Course Announcements

If you failed the course.
Remember that according to the course marking scheme announced at the start of the term, you needed to get at least 40% on your final exam in order to pass the course. Because we decided to count the final exam out of 90 instead of 100, this means that to pass the course, you needed to get at least 36 marks on your final exam. If you did not, then your final course mark will be no higher than 45.
According to Faculty regulations, I have already re-read the final examination of every student who failed the course (whether or not it is because of their mark on the exam). I cannot change the course marking scheme at this point, or make exceptions to it. If you did not get at least 36 marks on the final exam, then there is a significant amount of the course material that you did not understand and I cannot justify giving you a passing grade. This course is especially important for many of your future courses and if you do not understand enough of it to pass, you will be in serious trouble later on. It would be much better for you to retake the course and really understand the material.
If you believe that your performance on the exam does not accurately reflect your understanding of the course material because of special circumstances that were outside of your control, then there is already a formal mechanism in place to deal with this: talk to your college registrar to file a petition to write a deferred exam. If you provide sufficient evidence to justify your petition, you will be allowed to write the final exam for the course offered this summer (presumably under better circumstances than this term) and your mark on the deferred exam will replace your mark on this term's exam.
I am afraid that this is the only recourse you have at this point. Your mark in the course must correspond to your results on term work and on the exam: it measures how much you've learned, not directly how much you worked at it. This may feel unfair but if you think about it, it is the only way to make sure that you really are ready for the next courses.

Someone was happy for the course to be over, and made up a commemorative T-shirt in PNG format (one in mirror image and the other the right way around) to print on an iron on transfer. Here's the front and the back.

Part II of Assignment 4 has been remarked for everyone whose code did not compile with our original testing files, to get rid of problems caused by the various interfaces. New results will be e-mailed to the students whose mark was changed.
Unofficial final course marks are now posted. See the explanation on the Current Marks page for more details.

Because of a (luckily mild) case of food poisoning that left me unable to do much this weekend, the marks for Assignment 4 have just been posted on the Current Marks page. Also, details of the marking scheme for the assignment (including the files that were used to test the code) have been posted on the Assignments page. I apologize for the delay.
Testing results for part II of the assignment will be e-mailed to your CDF account later this week.

This gives the following updated deadlines for requesting remarks of the various pieces of term work for this course, on the St. George campus:

• Assignment 1: March 19
• Assignment 2: April 9
• Midterm Test: April 23
• Assignment 3: May 7
• Assignment 4: May 24

However, note that remarking requests received after the final exam may not get processed in time for the submission of final course marks and it is possible that your mark will only be updated later this summer.

Part I of Homework Assignment 4 is marked and ready to be picked up from the box outside my office (in SF-4306). Part II will be marked shortly, and the results will be posted sometime this weekend.
Also, the marking schemes and comments for parts I and II of A4 will be posted sometime this weekend.

A tiny typo was spotted in the week 8 lecture notes which have now been updated. The line:

APPEND on array of size 2^n holding 2^{n}-1: cost 1, result size 2^n
          tc = 2*2^n - 1 = 2^{n+1}-1

previously had 2^{n-1} instead of 2^{n}-1. This typo does not affect the rest of the analysis.

On the St. George campus, all remarking requests received since the start of the term have now been processed. The marks have been updated, and you can collect your remarked work from the box outside my office (SF-4306E).
Note that according to the Faculty of Arts & Science, the official deadline to request a remark of term work is one month after the work is returned. This gives the following deadlines for requesting remarks of the various pieces of term work for this course, on the St. George campus:

• Assignment 1: March 19
• Assignment 2: April 9
• Midterm Test: April 23
• Assignment 3: May 7
• Assignment 4: T.B.A.

However, note that remarking requests received after the final exam may not get processed in time for the submission of final course marks and it is possible that your mark will only be updated later this summer.

Sample solutions for Assignment 4 have been posted (including sample solution code for part II). The marking scheme and marking comments will be added as soon as they are available.

François Pitt will hold additional office hours next Friday (April 23) from 12pm to 2pm.

For the two weeks prior to the final examination, François Pitt will hold his regular office hours (M 12-2, W 12-2). If demand and my own time permit, I may also hold additional office hours. These will be announced on this webpage.

Sample solutions for the last tutorial (week 12) have been posted.
Copies of some final examinations for CSC378H have been posted on the Tests/Exam page.

A copy of the midterm test at UTSC has been posted on the Tests/Exam page, along with the solutions and marking scheme. I have also added a link to my tips for studying for the final exam and writing it.

The marks for part II of Assignment 3 have now been posted. The marking instructions and test files for part II have also been posted on the Assignments page. A detailed marking report for part II of your assignment will be sent by e-mail to your CDF account by the end of this week.

The cover page of the final examination has been posted (on the Term Tests and Final Exam page).

UTM students should see their campus-specific announcements for important information about TA office hours and the A4 electronic submission deadline.

