Link Search Menu Expand Document
CS 161

Submission Policy

All homework submissions must be typed and submitted to Gradescope by 11:59 pm Pacific Time on the due date. We will not be accepting or grading any handwritten submissions. We highly recommend using LaTeX, and we will be posting the LaTeX source code of the homework assignments so you can borrow the LaTex code from the problem statements.

Homeworks 1-3 will be individual submissions, which means that students should type up their own homework. From Homework 4 onwards, paired submissions are permitted, so students can make a single submission for groups of size up to 2.

Late Day Policy

You will have a total of 6 late days to use on homework assignments with a maximum of 2 late days on a single assignment. Each late day can be treated as a 24-hour extension; e.g., if the assignment is due Wednesday at 11:59 pm Pacific Time, you may hand it in by Thursday at 11:59 pm and use one late day, or by Friday at 11:59 pm and use two late days. You are responsible for keeping track of your late days. No credit will be given for homework turned in after 48 hours past the due date, or for late homework after all late days have been used.

Regrade Policy

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 request within 1 week of receiving your grade, by the end of the day (i.e. 11:59 pm). Some notes:

  • We reserve the right to 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 CA who graded your work originally and 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 with this particular 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.

Collaboration Policy and Honor Code

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 other CS 161 students that’s okay; please acknowledge your collaborators). You (for homeworks 1-3) or your pair (for homeworks 4 onwards) must type up your own solutions from scratch (and without referring to written notes from the study group session; only one solution is needed per pair) and for each problem, you must list the students you collaborated with. In other words, each student must understand the solution well enough to reconstruct it by him/herself.

  • 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.

Here are a few of the examples of honor code violations:

  • Looking at the writeup or code of another student (who is not paired with you).
  • Showing your writeup or code to another student (who is not paired with you).
  • Discussing homework problems in such detail that your solution (writeup or code) is almost identical or shows high similarity to another student’s answer.
  • Uploading your writeup or code to a public repository (e.g. github, bitbucket, pastebin) so that it can be accessed by other students. - if you are aware of any, please alert the teaching team.
  • Looking at solutions from online repositories or previous years’ homework
  • Collaborating with others during exams.
  • Entering homework questions into any software, apps, or websites. Accessing resources that directly explain how to answer questions from the actual assignment or exam violates course policy.

We will be using plagiarism detection software. If we have reason to believe that you violate the honor code, we will follow the university policy to report it to the Office of Community Standards.