Structure
Instructor: Alex
C. Snoeren, snoeren at cs.ucsd.edu.
Office hours: Tue 11:00-12:00pm in EBU3b 3114, or by appointment.
TA: John McCullough, jmccullo at cs.ucsd.edu
Office hours: Mon/Wed 2:00-3:00pm outside EBU3b 3140, or by
appointment.
There is no textbook for this course. The course material will come
from the conference and journal papers that will be assigned over
the course of the term.
Each lecture (except the first) will have two assigned papers to read.
You should read these papers before coming to class, and be
prepared to discuss it (written evaluations are not required).
Occasionally we will also list recommended papers; you are encouraged
to read those, but not required.
The structure of this class is unusual in that there are no lectures
or presentations during the class period. Instead, we will discuss
research papers that we will have all read before each class
period. The instructor will lead discussions by asking questions of
students at random in class. Note that your answers to these questions
form an appreciable portion of your overall grade, so it is important
that you both show up to class as well as read the papers carefully.
Because of the unusual format of this class, you will not be graded on
class participation during the first two weeks of class.
Occasionally, students have to miss class for one good reason or
another (e.g., present a paper at a conference, go on a business
trip). If you find yourself in this situation, contact the instructor
ahead of time to let him know you will be gone. Since you will not be
in class to participate in discussion, you are required to write a
brief evaluation of the papers for the class that you will miss. Your
evaluation should address the following questions:
- What problem does the paper address?
- How is it different from previous work, if any?
- What is the approach used to solve the problem?
- How does the paper support or otherwise justify its arguments and conclusions?
- Was the paper, in your judgement, successful in addressing the problem?
Your evaluation should be concise, with just one to a few sentences
per question. Email your evaluations to the instrutor.
Grading
Grade for this class will be based on:
- Class participation 30%
- Homework 15%
- Project 30%
- Final 25%
Late assignments will not be accepted without prior approval
from the instructor.
Collaboration policy
The course homework assignments must be completed individually, the projects
may be completed in teams. The requirements will be explicitly stated
for each assignment. For homework assignments, you must write all
of the solutions that you submit; for team projects, the code must have been
authored exclusively by members of your team. You may (and, in fact,
are encouraged) to discuss assignments with others, but you may
not copy code from another team or make your code available to others.
Of course, code may be freely shared within teams on team assignments.
Exams will be individual effort and closed book. You are expected to
be aware of UCSD's academic
honesty guidelines. Any violation of the course or institute
policies will be treated very seriously, and could lead to severe
repercussions, up to, and including, expulsion. Don't cheat. It's not
worth it.
Useful Books
