Policies

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More details on each of these below (links forward down the page):

  1. Remote Format: Synchronous Mode of Instruction: This class is taught in a synchronous, remote format. All instruction and communication will be online, however, some class activities must take place within the scheduled class periods.
  2. Communications: The Course will use the Course Web, Canvas, GitHub and Piazza.
  3. Lectures: Lectures will be a mix of live (synchronous) presentations and pre-recorded videos.
  4. Grading: 64% workbooks, 12% final project, 24% exams, adjustments for surveys and participation
  5. Exams: There will be two evening exams and an exam during the final exam period.
  6. Surveys: There will be an in-class survey each week. We will keep track of whether you complete the surveys.
  7. Policy on Late Assignments: Workbooks may be turned in late, subject to conditions and penalties. Surveys may be completed until the cutoff time.
  8. Regrades: Submit re-grade requests via a web-form. Re-grading considers the whole assignment.
  9. Unexpected Occurances: (Technical Failures, Medical Issues, …) If things go wrong, do what you can, and communicate with us. Usuaully, the “usual remedies” suffice.
  10. Academic Conduct: All work is to be done individually, although collaborative learning is encouraged. Students are expected to uphold standards of professional conduct and academic integrity. The University policies on academic misconduct apply to this class.
  11. Javascript Usage: You should use “plain Javascript” but you may use the modern features of the language supported by a current web browser.
  12. Code After Class: You may use your projects after class is over, subject to some rules.

Remote Format: Synchronous Mode of Instruction

CS559 is being taught online for Spring 2023. There are no in-person (face to face) lectures. All material will be delivered online. Exams will be online. Assignments will be given online. There will be no required in person activities. Consulting and office hours will be held in-person (with remote options).

  1. The mode of instruction for this class is remote synchronous.
  2. There are no face-to-face meetings for this class.
  3. Some activities (particularly exams) will happen at scheduled times.
More Details

The mode of instruction for this class is remote synchronous.

Students are responsible for being available during the official class periods.

The class periods are 9:30-10:45am Tuesday and Thursdays for the 14 weeks of the semester, and the 2 hour official final examination block assigned by the registrar. There are also two evening midterms. If you cannot “attend” during these times, please do not take the class.

Unofficially, we intend to record the lectures and make these recordings available. See the page on Lectures.

So, …

  • If you want to take this class while living in a distant time zone, be prepared that some activities will require you to participate in the mornings and evenings in Madison.
  • You should not take this class and another class scheduled in the same time slot. That is against University rules.
  • You should not take this class if you have responsibilities that mean you will not be available for exams.
  • Staff availability (for consulting, office hours, etc.) will generally be in the Madison time zone.

Lectures: the lectures will be given synchronously - as live presentations via Zoom. Experience from prior classes is that many students prefer to “attend” these lectures. For example, live attendance provides the opportunity for interaction and a regular structure. However, we understand that some students prefer to watch the lectures asynchronously. Our intent is to make asynchronous viewing of the lectures possible. The course staff will make their best effort to make sure that all lectures are recorded, but there are no guarantees. Students are responsible for the material even if a recording is not available. For example, if there is a technical problem and a lecture is not recorded, students are still responsible for the material. (see Lectures for more detail).

We will track participation in synchronous class activities. This includes general attendance, responding to polls, participating in breakout discussions, etc. This will count towards the “participation” modifier on your grade (see Grading).

Exams: There are two evening exams and a final exam. These must be taken within a window of time (5:45-9:00pm for March 8 and April 26, and the official University final period). The exams do not use the entire time period (see Exams)

Optional activities, such as office hours and help sessions, will be held at other times.

If you have other responsibilities during the class periods (for example, you have a job or another class)… be aware that you will need to take the exams during the scheduled times, and that we will not make exceptions for students who chose to take the class despite not being available during class time.

