draft Status Until First Day Of Class

Overview

This course will focus on a selection of fundamental mathematical structures, logical principles, and proof techniques that are relevant to the field of Computer Science. By the end of the semester, students are expected to be very comfortable and capable with skills such as abstract reasoning and the ability to carry out formal mathematical proofs of statements based on stated premises and techniques presented within this course.

Prerequisites

Grades of C- or higher in both CMSC131 and MATH141.

Contact Information

Evan Golub : 1210 Iribe Center : egolub (at) glue (dot) umd (dot) edu

Telephone is the worst way to try to contact me. The above e-mail is the best way (e-mail sent to addresses other than this one are likely not to be seen).

Both Evan Golub's weekly office hours schedule (subject to change weekly) and the TA office hours (a consistent schedule) will be posted on the ELMS welcome page for this course during the second week of classes. During office hours I ask that you wear a mask. If you come to office hours without a mask, then I will ask you to sit a safer distance away as you ask your question. During the first week of classes, Evan Golub will be available after lecture on Thursday, and in his office on Friday between 3:00pm and 4:30pm for questions, in addition to (as in all weeks) by e-mail as listed above.

Course Website

The ELMS page is the launching point for announcements, etc. That site will provide links to other pages, such as this syllabus as well as course materials and assignments. Any official announcements will be posted there. You may receive e-mail informing you of emergency announcements, but you are responsible for checking the ELMS class site regularly. Some of the resources will be password-protected. This will be discussed during the semester.

In-class Technology

Due to the nature of the material, "pen and paper" is seen as the best technology for taking notes. Additionally, practicing following and solving problems by writing them out by hand can help better prepare you to feel more comfortable doing so on exams. Due to this, and the distraction that the use of laptops, tablets, and smartphones tend to cause in the classroom, I respectfully request that you not use them in this class. If you do, I ask that you sit towards the back away from those students who might be distracted by your use of them. If you have an accommodation regarding their use, please speak with me about it.

Recommended Text

There is no required textbook for this course and no assignments will refer to a textbook. However, for students who like having a textbook as a secondary source of explanations and for practice problems, the recommended textbook is an old edition of "Discrete Mathematics with Applications" by Susanna S. Epp. The book is currently in its 5th edition (which I have not seen) but I've used this textbook as the recommended text going back to its 2nd edition, and for class purposes I think any of the 2nd or 3rd or 4th and likely even the 5th edition would be fine, so feel free to find one of those to buy inexpensively used online. (NOTE: the "other sellers" for used at places like Amazon have much lower prices)

Expected Major Topics (not necessarily listed in order of presentation)

• Symbolic logic and related proof techniques.
• Number theory and related proofs.
• Representing sequences.
• Proof by induction (regular and strong and constructive).
• Set theory and related proofs.
• Counting and probability.
• Functions and related proofs.
• Relations and related proofs.
• Graphs and proofs.

Learning Outcomes

• Understand concepts in symbolic logic and be able to undertake formal proofs of foundational rule, and then use such rules in multi-step proofs.
• Understand concepts in number theory and apply those concepts to formal proofs that combine logic with number theory.
• Understand how to represent numeric patterns as mathematical sequences.
• Understand the concepts of proof by induction (regular and strong and constructive) and how to apply the technique to proving a variety of mathematical problems, especially ones related to proving the asymptotic efficiency of algorithms.
• Understand set theory and be able to apply the proof techniques shown in that domain.
• Understand counting and probability and apply those concepts to specific problems that tie to topics such as code design, code coverage, and unit testing.
• Understand the mathematical concepts of functions and relations, and be able to apply the proof techniques seen in the course to that domain.
• Understand basic graph theory and how the proof techniques seen in the course can apply to proving properties of graphs.

Homework, Practice Problems, Quizzes, Aporés

There will be some form of "at-home" work assigned most weeks and doing these is an important part of practicing the material. Some of these will be homework assignments that will have a due date and be graded. Some of these will be practice problems and will have a suggested date for completion but will not be collected or graded.