A tutorial exercise for this week has now been posted. Our apologies for the delay.

The following items have been posted (or will be posted later today) for the St. George campus: error codes used during the marking of Assignment 2, marking scheme for Assignment 3, solutions and marking scheme for the midterm tests, marks for Assignment 3, marks for the midterm tests.

Information Session on Admission to CSC Programs
Wondering how the admission process works? Confused about recent changes to the requirements? Not sure which program to take? This session will provide an opportunity to get the answers you need.
When? Wednesday 31 March, 5-6 pm
Where? BA 1190
Read all the details about IMPORTANT changes to CSC program admission requirements for 2004/05.

A number of important clarifications and announcements have been posted on the FAQ page for Assignment 4 (including details of an extension for the programming part).

Part II of assignment 4 has now been posted, together with important announcements on the assignment FAQ.

On the St. George campus, your midterm test and part I of Assignment 3 will be returned during tutorial this week. A detailed marking report for part II of Assignment 3 will be e-mailed to your CDF account soon (another announcement will be posted once this is done). Any work that is not claimed during tutorial will be left in the box outside my office (in SF-4306).
The marks for the midterm test and Assignment 3 will be posted before next week, as well as marking schemes and marking comments. Please be patient and take the time to read the marking scheme carefully before asking questions about your mark. If you still have questions after reading the marking scheme, please feel free to ask me by e-mail or during office hours.

On the St. George campus, official course evaluations will be held during next week's Monday lecture (on March 29).

Sample solutions to Assignment 3 have now been posted. On the St. George campus, the assignment will be returned in lecture or tutorial this week.

Assignment 4 has now been posted.

Next week's lecture notes and tutorial exercises are now available.
Assignment 4 will be posted before next week.

I have posted an addendum to the lecture notes for this week, with more details on some of the data structures for Disjoint Sets (the ones that were covered in lectures on the St. George campus).
On the St. George campus, next week's lectures will mostly cover the rest of the material on Disjoint Sets.

The lecture notes and tutorial exercises for next week have been posted.

I have just posted the marking scheme for A2 and a tar file containing all the test files used for marking the java programs. The file testPlan.txt was my working record when I designed the test suite. You might find it helpful when you are trying to understand why your program failed a particular test case.

For the St. George campus, marked copies of Assignment 2 have been left in blue folders in a box outside my office (in room SF-4306) -- each tutorial section is in a separate folder. Note that some of the folders are currently empty because those TA's still have their copies of the marked assignment: I have instructed them to drop off their copies as soon as possible, so please check again sometime tomorrow.

The marking scheme for Assignment 2 will be posted on the Assignments page sometime today or tomorrow. It will include details of the testing we did on your program for part II, so that you may run the same tests we did and see how we obtained the mark you were assigned for that part.

Change to tutorial exercises!
Due to a silly mistake, we originally posted the tutorial exercises for next week. The correct exercises for this week have now been posted. Our apologies for any inconvenience.

Part II of Assignment 3 has now been posted. We have also posted some additional hints and an explanation of the changes to the Silent Running policy that will be in effect for this assignment (on the Announcements page for A3).

Assignment 2 marks have been posted (for the St. George campus).

Current marks for St. George campus
We would have liked to be able to return more work than the strict minimum required by Faculty regulations before the drop date (10%), but the following situations may make this impossible.

• Unfortunately, the markers for the midterm test were only able to get started at the end of the week so the test will not be marked in time for the drop date.
• Due to a misunderstanding, one of the markers for A2 was unaware that the drop date is tomorrow (Sunday 7 March). He told me that he would try to have the marks ready sometime today, but there is a possibility that he will be unable to complete his marking this weekend. I will post the marks as soon as he sends them to me.

An extension has been given for the programming part of A3. See the A3 FAQ for details.

You may have noticed that the tutorial exercises and lecture notes for this week are a little late. They will be posted sometime today or tomorrow. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Sample solutions for Assignment 2 have been posted, as well as Part I of Assignment 3.

Further information about the midterm test is available on the Tests and Exam page, including links to old midterm tests from CSC378H.

The lecture and tutorial notes for next week (week 7) have now been posted. Note that on the St. George campus, you will be writing your midterm test during next week's tutorial. Hence, solutions to the tutorial exercises will be posted on the website at the start of week 8.

More information about the midterm test will be posted on the Tests and Exam page later this week.

Assignment 2 submission
If you are planning to submit assignment 2 late, please hand it in directly to my office (SF-4306E) on Monday 16 February, by 10:00am. (You must also submit your code electronically by the same deadline.)

Assignment 1 is marked!
It will be available for pickup from room SF-4306 during regular business hours for most of next week. The marking scheme and marking comments for the assignment will be posted later today (or early next week), as will the marks for the assignment.

Office hours during reading week:
I will hold my regular office hours (MW 12-2) as usual.

