General Information

CS 280 - Fall 2002

The prerequisite (or co-requisite) for this course is CS211. It is expected that each student in the course has satisfied the prerequisites, although a few exceptions may be made in unusual circumstances. If you have not satisfied the prerequisites, you must talk to the instructor.

Rosen, Discrete Mathematics and Its Applications, Fourth Edition, McGraw-Hill, 1999.
Additional material is available at the associated web site: http://www.mhhe.com/rosen

There will be weekly problem sets, due (usually) on Friday at the beginning of class.
Late Homework Policy: It is expected that homework will be turned in in class and on time. Late homework will not be be accepted except in emergency situations. If a genuine emergency situation exists you must inform the course staff as soon as possible.
Submitting Homework: To simplify the process of distributing papers for grading, each homework will consist of 3 parts (A, B, and C). Each part must be turned in separately. In other words, each of parts A, B, and C will be placed in separate piles when homework is handed in on Friday.
Homework Privacy: Normally, graded homework is handed back in a self-service stack. In other words, your homework grade is not private. If you prefer more privacy, clearly mark HOLD at the top of the first page of each piece (A, B, and C) of your homework; I will hold these papers for pick-up during my office hours.

Your grade will be based on homework (due each Friday), two prelims (given in class), and a final exam (given at the scheduled final-exam time). Weighting will be roughly as follows:
- 30% homework (your lowest homework grade will be dropped)
- 40% prelims (20% each)
- 30% final exam
Regrade Policy: Regrade requests must be made within one week of the time that homework or exams are returned to the class. It's not fair to the graders to ask them to explain details of their grading scheme for an assignment from 5 weeks ago. Also, this rule prevents a pileup of such requests at the end of the semester.
Grading Criteria:

Correctness and Completeness (i.e., answer the question)
Clarity, Precision, and Conciseness (i.e., don't use 2 pages when 2 lines will do)
Optimality of Result (i.e., find the "best" answer)

Warning: It is unlikely that you will learn the material in the course unless you do the problem sets. Those who skip a significant number of them are likely to earn poor grades on the exams (as well as receiving a low homework grade).

Course Web Site: http://www.cs.cornell.edu/Courses/cs280/2002fa/
Check the website often. This is the central repository for all the information available about the course including the latest homework assignment, scheduling changes, and important announcements.
Course Newsgroup: cornell.class.cs280
This group is monitored by the course staff and is intended for both questions and discussion. This is likely to be the quickest way to get a question answered. Please do not post homework solutions or partial solutions.
Office Hours: Hours will be announced in class and posted on the course web site as soon as they are determined.
Email: Questions about the course can be emailed to any of the course staff.

Any violation of academic integrity will be severely penalized. You are allowed to collaborate on the homework to the extent of formulating ideas as a group. However, you are expected to write up (and understand) the homework on your own.
Cornell's Code of Academic Integrity: http://www.cuinfo.cornell.edu/Academic/AIC.html