Exam Schedule

  • Exam 1: Wednesday, March 8th, 1 hour within 5:45-9:00pm
  • Exam 2: Wednesday, April 26th, 1 hour within 5:45-9:00pm
  • Exam 3: Sunady, May 7th, 1 hour within 12:25-2:25pm (official assigned Final Exam slot, may be changed by the Registrar)

Communications

  • The course web has course information and content. New material will be announced on Canvas.
  • Announcements will be made via Canvas. Make sure you receive Canvas announcements.
  • Emergency announcements will be made via email, but we will try to keep this to a minimum.
  • General (Open) Discussions via Piazza.
  • Communication with Course Staff via Piazza.
  • Course restricted information via Canvas pages and Files.
  • Grading via Canvas.
  • Synchronous class meetings via Zoom. (see Zoom for CS559)
  • Consulting hours and office hours will be held in person or via Zoom.
  • Workbooks are obtained and handed in via GitHub classroom and a Canvas survey.
  • Exams and Surveys will use Canvas Quizzes.
  • Please be respectful of others in online communications.
for more details...
See the Communications Policy page for more details.

Lectures

  1. Students are responsible for the material in lectures.
  2. Some lectures will be given “live” (synchronously), while other material will be given asynchronously (pre-recorded videos).
  3. We intend to record the synchronous lectures, but you are responsible for the material even if there is a failure.
  4. The slides are designed to be used as part of the lecture presentation - they may not make sense without watching the lecture. In particular, a lot of the slide content will be drawn during the lecture.
  5. We will monitor participation in lectures, it can affect your grade in boundary cases. (participating requires attending a synchronous lecture)
for more details...
See the Lectures page.

Grading

  1. 64% workbooks, 12% final project, 24% exams (3 exams weighted equally)
  2. penalties for missing more than 2 surveys, possible bonuses for participation
  3. scores are on the “A>=90” scale - not percentages. For example, an 86 is an AB, even if the assignment has 120 points possible (or 91 points poissible)
  4. the lowest 2 workbook grades are dropped, advanced points cannot be earned on late workbooks
for more details
See the Grading page.

Exams

  1. There will be 3 exams, given online. Two will be given on Wednesday evenings during the semester, one will be given in the official University Final Examination time slot.
  2. Each exam will be administered using Canvas Quizzing.
  3. Each exam will consist of 3 short segments. You must complete all 3 segments within the exam time window.
for more details
See the Exams page.

Surveys

  1. End-of-Week Surveys (Quizzes) will be given each week on Friday. We will accept late quizzes through Sunday.
  2. Surveys are not graded - we keep track of whether or not you complete them. If you miss more than 2 surveys, you may be penalized.
  3. We may check your answers and not give you credit for a quiz if you do not make a legitimate attempt.
More details...

We don’t really distinguish between Quizzes and Surveys - I use the term interchangably. They use the Canvas “quiz” mechanism. In Canvas, they are “graded surveys” because we do not keep track of your score, only whether or not you complete it. On this page I’ll use the term survey.

In class there are also “Workbook handin surveys” - but those are different things.

We will not grade the end-of-week surveys. You will receive credit for completing it. We may check your answers to confirm that you made a legitimate attempt. If you do not complete the surveys, your grade may be affected (see Grading). You may miss two surveys without penalty, beyond that you may lose 1 point (from your overall score) per survey that you miss.

Sometimes, the end-of-week surveys will be anonymous (Canvas will tell us who has completed a survey, but will not allow us to connect responses to students). The survey will explicitly say that it is anonymous - by default quiz/surveys are not anonymous.

Surveys will be made available Friday morning and are due by the end of Friday. However, we will accept late surveys through the weekend (at least Sunday). We will not accept late surveys after the cutoff - we allow you do miss 2 surveys.

We will use surveys to (1) give you a chance to self-assess that you are learning the material (to check before you have to solve questions for an exam); (2) to get some feedback on what students find difficult (in an online class we don’t get to see puzzled faces in lecture); and (3) to request feedback about how things are going.