There was a typo in the solutions to Assignment 1 posted last week (in the algebra for question 1(c)). A corrected version has now been posted.

Important announcements have been posted on the Announcements and Hints page for Assignment 2, as well as new starter code.

The lecture notes for Week 5 have been updated (a number of typographical errors were fixed). There is also an addendum to the lecture notes that contains additional explanations of the effect of splits, transfers, and fusions/merges on the sizes of the nodes involved, together with rough ASCII pictures.

Sample solutions for Assignment 1 have been posted.

The starter code for Assignment 2 has been posted.

Assignment 2 has been posted.

Lecture and tutorial outlines for next week have now been posted.

Lecture and tutorial outlines for next week have now been posted.

For each assignment this term, we will put in place a "silent running" policy. An explanation of this policy has been posted on the Assignments page.

We've just posted an updated version of the week 2 lecture notes which better reflects what actually happened in our classes. Some students were asking if we would eventually be posting the answers to the questions asked in the notes. We don't plan to ever post these answers. In order to complete your notes you must attend the lectures and take notes. If you are forced to miss a class please ask a friend who attended to help you fill in the gaps.

Some of you may have noticed that a course newsgroup was created a few days ago, and that it will go away before the end of this week. This is due to a simple miscommunication: the course instructors for CSC263H/B63H made a decision to have no course newsgroup before the start of the term, but we did not inform the system administrators of our decision, not realizing that one would be created by default.
Why is there no csc263h newsgroup?
CSC263H/B63H focuses on the theoretical aspects of data structures. Most of the assignments are pencil and paper but at least some part of each assignment will require programming. These programming questions are intended to reinforce the concepts taught in the course, not to introduce new programming languages or tools or paradigms.
Typically, newsgroups are useful for students asking system specific questions such as "How do you get program version x to run under system y at home?" Students are able to answer each others questions, particularly when the instructor can't be expected to support all the different configurations students might run on their home machines. We don't expect very many of these types of questions in CSC263H/B63H since students are not being introduced to any new languages or set-ups.
Newsgroups are also useful for students to ask instructors (or TAs) clarification questions about assignments. In a multi-section course, this allows any instructor or TA to answer the question of any student and it cuts down on instructor email. It also theoretcially reduces the number of times instructors have to answer the same question from multiple students. But the same goal can be achieved by a well-maintained Announcements page, and of course, this only works if students actually read the newsgroup postings before e-mailing the professor or reposting the same question (which can be difficult if the newsgroup gets too large).
Course newsgroups are also particularly useful when a programming assignment uses auto-marking and it is important that students don't make their own different assumptions about the program's format. Of course, announcements or an assignment FAQ will work for this too. In CSC263H/B63H, we don't anticipate using any auto-marking of programs and students are expected to make and document reasonable assumptions as they solve the problems. Sometimes, realizing you need to make an assumption and figuring out what would be reasonable to assume is part of the solution.
The danger of a course newsgroup in a theory course such as CSC263H/B63H is that it is quite easy for students to give away much of the solution in their attempts to ask a question about a problem. Sometimes, in trying to see the final details of a solution, a student posts a statement that he considers "obvious". Yet, arriving at that initial statement was actually a significant part of the solution process. Similarly, a student might ask, "Is such and such a reasonable assumption?" and in so asking is giving away a big piece of the solution.
Given that we don't expect a lot of "systems" questions, and that we don't expect to use any auto-marking, the instructors of CSC263H/B63H felt that the course would be better without a newsgroup this term. We will attempt to answer questions sent to us by email and post answers to announcements or to an assignment-specific FAQ. If we find that the email traffic is too high, we will reconsider the newsgroup decision.

The Scarborough instructor for the course put together an addendum to the lecture notes for week 1 (giving more detailed explanations of the notion of upper and lower bound on worst-case complexity), which is now available on the Lectures and Tutorials page.

Assignment 1 has been posted on the Assignments page.

The lecture and tutorial outlines for next week have been posted on the Lectures and Tutorials page.
Please read the lecture outline ahead of time, think about the questions I have asked there, and come to lecture prepared with your own questions (if you have any).
Please prepare solutions for the exercises in the tutorial outline and be ready to discuss them during next week's tutorial (there is no need to write up formal solutions, you will not be handing them in).

Error on Course Information Sheet
The due date for Assignment 3 listed on the original Course Information Sheet was incorrect. The correct due date for Assignment 3 is Friday 12 March. An updated version of the Course Information Sheet has been posted.

Tutorials will take place this week (tomorrow). You can find out your tutorial section on the course schedule section of the main webpage.

Lecture and tutorial summaries have been posted for this week. The summaries for next week will be posted sometime tomorrow.

Assignment 1 will be posted sometime before next week.

Under construction! Some of the information on this site remains to be determined (e.g., the breakdown of tutorial sections). Everything should be settled by the end of the first week of classes.
In particular, note that tutorials will be held during the first week.