Course policies

The homework assignments will have two sections: Exercises and Problems. We recommend that you complete the Exercises on your own. (But if you happen to chat about them with a fellow CS161 student that's okay; please acknowledge your collaborators). The Problems can be completed in small groups of current CS161 students (up to four). In both cases, you must type up your own solutions, and for each problem you must list the students you collaborated with.

• The following is OK: You and your friend work through the problems together over a couple of days. You bounce ideas off each other, and eventually come up with a pretty good solution idea. You sit down at your computer and type up that idea in your own words, perhaps lightly consulting notes you took while working with your friend.
• The following is NOT OK: You and your friend work through the problems together over a couple of days. You bounce ideas off each other, and eventually come up with a pretty good solution idea. Your friend types up their solutions first; since you helped come up with the answers, you use your friend's write-up as a starting point for your own.
• A good test: if you ever share your typed-up solutions, or if someone shares theirs with you, it is probably NOT OKAY.

We all make mistakes, even when grading. You may submit a regrade request for homework on Gradescope. Please include a thorough description of the error that the grader made. You must submit a regrade assignment within one week of having your graded work returned, by the end of day (i.e. 11:59 PM). Some notes:

• We will regrade the entire assignment on a regrade request. This means you may lose more points on other problems if we discover grading errors in the other direction.
• Your regrade request will go to the TA who graded your work originally, as well as to the instructor.
• Legitimate regrade requests include:
  • The points were not added correctly.
  • The comments say I'm missing part (c), but it was actually on a different page.
  • The comments say that my algorithm is incorrect on this case, but I implemented my algorithm and it does work in that case.
• Illegitimate regrade requests include:
  • I disagree with the rubric; I should have gotten more partial credit for my solution.
  • I understand that my solution wasn't clear, but what I meant to say was correct.

• Homework:
  • You have six late days to distribute as you like among the eight homework assignments, with a maximum of two per assignment. Each late day is an extension of 24 hours. So if the assignment is due Wednesday at 10am, you may hand it in by Thursday at 10am and use one late day, or by Friday at 10am and use two late days.
  • You are responsible for keeping track of your late days! You can always ask to find out how many you have left.
  • The point of late days is to give you flexibility to deal with extenuating circumstances (illness, travel, etc). Do not ask for an extension if you still have late days left; this is what late days are for.
  • No credit will be given for homework turned in two days after the due date, or for late homework after all late days have been used.
  • Please email cs161-win1920-staff@lists.stanford.edu for guidance about corner cases or special circumstances.
• Exams: Please do not miss the exams! If you know you will have a conflict, email cs161-win1920-staff@lists.stanford.edu ASAP.

The elements of your grade are:

• 8 homework assignments (35%)
• Midterm (25%)
• Final Exam (40%)
• Bonus Points (see Bonus Point Policy below).

Your score on each assignment will be normalized to become a number (points scored)/(points possible) between 0 and 1, and these numbers will be added together with the above weights to obtain your final numerical grade. Two of the homework assignments (HW3 and HW8) will be shorter and will be worth only half as much as the other assignments. The numerical grade will be converted to a letter grade at the end of the course. The final distribution will depend on the class's performance, but you can expect the distribution to be similar (not necessarily identical) to the historical grade distribution for CS161.

After your final numerical grade and letter grade has been computed, the Bonus Point Policy (below) will be enacted, which can boost your final letter grade.

Post-Midterm Update: Due to concerns about the format of the midterm, we have made the following addition. After the procedure above has been carried out, it will be independently carried out a second time, except dropping the midterm. (We will keep the same relative weights on the final exam and the homework.) Your letter grade will be the maximum of the two letter grades. Notice that no one's grade can possibly be lowered as a result of this policy change.

COVID-19 Update: Due to the COVID-19 situation, we have made the following addition. After the procedure above has been carried out, it will be independently carried out a third, fourth, and fifth time, downweighting the final in various ways. See Piazza post @1229 for more on this. Your letter grade will be the maximum of all of these letter grades.

Throughout the quarter, there will be opportunities to get "bonus points" (for example, extra problems on homework sets, the Bug Bounty Policy below; we will also award a bonus point for extremely nice solutions to normal homework problems). These points are not officially worth anything. However, at the end of the quarter, if your numerical grade puts you near to a letter-grade cut-off then if you have lots of bonus points (compared to your classmates) you may be "bumped" above the cut-off. (You cannot be bumped down.) For example, if your numerical grade is 0.814 and the cut-off for an A- is 0.820, then bonus points could promote you from a B+ to an A-.

We hope that all course materials are bug-free. However, if you find an error in course materials (slides, iPython notebooks, or PSETs), point it out to us! (Post on Piazza). The first finder of each error (that affects understanding) will get one bonus point. (See above for how bonus points will be applied).

"Errors that affect understanding" include pretty much anything other than little tpyos in wrds -- although we'd be grateful if you point those out too. For example, if there is incorrect arithmetic on a slide, or indexing errors in pseudocode, or a conceptual error (without a disclaimer), or if there's some piece of crucial information that's missing from a problem, those all count as errors that affect understanding. Please point these out to us! You'll help us, your classmates, and yourself (via bonus points). It's a win-win-win situation!

Students must adhere to the Stanford Honor Code. The following things are examples of what will be considered a violation of the honor code in this course:

• Violation of the homework collaboration policy above.
• Using old solution sets for CS161, unless specifically approved by the instructor. (These should not be available; if you learn of any floating around, please alert the course staff).
• Collaborating with others during the exams.
• Using any resources other than your cheat sheet(s) during the exams.

If we have reason to believe that you are in violation of the honor code, we will follow the university policy to report it.