Policy on Late Assignments

See the specific assignment type for details. But, briefly…

  1. Late workbooks cannot earn advanced points. Workbooks can be turned in up to one week late without any questions asked. Workbooks turned in after 1 week require completing the “very late” form. The final project and curves workbook have special late policies.
  2. Surveys are due on Friday, but may be turned in by the cutoff (usually Sunday) without penalty.
  3. Exams may not be completed after the end of the exam period.

Workbooks and surveys have drop 2 policies.

Dates are in Madison (central time zone). Any time during the day counts as the day. 12:01am Tuesday is not Monday.

Regrades

  1. All regrade requests must be made via the web form.
  2. Regrade requests must be made with one week of the grade being posted.
  3. Regrading will consider the entire assignment.
more details

Please request a regrade using the Regrade Form This will allow us to keep track of requests and process them in order. Regrade requests via Piazza or email will not be accepted. A course staff member (usually a TA) will respond to your request by email or Piazza.

You must request a regrade within 1 week of a grade being posted, and before the final exam (for grades released the last week of class).

Do not try to make a regrade request by Piazza, or by email, or by coming to office/consulting hours, or by scheduling an appointment for a 1-on-1 call. Please your request by the form. If we need more information, we will contact you.

There undoubtedly errors in grading, and students only point out the ones likely to be in their favor. Statistically, it is implausible that all of the grading errors are against the students. It is unlikely that we made exactly one error. Therefore, if you point out a grading error, we may look at the entire assignment to make sure there aren’t other grading errors, in fact we might need to look at other assignments to check for errors as well.

Regrading might cause us to perform more careful examination of your assignment than the original grading. For example, if we used “stochastic grading” and gave you the benefit of doubt during the first grading, we might be more careful in the regrading.

Unexpected Occurances

Unexpected events (technical failures, medical problems, …) are inevitable. When they happen, we will cope. The flexibility in the course policies handle most things. Communicate with the course staff as soon as possible.

more details

Resources to help you with problems are listed on the Getting Help page. That page lists various University resources for your health, wellness, and technology needs, as well as how to get help from course staff.

Medical and Personal Issues: If you have a medical or personal issue, contact the Professor as soon as possible so we can make arrangements. Because of the privacy concerns, this is a case where email is allowable. Generally, the course policies (see usual remedies) are sufficient for almost everything.

Technical Failures are never convenient. I have them too (for example, a neighborhood-wide internet service outage while I was trying to proctor the CS559 final exam in Spring 2020).

We expect that many people will have something unexpected happen at some point during the semester that interferes with class.

Unexpected events vary. They aren’t always bad. You might get a once-in-a-lifetime interview opportunity. You might get sick. You might need to take your cat to the vet, or find your dog who escaped. You might have a power or internet outage. Your roomate might pour a cup of coffee in your computer right before an exam.

If you miss something because of a technical failure or personal/medical issue, you should:

  1. Let us know as quickly as possible. You might not be able to send us email or a Piazza message if your internet is out (since, generally, you need the internet to communicate with us), but make as best an effort that you can. You might be able to send email using your cell phone, or text message a friend who can send email to us.

  2. Try to do the best you can to recover. You may not be able to listen or discuss in a synchronous lecture, but you can read the material and watch the video afterwards. If you can’t turn something in on time because there is a service problem, turn it in as soon as you can. (and let us know)

  3. If you have a chronic problem, try to address it. If things fail once or twice in a semester, that’s expected. If you are often unable to participate in class, you may need to see if there is something you can improve about your technology.

  4. If there is something major, let us know. For example, if there is a bad storm that disconnects you for an extended period of time, or you have a medical or personal issue that disrupts your work for an extended period of time.

Each problem situation is unique - and we will work with you to find a way to address it.

Usual Remedies

The class has flexible policies

  1. If you miss a survey, you cannot make it up. However, we have drop 2 grading (you can miss 2 surveys with no penalty).

