CSE 191 Discrete
Structures
Spring 2004
Syllabus
Monday, Wednesday
and Friday -
Instructor Information:
Adrienne Decker
email: adrienne@buffalo.edu
Office: 130
Tentative Office
Hours:
To Be Announced
and by Appointment
Teaching Assistants
TBA
Recitations
|
R1 |
Monday |
|
216 Norton |
|
R2 |
Thursday |
|
109 OBrian |
|
R3 |
Wednesday |
|
257 Capen |
Where to get information for this course:
Course
Webpage: http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/faculty/adrienne/SP2004/cse191
Textbooks:
Required:
Judith L. Gersting.
2002. Mathematical Structures for Computer Science (5th edition), W
H Freeman & Co, (ISBN: 0716743582)
Course Description:
The purpose of the
course in Discrete Structures is to provide the foundational material for further
study of Computer Science. Topics in CSE 191 include sets, relations,
functions, mathematical induction, fundamental counting methods, difference
equations, mathematical logic, linear algebra, and graph theory.
Prerequisites: Working knowledge of a programming
language. Having successfully completed
CSE 115 will suffice for this class.
Grading Policy:
The following table
indicates the grade breakdown which I will use in assigning grades in the course.
I reserve the right to make adjustments to the breakdown if I feel it is
necessary.
20% - Quizzes
10% - Homeworks
10% - Project
60% - Exams
Attendance
Policy:
Attendance is
required for all lectures and recitations.
Students who do not attend class regularly generally do not do as well
in the course as those who do. If for
any reason you can not attend a lecture, it is the student's responsibility to
make up the missed work. Neither the
Teaching Assistants nor the instructor will take time out of our office hours
to reteach material to students who did not attend class. If you are absent, get the notes from
someone. All handouts, important
announcements, and other printed course material (including this syllabus) are
always available on the webpage, so if you need to be absent, you can get the
materials you missed. Attendance at the
exams is mandatory.
Examination Grading:
There will be four
exams given in this class. Three will be held in class during the
semester and one will be held during final exam week. Attendance at exams
is mandatory.
Exam 1 - Wednesday, February 4th
Exam 2 - Wednesday, March 3rd
Exam 3 - Wednesday, March 31st
Exam 4 - During exam week - check exam schedule as soon as it
is posted.
Please note: I do
not control the scheduling of exams during final exam week. Plan on the fourth exam being scheduled on
the last day of exams at the last possible time and DO NOT make any travel arrangements to leave
Please be on time
for the exams. After the first person
completes the exam, turns in the paper and leaves the exam room, no late
arriving people will be permitted to start the exam.
If you do not attend
an exam, you will receive a grade of 0 (zero) for the exam. An exception to
this rule will be made only in the case of a documented medical or family
emergency. You must bring your UB Card to the exams.
In order to receive
a passing grade in the course, you must have a passing exam grade. In other words,
your average over the four exams must be a grade of at least 50% in order for
you to receive a passing grade in the course.
The following table
indicates the number to letter grade mapping I will use to assign final grades
at the end of the course.
|
Percentage Score |
Letter Grade |
|
90 -100 |
A |
|
85 89 |
A- |
|
80 84 |
B+ |
|
75 79 |
B |
|
70 74 |
B- |
|
65 69 |
C+ |
|
60 64 |
C |
|
55 59 |
C- |
|
50 54 |
D |
|
0 49 |
F |
Recitations:
Recitations will be
held weekly at the times scheduled above.
I expect that you will attend your scheduled recitation weekly. If a circumstance should arise that you can
not attend your scheduled recitation for a particular week, you may attend
another recitation. We reserve the right
to take attendance in recitation and count it as part of your Homework
grade. In recitation, you will be given
time to discuss the current weeks homework problems with the TA and receive
assistance on those problems.
Homework:
Homework will be
assigned each class meeting. The
problems will be announced in class as well as posted on the Homeworks page of
the course web site. Homework for each
week will be due the following Friday. No late homeworks are
accepted. For example, homework assigned
on 1/12, 1/14 and 1/16 will be due at the beginning of class on 1/23. The
problems listed on the web site are those that will be collected. Homework
is not graded on the basis of being correct or incorrect, but rather just as a
complete/incomplete. You are allowed to
miss at most one homework without having a penalty assessed to your grade. Answers to the homework may or may not be
posted. You are expected and encouraged
to get your questions answered during recitation and during office hours. Other problems may also be assigned in any
given lecture as strictly "practice" problems, which students can
work on at their leisure. They will not be collected.
In Class Quizzes:
There will be quizzes given during class time. They can be either of the announced or
unannounced variety. They can be given
at the beginning of class, at the end of class, or anytime in the middle of
class. The best N of these quizzes will make up the quiz component of your
course grade. No make ups are allowed if
you miss one of these quizzes.
Quiz grading and pass requirement:
In order to receive a passing grade in this class, you must also have a
passing average across all your N
best quizzes. This means that the quizzes
averaged together must be a 50% in order for you to pass this class.
Project component and pass requirement:
Within the first few weeks of class, you will receive a description of
your semester-long project for this course.
