I realize that being back in the classroom may feel strange and even scary. No doubt many of you are looking forward to it, and many are not. Under “normal” times I would structure the class to push people to consistently come to class. I believe that improves performance, builds community, and enables me to give a class that is more interactive.
But this term is anything but normal. Due to COVID-19 uncertainties, I would like it to be possible to succeed without attending class in person, apart from the final. I have thus requested that all lectures be captured and put up on Canvas using the automated magic that the campus does. I can’t guarantee that it will work perfectly. In fact, I can pretty much guarantee that it won’t. But having both the MWF section and the TR sections recorded gives us good redundancy.
My past experience suggests that missing classes with the intent of learning the material from watching the videos usually results in worse performance.
There are six discussion sections each week. You may go to any you wish; it doesn’t have to coincide with the what you registered for. Discussion sections are optional.
Attending the recitation is optional. Barring technical problems, a Zoom record will be posted soon after on Canvas.
When you attend a live recitation, turn on your camera, and leave it on. If you are unwilling to do this, please watch the recording instead.
A rule for attending office hours is to turn on your camera and leave the video on. Same rule as for recitations. A working camera may also be needed for the midterm; please consider it a course requirement.
My office is in 3009 Kemper, but, honestly, I don’t think I’ll be hanging out there much. I can be reached by email at rogaway@cs.ucdavis.edu. Please put “ECS 20” somewhere in your subject heading (capitalization and whitespace irrelevant). For routine ECS 20 questions, please ask on Piazza, not email.
To get a passing grade in the class, you must pass the final exam. All exams are closed book, notes, and gadgets unless I indicate otherwise.
On homeworks, all answers must be well justified. Explain your answers well. The quality of the writeup matters, and is an integral part of the score for a problem. I expect that only a proper subset of homework questions will be graded each week.
If you believe that a homework or exam problem was misgraded you may resubmit it to the TAs for regarding. Make sure you understand the written solutions first. Regarding requests must be done within three days of when the material was returned.
If you miss the midterm for an excused medical or personal reason, I will either give you an oral exam to replace it, or I will move the points to the final exam. If you miss the final exam for an excused medical or personal reason, and you were doing passing work before, then I will give you an incomplete and you will have the opportunity to take the final at the end of Winter quarter.
Laptops are similarly disallowed in class. You may take notes on a tablet or flat-folded laptop as long as it is used for no other purpose.
Violating the rules above will result in a misconduct report to OSSJA, which, in turn, will likely result in your failing the class. Breaking classroom rules is treated like other forms of academic misconduct.
Given what we now know about COVID-19 transmission—in particular, that it is primarily spread through aerosols—I question why we are so unconcerned with what sort of mask people wear, and that they they properly wear them. Now that N95 masks are readily available, I suggest that everyone wear find an unvalved N95 mask that fits and feels comfortable. I would also request that you take some time to watch some video(s) about how to put it on, take it off, and check the fit. After trying lots of N95 masks, my personal favorites are the 3M Aura models. They are supposedly available from the campus bookstore, from Amazon, The Home Depot, and from numerous other sellers.
A good alternative to N95 masks is a KF94 mask, the Korean standard. They provide an alternative option for fit. A mask that doesn’t form a good seal to your face is almost worthless.
Room ventilation is also key for minimizing the spread of infectious respiratory diseases. According to the campus, all of the lecture and discussion rooms used for ECS 20 this term are ventilated with 100% outdoor air and get at least four air changes per hour.
If you haven’t watched the science develop in this area, I might point you to: Airborne transmission of respiratory viruses (27-Aug-2021); A paradigm shift to combat indoor respiratory infection (14-May-2021); How did we get here: what are droplets and aerosols and how far do the go? A historical perspective on the transmission of respiratory infectious disease (15-Apr-2021); and COVID tranmission and risk reduction (24-Aug-2021). The Current CDC guidelines were recently updated (although they continue to downplay the value of wearing a well-fit N95 mask).
Three other books I really like are:
The most ‘standard’ books for a course like ours are those of Susanna Epp and by Kenneth Rosen. I think they are boring in a way that the books above are not. Yet you might like them.
Much of what one learns in this course comes from trying to solve the homework problems. I intend for you to find many of the problems challenging. Most students will not be able to solve every problem. Don’t let that frustrate you. I can’t solve most of the problems I think about, either.
If you can’t solve a problem, please indicate what you’ve tried and where the difficulty lies: know what you know and be clear about it. Never try to bullshit an answer you can’t figure out. Explain yourself clearly. An unjustified answer is not an answer.
