University of Toronto -- Department of Computer Science
St. George Campus -- Winter Session 2005

CSC 373H: "Algorithm Design and Analysis"

Main Course Webpage

News Flash! (See the Announcements for full details.)

Tue 10 May: Posted unofficial final course marks.

Site index.
Course schedule.
Important dates.
Policy on lateness and missed term tests.
Policy on special consideration.
Grading scheme.
Policy on remarking requests.
References and textbooks.
Useful links.

Site index

Course websites for the suburban campus and enriched section.
Policy on Electronic Correspondence. READ THIS!
Guidelines for Avoiding Plagiarism.
Important Note on Feedback.
Course Information Sheet (Adobe PDF document). Updated Sat 15 Jan.
Course Announcements (last updated at 13:51 (EDT) on Tue 10 May 2005).
Current Course Marks (last updated at 13:30 (EDT) on Tue 10 May 2005).
Lecture Summaries and Tutorial Exercises (last updated at 09:45 (EDT) on Mon 18 Apr 2005).
Homework Assignments (last updated at 16:18 (EST) on Wed 23 Mar 2005).
Term Tests and Final Exam (last updated at 09:00 (EDT) on Wed 10 May 2006).

Instructor office hours

Instructor	E-mail	Phone	Office	Office Hours
François Pitt	fpitt at cdf dot utoronto dot ca	416-978-3707	SF-4306E	T 12-1:30
Mark Braverman	mbraverm at cdf dot utoronto dot ca	416-978-0314	BA-3234	W 5-6

TA office hours

TA office hours will be held as needed during the term (not on a regular basis). They will be announced during lectures and on the Announcements section of this website.

Lecture schedule

Section	Time	Room	Instructor
L0101	WF 2	MP 202	François Pitt
L5101	W 6-8	BA 1170	Mark Braverman

Tutorial schedule

You have been assigned a specific tutorial section (listed below), based on the first letter of your last (family) name. Please attend the tutorial section that you were assigned, to allow us to keep the tutorial sizes balanced. If you have a problem with your tutorial, please contact your instructor immediately (it's better to fix problems than to ignore them).

Note that tutorial sections may need to be reorganized during the first few weeks of term in order to keep them balanced. Any such change will be announced ahead of time in lecture and on the Announcements page.

Section L0101

Time	Room	TA's name	for students whose last name starts with...
M 2	BA 3116	Shizhong Li	A - G
M 2	BA 3012	Eric Hsu	H - L
M 2	BA 3004	Hamed Hatami	M - S
M 2	BA 2195	Philipp Hertel	T - Z

Section L5101

Time	Room	TA's name	for students whose last name starts with...
W 8	BA 1170	Philipp Hertel	A - Z

Important dates

Monday 3 January	First day of classes
Sunday 16 January	Deadline to enrol
Wednesday 26 January	Assignment 1 DUE
Monday 7 February (for L0101) Wednesday 9 February (for L5101)	Term Test 1
Wednesday 23 February	Assignment 2 DUE
Sunday 6 March	Deadline to drop
Wednesday 16 March	Assignment 3 DUE
Monday 21 March (for L0101) Wednesday 23 March (for L5101)	Term Test 2
Friday 25 March	Good Friday (University closed)
Wednesday 6 April	Assignment 4 DUE
Friday 8 April	Last day of classes
April 18 - May 6	Final Examination period

For the assignments, submission instructions and deadlines are given on the Assignments page. For the term test(s), the specific time and place are given on the Term Test page.

Policy on lateness and missed term tests

All assignments will be due no later than 6pm on their due date (see the important dates above for the exact due date of each assignment). Late assignments will be accepted up to 24 hours after the deadline, with the following penalties.

Submission time	Penalty (as a percentage of the total)
by 6pm on Wednesday	no penalty
by 10am on Thursday	-10%
by 6pm on Thursday	-25%
after 6pm on Thursday	-100%

Note that lateness penalties are computed as a percentage of the total marks on the assignment, so for example, a student who gets 57/100 with a penalty of -10% will have their mark recorded as 47/100 (57/100 - 10/100).

Late assignments must be handed into the course drop box in room BA 2220 (or to the secretary in room SF-3302 who can verify the submission time).

If you miss a term test, you will get a mark of zero unless you have informed your instructor beforehand and they have agreed that you may miss it. (See the section on special consideration to request special consideration because of illness or other circumstances.)

Policy on special consideration

If you are unable to complete homework or if you miss a midterm test due to major illness or other circumstances completely outside of your control, please contact your instructor immediately in order to receive special consideration. Note that special consideration will be considered on an individual basis and will not be given automatically.

In order to receive special consideration, you must fill out the following Request for Special Consideration form and bring it to your instructor together with your supporting documentation.

In the case of illness, medical documentation must be supplied on the standard University of Toronto Student Medical Certificate (Adobe PDF document). You can also obtain a paper copy of this certificate from your college registrar. (A simple "note" from your doctor is not acceptable.)

Grading scheme

4 Homework Assignments:	30%	(7.5% each)
2 Term Tests:	30%	(15% each)
1 Final Examination:	40%

In order to pass the course, you must achieve a mark of at least 40% on the final examination. In other words, you will automatically fail the course (your final mark will be lowered to no more than 40) if your mark on the final exam is below 40%, irrespective of your computed final mark.

Your lowest term test grade will not be counted if it would be to your advantage to count your final exam grade instead.

Policy on remarking requests

All remarking requests must be received within one month of the date when the assignment or test was returned. (It is your responsibility to pick up your assignment or test from the CSSU, in room BA-2283, if you were not in lecture or in tutorial when it was returned.)
We CANNOT accept remarking requests for term tests that were written using pencil!
Your mark will decrease if the marker sees something that was incorrectly awarded too high a mark.
If there is a simple addition mistake in your assignment or test, just show the work to your instructor (not your TA).
For all other remarking requests, please print this remarking form, fill it in completely, and attach it to your assignment or test. (Remarking requests will not be considered if the remarking form is missing or incomplete.)
You must be specific and clearly demonstrate that the marking scheme was not followed correctly for your assignment or test. Note that marks are awarded based on merit, not on need, so statements like "I worked really hard" or "I really need those marks" are not good reasons.
Give the form and your assignment or test directly to the marker or to your instructor. Remember to submit your work together with the form.
If you are comparing your work to that of another student, hand in BOTH assignments or tests (your request will be ignored otherwise).
If you are still not satisfied after getting back your remarked assignment (or after having a meeting with the marker), contact your instructor to discuss your situation.

References and textbooks

Required textbook

CSC373S/375S Spring 2005 Algorithm Design, a set of custom course notes published by utpprint from a textbook written by Éva Tardos and Jon Kleinberg.

The textbook will be used for readings and exercises throughout the term.

Additional references

Cormen, Leiserson, Rivest, Stein: Introduction to Algorithm (2nd edition). McGraw-Hill (2001), ISBN: 0-07-013151-1.
Anany Levitin: Introduction to the Design & Analysis of Algorithms. Addison-Wesley (2003), ISBN: 0-201-74395-7.
Kenneth Berman and Jerome Paul: Algorithms: Sequential, Parallel, and Distributed. Thomson Learning (2005), ISBN: 0-534-42057-5.

364 notes

The course CSC 364H used to contain part of the material in this course. Links to the "364 notes" can be found on this page. (Note that all files on that page are in PostScript format. You may want to download a free PostScript viewer.)

University of Toronto -- Department of Computer Science St. George Campus -- Winter Session 2005