This project will require you to use the knowledge you will gain in this
class along with your programming knowledge to create a fairly large
program. You will be allowed to work in
groups for this project if you wish. The
project will be completed through a series of deliverables due throughout the
semester, culminating in the final deliverable due at the end of the
semester. You must make an attempt to
complete this project. Failure to turn
in any of the deliverables will result in automatic failure in the course. Your program does not necessarily have to be
100% correct, but you need to submit a deliverable at every stage.
Course
Policies:
We will follow the
University Policy on Academic Integrity, detailed in the Undergraduate Catalog.
For more information, see Article 5A of the Student Conduct Rules, University
Standards and Administrative Regulations and the UB Teaching and Learning
Resources Student Conduct Rules web page. A good application of these rules to
computer science is given on the department's web page, and this is the policy
we will follow. Please read the policy
and understand the implications.
Anyone caught in
violation of the policies on academic dishonesty on any assignment will
immediately be given a grade of F in the course. For especially flagrant
violations, formal proceedings will be initiated. Such proceedings can call for
harsher sanction including expulsion from the University.
We have recently
acquired access to an electronic means of cheating detection that make it
possible to check the entirety of class submissions with ease. All submissions for this class will be run
through the analyzer. Nearly every
semester, I have seen assignments for which there is strong evidence of academic
dishonesty. There is always proper
sanction taken against these violations.
Academic dishonesty will not be tolerated.
Example Infractions of Academic Integrity
Examples of conduct
considered in violation of the policies on academic integrity include but are
not limited to:
Writing code is a
lot like writing an essay for an English class.
While everyone might have to write an essay on the same topic, each
person would not write a paragraph of the essay and then turn in the resulting
paper. There is a lot of room for
individuality, even when writing on a topic - coding a solution to a problem is
the same.
We will follow the
UB Undergraduate Catalog Statement on Incomplete Grades, outlined in the
Undergraduate Catalog. Take the time to familiarize yourself with the contents
of this page.
Generally,
incomplete ("I") grades are not given. However, very rarely,
circumstances truly beyond the student's control prevents him or her from
completing work in the course. In such cases the instructor can give a grade of
"I". The student will be given instructions and a deadline for
completing the work, usually no more than 30 days past the end of the semester.
University and department policy dictate that "I" grades can be given
only if the following conditions are met:
· An Incomplete will only be given for missing
a small part of the course.
· An Incomplete will only be given when the
student misses work due to circumstances beyond his/her control.
· An Incomplete will only be given when the
student is passing the course except for the missed material.
· An Incomplete is to be made up with the
original course instructor within the time specified by the appropriate
University regulation (see appropriate document above), and usually within the
following semester.
· An Incomplete will not be given to allow the
student to informally retake the entire course, and have that grade count as
the grade of the original course.
Incompletes can not
be given as a shelter from poor grades. It is the student's responsibility to
make a timely resignation from the course if he or she is doing poorly for any
reason.
Regrading of Work
Any questions about
the grading of a piece of work must be raised within 1 week of the date that
the work was returned by the teaching assistant or the instructor. In other
words, if you do not pick up your work in a timely fashion, you may forfeit
your right to question the grading of your work. Please note, we reserve the
right to regrade the entire assignment brought to our attention, possibly
leading to a reduction in the overall assignment grade.
Disablities
If you have a
diagnosed disability (physical, learning, or psychological) and are registered
with the Office of Disability Services, please inform the instructor during the
first two weeks of the course. Do not
assume that the instructor has received any paperwork about it. It is the student's responsibility to make
sure that the instructor receives the paperwork as soon as possible from
Disability Services.
Code:
This page contains a link to the examples of code (if any) that are shown
in class.
Resources:
The Resources page
of the course website has points of interest for all students taking this
class.
Schedule:
A tentative course
schedule is available on the course website.
Disclaimer:
I reserve the right
to change this syllabus and the contents herein if circumstances of the
class/semester require me to do so.
These changes will be announced and posted to the class website.
Student Portion: Signature form - Student
Copy
I agree to all of
the terms and conditions presented in the syllabus for the University at
I also understand
the definition of academic integrity as outlined by the syllabus, and
understand that if I violate the University at
I also understand
that I am required to have successfully completed the assigned pre-requisites
for this course. I understand that if I
do not have the required pre-requisites, that I can be forcibly dropped or
resigned form the course.
I have read the
above statement and have read the syllabus and understand what the expectations
are in this course.
CSE 191: Discrete
Structures Spring
2004
Student Portion:
Signature form
I agree to all of
the terms and conditions presented in the syllabus for the University at
I also understand
the definition of academic integrity as outlined by the syllabus, and
understand that if I violate the University at
I also understand
that I am required to have successfully completed the assigned pre-requisites
for this course. I understand that if I
do not have the required pre-requisites, that I can be forcibly dropped or
resigned form the course.
I have read the
above statement and have read the syllabus and understand what the expectations
are in this course.
Student Name
(print): _____________________________________________________
Signature:
_______________________________________________________________
Date: ________________