Homework assignments must be handwritten and legible. Please note that practicing giving handwritten and legible answers will help prepare you to do the same on exams. Homework assignments are individual work. You may ask questions of us during office hours but may not work with other students (past or present) or ask for or search for help from other sources (such as online) on the homework assignments. Please see the Academic Honesty section below for more details. The assignments are to be handwritten but submitted online as PDFs (details of where online to be given) so in addition to the sheets being legible, the photographs/scans of them must be easy to read (good contrast, good resolution, no shadows or fingers or feet in them). We might only grade certain questions on any given homework assignment. The Gradescope entry will not give you any indication of this. All questions will be listed as 0 points on Gradescope until after the due date.

It is suggested that you attempt practice problems on your own, as if they were homework assignments, but for practice problems you are allowed to also ask fellow students for help. It is very important that if you do work with others on these that you also revisit them a few days later on your own with the goal of confirming that you truly understood them.

There will be an "in-discussion problems" activity most weeks. Some of these might be given as graded quizzes, in which case they will be collected in discussion right after you take them and graded by us. Some of these will be what I call aporés and for those after you take them in discussion they will be "shuffled" and peer-annotated in discussion as the teaching assistant reviews the answers to each question. Both quizzes and aporés are individual work and closed-note/book/tech.

You will be told in advance whether you are taking a quiz or an aporés. The distribution of quizzes versus aporés will be determined in part by participation levels on aporé days.

On all of these, you will need to answer the questions using knowledge, techniques, and approaches from this course. That is what they are designed to give you practice with and to assess.

Exams

There will be three exams given in class during lecture time during the semester, and a final exam given in person during the university final exam period in a room to be determined. These exams are closed-book, closed-notes, closed-technology, and individual works.

On all of these, you will need to answer the questions using knowledge, techniques, and approaches from this course. That is what they are designed to assess, and answers that attempt to use other techniques are highly likely to be graded as incorrect.

Grading

Final grades will be computed according the following weights. (These weights are tentative and subject to minor future adjustment if needed.)

     Homework Assignments and Quizzes        12%
     Semester Exams                          54%
         #1 (02/23 in lecture)     
         #2 (03/30 in lecture)    
         #3 (04/27 in lecture)   
     Cumulative Final Exam (05/16 @ 4pm)     34%

As you see above, there will be three semester exams, and a cumulative final exam (the room has not yet been announced for that). Due to the nature of the material, the second and third midterm will each focus on newer material but will also be somewhat cumulative in nature.

The way the semester exams will work is that at the end of the semester, based on how many points worth of questions we have had, I will scale things to an "out of 100%" score for the 54% of your grade connected those exams. So, as an example, if in the end there were 62+70+64 = 196 points worth of questions, the "out of 100%" would be calculated by dividing your total by that 196. Note that not all exams will have the same number of points.

Grades will be assigned based on the following anticipated ranges. It should be noted that these ranges may be expanded based on results obtained during the semester, but they will not be made smaller. The lower and upper parts of each range will be reserved for +/- grades.

      Range      Grade
    90 - 100       A
    80 -  89       B 
    70 -  79       C
    60 -  69       D
     0 -  59       F

Regrading Policy

All regrade requests must be made in written form within 5 days of the graded item being returned to the class. The regrade policy is that an answer must be correct yet graded as incorrect in order to be eligible for regrading. Questions of partial credit are not eligible for regrading requests. The written request (submitted online, details to be provided) will need to carefully explain why the given answer was correct. For logistical reasons, requests made without proper logical reasoning of correctness provided may lead to a points penalty on the exam/assignment.

Academic Honesty

All homework assignments, quizzes, and exams must be done individually. Please visit the webpage of the University's Academic Dishonesty and Student Misconduct page for students for a detailed explanation of what constitutes academic dishonesty. Note that it includes not only cheating, fabrication, and plagiarism, but also includes helping other students commit acts of academic dishonesty by allowing them to obtain copies of your work. All submitted work must be your own.

