Written by Nick Troccoli
This document contains a summary of course logistics for SCPD students.
Welcome to CS 107! We are happy to have you in the course this quarter. Since SCPD students are off-campus, there are several aspects of CS 107 that are slightly different for SCPD students than for on-campus students, as described below.
For general questions for the Stanford SCPD staff, you can reach the SCPD team at scpd-gradstudents@stanford.edu. For exam-related questions, you can reach the SCPD team at scpd-exams@stanford.edu.
Myth Access
Everyone with a SUNET ID can access the myth machines. However, you may not have a home directory created for you once you log in. If you encounter an issue when you try to log into myth where it says “could not chdir to home directory”, then this is the reason why. To fix this, submit a HelpSU ticket here (you only need to open the URL and click on the Submit button) to have your home directory set up:
Lectures
Lectures are recorded and posted within a few hours to the course Canvas site, under the "Panopto" tab. The lectures are also viewable "live" there with a slight delay if you'd like to follow along.
Lab
Because SCPD students are off-campus, you are not required to attend a live weekly lab section, where students work through lab exercises in pairs with a TA there to answer questions. Instead, you can submit lab work remotely using the same system that on-campus students do. However, if you would like to, there are a limited number of labs that you can attend remotely via Zoom.
Not Attending Lab
If you do not want to attend a lab each week, you do not need to submit lab preferences. Once we assign labs based on preferences, you should enroll in the special SCPD section. Each week, we post lab materials on the course website, along with a link for where to submit answers to exercises. This link will allow you to submit from Wednesday at 12:01AM PDT until Sunday at 11:59PM PDT each week. You do need to submit a lab each week. You will need a password to submit your work, which will be sent to all SCPD students when the first lab is posted. You can feel free to post on the discussion forum with any questions you have while working through labs, and are encouraged to work with another SCPD student as a pair if you would like – you can use the class discussion forum to find a partner.
Attending Lab
If you are an SCPD student, you are welcome to attend an in-person lab if you would like to - make sure to sign up on the course website for one of the available in-person lab times. SCPD students are also welcome to attend certain in-person labs remotely via Zoom if you would like.
We'll email all SCPD students once we decide on section times to see if there are any you'd be open to watching and attending via Zoom. But again, you're welcome to just complete the labs independently, provided you submit the checkoff sheets. In fact, most SCPD students in past quarters have elected to complete the labs by themselves.
Assignments
The process for working on, submitting and getting feedback on assignments is identical for both regular and SCPD students.
Course Support
We encourage you to take advantage of the discussion forum and the course staff email as mentioned on the course website. We also offer helper hours at scheduled times each week, and SCPD students are welcome to call in to any hours, even in-person-only ones, via videochat; details on times and how to call in are listed on the Getting Help page of the course website. If you are an SCPD student, you are welcome to attend in-person helper hours if you would like to.
Exams
Exams are administered by your registered SCPD exam monitor; please see https://online.stanford.edu/non-degree-option-program#EXAMS-AND-HOMEWORK for more information about exam monitors. You will have a 24 hour window from the start of the on-campus exam in which to complete the exam using the allotted exam time (2 hours for the midterm exam, 3 hours for the final exam). In other words, you can start and finish the midterm exam during any 2 hour time slot between 7PM PDT on November 1 and 7PM PDT on November 2. You can start and finish the final exam during any 3-hour time slot between 12:15PM PDT on December 12 and 12:15PM PDT on December 13.
If you are an SCPD student, you are welcome to attend the on-campus seatings of the exams if you would like to. If you’d like to do this, please email the course staff for each exam to let us know you will be taking the exam on campus. Once you do this, when selecting an exam monitor on mystanfordconnection, select the “I would like to take this exam on campus” option. Even if you do come to campus, we advise that you still have an exam monitor recorded as a backup.
After they are graded, exams will be returned to you electronically.