Your writeups should be clear, terse, and neat. Aim for elegance. Never turn in a first-draft; that works no better in math or computer science than it does in English. Don’t be surprised to lose points if you provide a “correct” solution with a poor writeup: presentation (always) counts.
Homeworks must be typeset with LaTeX. Observe basic mathematical conventions that too many student seem blind to, like k, K, k, and K (in LaTeX: k, K, $k$, $K$) being four different variables. Figures you wish to include may be drawn neatly by hand and then integrated into the pdf. Microsoft Word generates ugly results and is not used by academic computer scientists. Nor by mathematicians, physicists, or chemists. We all use LaTeX.
Typeset solutions with a single solution per page (the LaTeX command \newpage will skip to the next page). I do not expect any problems to take more than a page, so normally problem i should appear on page i. Regardless, when you upload your problem set to Gradescope you must tell it the pages on which each problem appears. If you fail to do this then Gradescope will not display your solution when we are grading the problem, and the problem won’t get graded.
Overleaf is an online LaTeX editor and collaboration tool. You are welcome to use it, or to install a local copy of LaTeX no your machine, or to both.
Unless indicated otherwise, homeworks are due at 5:00 pm every Wednesday. The first problem set will be due Sept 28, and they will keep on coming. No late homeworks will be accepted. Turn in homeworks online, using Gradescope. The roster has been uploaded so you should already be able to use Gradescope. Send an email if there’s a problem. Don’t wait until the last minute. To avoid unexpectedly missing the deadline, you can repeatedly overwrite your uploaded solutions; don’t wait until a minutes before 5pm to submit.
You may work closely with a single other student on a homework and turn in a joint writeup. Gradescope will let you identify both names when you upload the writeup; do not forget to do that (just writing both names in the uploaded pdf won’t do it). I do not want you doing writeups in a group larger than two. If you talk to someone other than your partner, a TA, or the professor, you need to acknowledge them in your writeup.
Oddly, many students are happier to spend long hours hacking in front of a machine than peacefully thinking beneath a tree. I wonder why. Computer science is about thinking and problem solving, not about spending endless hours pounding some hapless program into submission.
If you do work with a partner on a problem set, the manner in which you do so may have a profound impact on how much you get out of the homeworks, and out of class. Here’s what I suggest. First, think about each problem and try to solve it on your own. Only after should you discuss it with your partner. When you write up a truly joint solution. Both people should work to write and refine the writeup for each problem. Note that writing up joint work with a partner will usually take more time than writing things up your own. But it can result in better quality work.
While I haven’t used it myself, I am told that overleaf is an easy-to-use tool to let multiple people simultaneously edit on a single LaTeX file. Even if you’re working alone, the tool would save you from having to do a LaTeX installation. Not that that is hard. An alternative way to collaborate in producing a LaTeX document is using git, with each collaborator running their own copy of LaTeX.
The final will be closed book/devices/neighbors. Bring a picture ID. Any device that can be powered off must be powered off for the duration of the exam. You may not sit next to someone you know. In that sentence, “next to” means to your left, right, directly behind, or diagonally behind; and “someone you know” means that they’re a friend or someone you’ve worked with (in this class or some other), or someone you have some arrangement with concerning cheating. If you see anything inappropriate during an exam, report it immediately to me or a TA.
Uploading course materials for further redistribution to sites like CourseHero is an egregious instance of academic misconduct. It is also illegal. Similarly, you may not download material from CourseHero or the like.
As explained earlier, using a phone in our class is defined as academic misconduct.
UCD’s Code of Academic Conduct describes expectations common to all courses. I report all instances of suspected academic misconduct to OSSJA. If you are guilty of academic misconduct, either by your own admission or by a finding from OSSJA, I will assign you an F grade in the course. This is in addition to whatever OSSJA does. I call this the misconduct-implies-F policy. I myself started this policy, which has become the default policy across the CS Department.
Beginning in 2004 I redesigned and started teaching ECS 188, our ethics-and-technology class. Since that time, about half my teaching has been technical, the other half, 188. While I was never exactly sanguine about what all my colleagues and I were doing, over the years I had become increasingly skeptical about the value and prospects for it. We have turned out machines into powerful instruments for surveilling people and reshaping their behavior to serve a few people’s ends. For those of you who want to save the world with machine learning (ML), crypto-currency, or whatever other hyped techno-wonder you’ve been studying, make sure to disentangle the dream, and your self interest, from the reality.
A strange fact about me is that I am utterly faceblind. Never changing your hair, clothes, or seat might help me to figure out who you are. Introducing yourself to me each time you see me is kind. I would also request that you not wear scented products near me. I find smells overwhelming and asthma-inducing. I will also have a problem being near you if you’re a smoker. But hopefully none of you would do anything so vile.