  2. Workbooks have a lenient late policy. Turn workbooks in when you can, even if it is “very late”. Note: you cannot earn advanced points if you turn in a workbook late. You are better off trying to get caught up in class (earn the basic points for the late workbooks, and focus your energies on the current workbooks. We drop the lowest two workbooks (providing you score a minimum number of points). Clarification: if the Canvas hand-in survey is still open, you can turn it in late using that; only use the very late form if the hand-in survey is closed.

  3. If you miss an exam, there is little we can do. Try hard not to miss exams. If something happens, discuss the situation with the Professor ASAP.

Academic Conduct

By virtue of enrollment, you agree to uphold the high academic standards of the University of Wisconsin-Madison; academic misconduct is behavior that negatively impacts the integrity of the institution. Cheating, fabrication, plagiarism, unauthorized collaboration, and helping others commit these previously listed acts are examples of misconduct which may result in disciplinary action. Examples of disciplinary action include, but is not limited to, failure on the assignment/course, written reprimand, disciplinary probation, suspension, or expulsion.

more details
See Academic Conduct and Collaboration for a detailed discussion of academic conduct in class.

JavaScript Usage

  1. Your programs need to run in Chrome.
  2. You must write JavaScript and CSS and HTML yourself directly.
  3. You should only use the libraries that we give you.
  4. You must give proper attribution to any code that you don’t write yourself. This includes copying lines of code (or even retyping lines of code) from web forums.

See the Javascript in CS559 page for more details.

Code After Class

  1. You may show your assignments publicly (e.g., on your web personal web page or portfolio), but please take care to deter future students from using it illegally.
More Details and Instructions

Over the course of the semester, you will make (or have made) cool stuff. You may want to show it to the world. These assignments can be useful as part of a portfolio, as things to show to prospective employers, or just to impress your friends. They are one of the few things that you do in a class that is fun to show to other people. You should (rightfully) be proud of what you’ve done.

And, because they are JavaScript, it is easy to share them with people via your personal web site.

However, because it is JavaScript, anyone and everyone can see the source code. Which means a student next year will have access to it. And we will give similar assignments next year. This is a conundrum.

I will not restrict you from posting your work on the open web – even though it contains a substantial amount of my work (both code and assignment design). However, I do ask your assistance in trying to make it harder for future students to use your work for their assignments.

There is a fine line between students who refer to other assignments for ideas and misconduct. Looking at an assignment to see an inspiring design is OK. Even glancing at the code to see how someone solved the problem can be an acceptable way to get unstuck. But some students do wholesale copying. This is their academic misconduct, but we ask for your help in trying to prevent it.

To help prevent misuse in the future:

  1. Please do not post the workbook pages to the web. In general, it’s OK to post things in the for_students directory, but not the docs directory. You may use my code that appears in the libs directory providing you give it proper attribution.

  2. Please let us know that the code is available - that way we can use it to check to see if future students are referring to it illegally.

  3. Please do not advertise them as workbook solutions, but give proper attribution to the class and framework code. So, please say something like “This project was created for the Computer Graphics class at the University of Wisconsin in Spring of 2023 and uses the class software framework” rather than “This is a solution to Workbook 7 for CS559”.

  4. Please label it clearly that “this code should not be copied for other student assignments” (or something like that). It is useful if this is in the comments in each file, but it should be at least on the web page. It turns out that this is useful as students will say “but I thought it was an example on the web that I could use.”

  5. Please only post the “cool parts” of the assignment - not the little exercises where most people do very similar things.

  6. Obfuscating your code would be the best thing. There are online obfuscators that are easy to use.However, this is extra work, and you might want your code to be visible (for example, to show to future employers). If you’re willing to do this, thank you. But this is a big ask.

Future students will find your code if it is on the open web, I would appreciate it a little harder for them to use it directly.

Having old assignments available is actually good for the class – it is good advertising, and can inspire people. But please help me discourage people from just copying your hard work as their own.

We do make changes to the workbooks that discourage copying old assignments, and use code checking tools to identify students who copy things.

Note: We may delete the GitHub repositories after class is over, so please keep a copy of your work if you want it.