The use of so-called AI tools such as, but not limited to, ones that can generate images or text or code utilizing things such as, but not limited to, a large-scale language model or model built from a text or code or graphical library, is not allowed in this course. Examples include ChatGPT and GitHub Copilot. Not only are there legal and ethical issues surrounding those, but also their use would interfere with certain learning outcomes as well as leave you unprepared for the exams.

Any student violating any of these or general University academic honesty rules will be reported to the Office of Student Conduct for review and potentially a hearing. After a report is submitted by an instructor, the case is evaluated by the office and previous cases have resulted in penalties such as an XF grade in the course (the default penalty), dismissal from the university, or even degree revocation. If you have any doubt as to whether an act of yours might constitute academic dishonesty, please contact the course instructor in advance.

Excused Absence and Academic Accommodations

Any student who needs to be excused for an absence from a single discussion day when a quiz and/or homework exercise is due as a result of a medically necessitated absence shall:

Within 24 hours of the missed discussion, the student must inform the instructor of the missed assessment(s) by using email and by using the "Report Absence" button on the grades server. Each note must contain an acknowledgment by the student that the information provided is true and correct. Providing false information to University staff is prohibited under Part 10(j) of the Code of Student Conduct (V-1.00(B) University of Maryland Code of Student Conduct) and may result in disciplinary action.

The student is responsible for following up with the instructor and/or the TA to make sure they have all information missed from that day.

This self-documentation may not be used for any Major Scheduled Grading Events, defined below, and it may be used for only 1 discussion where a quiz was due and for only 1 homework assignment during the entire semester. Any student who needs to be excused for a prolonged absence (2 or more consecutive class meetings), or for additional quizzes or homework assignments, or for a Major Scheduled Grading Event, must provide written documentation regarding the illness from an outside health care provider or from the Health Center.

This documentation must verify dates of treatment and indicate the timeframe that the student was unable to meet academic responsibilities. In addition, it must contain the name and phone number of the medical service provider to be used if verification is needed. The student should contact the instructor via e-mail at the beginning of the prolonged period and this documentation must be given to the instructor within a week of the student's return to classes.

The Major Scheduled Grading Events for this course include all three semester exams, and the final exam.

At the time the instructor is informed about the missed exam, arrangements can be discussed regarding that Major Scheduled Grading Event.

It is your responsibility to inform the instructor in writing and within the first two weeks of the semester of any intended absences for religious observances any time during the semester that could cause you to miss class or a deadline. The same is true for any official University functions in which you are required to participate.

Disability Support Services

Any student eligible for and requesting reasonable academic accommodations due to a disability is required to provide, via the online ADS system, a letter of accommodation from the Office of Disability Support Services within the first two weeks of the semester and the arrangements for individual exams must be made with the instructor at least one week in advance.

Course Evaluations

The Department of Computer Science takes the student course evaluations very seriously. Evaluations for the Spring will usually be open during the last two weeks of the semester. Students will be able to go to www.CourseEvalUM.umd.edu to complete their evaluations (usually in the last two weeks or so of the semester).

Department-Wide Note

If you have any class concerns, feel free to contact the instructor. If an issue arises with the instructor, report it using the form available at www.cs.umd.edu/classconcern.

Policies and Resources for Undergraduate Courses

It is our shared responsibility to know and abide by the University of Maryland's policies that relate to all courses, which include topics like:

Academic integrity

Student and instructor conduct

Accessibility and accommodations

Attendance and excused absences

Grades and appeals

Copyright and intellectual property

Please visit www.ugst.umd.edu/courserelatedpolicies.html for the Office of Undergraduate Studies' full list of campus-wide policies and follow up with me if you have questions.

Copyright Notice

Class materials are copyrighted and may not be reproduced for anything other than for your personal use nor shared or redistributed in any way without written permission from instructor.