Course Policy

The detailed policy of the course along with the mark distribution is listed here

Teaching and Learning Methodology

This course is designed in such a manner to help learners get the essence of principles behind good software deign. To this end, the course will follow a problem based learning methodology. Learners will be taught concepts by making them work on real-life problems. This will promote deeper engagement, deeper understanding and resembles the true career situation.

Zero Tolerance on Plagiarism

This course requires student to submit assignments, participate in in-class activities, give mid and final exams, work with groups on projects and so on. Any forms of cheating or plagiarism will result in a score of “0” for projects, assignments or exams. Egregious cases will result in a grade of “F” for the course.

Use of AI tools

Students are free to use different AI tools like ChatGPT, Co-pilot, etc. for the course assignments/projects. In fact every project mostly will require the use of LLMs. However, please do mention what tools and how they have been used in the submission report. Remember the different demos given in the class on how sometimes these tools can mislead or provide wrong solutions. Its important to know the concept before using the tools. Tools are at the end-of-the day enablers. Today it will be ChatGPT tomorrow it will be something else but the concepts needs to be clear to leverage the different tools. Bottomline, feel free to use different tools but use them wisely!

Extra Days and Soft Deadlines

1. Each team will have 5 extra days (in total) which they can use at their discretion throughout the course. Extra days will allow the student to submit projects post the deadline without incurring any penalty. Please note extra days can only be used for projects.

2. Every project will have a soft deadline followed by a hard deadline after 7 days. If the student submits an assignment/project after the soft deadline, he/she will be penalized for every additional day until the hard deadline (if they have exhausted their extra days quota). For example, lets assume that the soft deadline is Feb 3 2024. This implies that the hard deadline will be Feb 10, 2024. The student in this case will be allowed to submit until Feb 10 2024. Assuming that the student has his/her full quota of extra days, they can delay submissions until Feb 8 2024 after which the submission will be penalized for each additional day.

3. No submissions will be entertained post the hard deadline.

Grading policy

1. The students can request a re-evaluation of the grade until a week after the particular grade has been posted. After that the student may not discuss prior grades with the instructor.
2. There will be no make up quiz/activity/exam under any circumstances unless a prior permission is granted.
3. In case if a student is not able to submit an assignment/project on time, he/she can make use of extra days and soft deadline facility as explained above. No submissions will be entertained post the hard deadline. No e-mails from students regarding assignments extensions will be entertained.
4. Although project grades are assigned for the entire team, each individual may be given a higher or lower grade (up to 50%) based on his/her contribution. Individual contribution for each project/assignment will be measured through multiple mechanisms.

Grade distribution

Note: The course instructor reserves the right to make minor modifications to the above distribution based on the progress of the course.