Announcements


  • Under the University’s Policy on Academic Continuity, the Provost has approved a request for the declaration of a disruption in CSC373. This has enabled the Department of Computer Science, within the Faculty of Arts and Science, to alter the course requirements by reweighting the assessments to the following:


    Final Exam = (4/7) * Max(M1,M2) + (2/7) * Min(M1,M2) + (1/7) * Avg(Best 3 out of A1, A2, A3, A4)


    Notation:

    • M1, M2 = your midterm 1 and midterm 2 percentage
    • A1, A2, A3, A4 = your assignment 1 through 4 percentage (if you did not submit an assignment, your grade for that assignment will be considered 10%)
    • Note that these assignments refer to the usual course assignments; the Embedded Ethics assignments are not part of the final exam interpolation.

    Explanation:

    • Recall the final exam would have covered 7 topics with roughly equal weight, of which M1 covered the first three, M2 covered the next three, and A4 covered the last three.
    • Thus, a suitable starting point for my scheme was "Final Exam = (3/7) * M1 + (3/7) * M2 + (1/7) * A4
    • From this, the first change is to shift (1/7) fraction from your worse midterm performance to your better midterm performance. Note that this can never hurt you.
    • Next, because the course syllabus at the start of the term stated that the overall course grade will be based on the average of the best three out of (A1, A2, A3, A4), having the final exam interpolation based solely on A4 was problematic (for example, several groups chose not to submit A4 since they performed relatively well in A1, A2, and A3). Hence, A4 was replaced by the average of the best three out of (A1, A2, A3, A4), making the interpolation more consistent with the initial syllabus.

    How does this affect me?

    • This policy was decided after simulating many alternative policies on the grades from previous years. This policy was the best at making sure that the interpolated final exam grade underestimates the real final exam grade for the fewest possible students. Here are some interesting stats.
    • This interpolation generated a better final exam grade than the actual final exam grade for over 90% of the students.
    • On average, this interpolation generated a grade that was 15% higher than the actual final exam grade.
    • Note that this is purely for your information. I am not seeking any feedback on this reweighting and I will not entertain any requests to modify this scheme. This has already been communicated to the FAS and cannot be changed.

    What if I missed one of the midterms?

    • If you are one of the small handful of students who missed one of the two midterms, I will handle your situation on a case-by-case basis to find you an alternative that comes as close to the above policy in principle as possible. I will reach out to you next week via email.

    More Blurb from FAS:

    In making these changes, the division and unit and instructor have worked to identify the best way to maintain the integrity of your academic program and to provide you with a reasonable opportunity to complete academic requirements during the present extraordinary circumstances. The University continues to develop resources that can support you during this time.

    In seeking to maintain academic continuity, the University is committed to treating students in a fair and equitable manner. Students remain responsible for their course work and for meeting course and program requirements. Students are also responsible for staying informed about the state of disruption and changing academic requirements and procedures. A student who considers that a disruption has unreasonably affected their grade may appeal the grade following the divisional procedures.

    The disruption is in effect until December 31, 2021.

    For questions about the disruption please contact: cs.undergrad@utoronto.ca.

  • Tue Dec 7's office hours are moved to Wed Dec 8, 4-5pm ET.
  • Post-ethics module survey and assignment have been posted. Both are due by Dec 8, 11:59pm ET.
  • Midterm 2 clarifications:
    • In Q3b, in the second paragraph, the sentence "...a feasible solution is required to satisfy exactly one of the two constraints" should say "at least one of the two constraints" instead of "exactly one of the two constraints". In particular, it is allowed for a feasible solution to satisfy both constraints.
  • Here are some important instructions regarding the upcoming Embedded Ethics Module.
    • All the relevant information about the module is available on a new tab added to the course webpage.
    • The module will be conducted during 3-5pm on Thu (Nov 25) in LEC 0201 and during 1-3pm on Tue (Nov 30) in LEC 0101.
    • The module will be on Zoom only because its group exercises are difficult to perform in-person or in the hybrid mode.
    • There is a short pre-module assignment due by Nov 25, 2pm ET.
      • There is only one very simple network flow question that you need to submit a solution to. This should not take more than 30 minutes.
      • I understand that this is very short notice, and you already have Midterm 2 and Assignment 3 due this week.
      • Unfortunately, I need to make this assignment due before the module, otherwise the module will not be meaningful. However, to reduce your load, I have extended Assignment 3 deadline to Nov 28, by 11:59pm ET.
    • Before the module, you are highly encouraged to watch two short videos prepared by our Embedded Ethics team and our Ethics TA.
  • Please submit any remark requests for Midterm 1 via MarkUs by 11:59pm on Nov 26. For each question/subquestion where you disagree with the given marks, please explain in detail why you believe you deserve more marks.
  • Marks for Midterm 1 are now available on MarkUs. The highest is 100% and the average/median is ~57%. Admittedly, the midterm turned out to be harder than I anticipated. The entire grade distribution is about 5 marks lower than anticipated. So, as promised, I will correct this by giving 5 bonus marks to everyone. I will soon implement this on MarkUs. For now, please think of your midterm marks as the current marks + 5 (out of 45).
    • Note: For Q3, the best DP (provided in official solutions) has O(n^2) time complexity. However, another very intuitive DP had time complexity O(n*B), which is not polynomial. If you provided this suboptimal DP, the grading scheme asked the TA to deduct 2 marks out of 15 marks, and make this deduction in Q3d. So, if you see that you only received 0.5 out of 2.5 marks for Q3d even though you correctly analyzed the time complexity of your algorithm, please be aware that these are 2 marks lost in the entire problem for the non-polynomial time complexity.
  • Starting Nov 15, the number of tutorial sections will be reduced to 2 (1 per section) due to significantly reduced attendance. If the attendance picks up, this will be increased again. Going forward, the tutorial for LEC 0101 will be in ES B149 (room capacity 90) and that for LEC 0201 will be in WB 119 (room capacity 62).
  • Midterm 2: Please read this carefully. 
    • Date: November 22, Monday
    • Time: 4:10-6pm ET. You will be given 10 extra minutes (6-6:10pm ET) for scanning and uploading your solutions.
      • While I cannot prevent you from writing answers during this additional 10-minute window, please note that in the past students have needed 10 minutes to compile their solutions and upload.
    • Syllabus: Network flow, linear programming, complexity
    • Aid: You can keep with you the three textbooks recommended on the course web page along with any handwritten notes that you (and not your friends) have personally written. Accessing the internet (other than to obtain the test, join clarification Zoom call, and upload your answers) or communicating with anyone (other than with the instructor/TAs) is strictly prohibited. 
    • Obtaining test paper: The test paper will be uploaded to the course web page on the same tab where tutorials/assignments are posted. 
    • Writing solutions: You can type your answers in LaTeX/Word, write them by hand on blank sheets of papers or a device, or do both (write parts by hand and type the rest). You will be responsible for making sure that any handwritten parts are legible and scanned in high quality. 
    • Submitting solutions: You will combine all your answers into a single PDF named "midterm2.pdf" and upload that single PDF on MarkUs. 
    • Technical difficulties: Please reserve the additional 10-minute window to take care of any technical difficulties. That said, if you encounter any unexpected difficulties at the last moment, please email your PDF to me at nisarg@cs.toronto.edu by 6:10pm ET. PLEASE DO THIS ONLY AS THE LAST RESORT. 
    • Clarifications: During the test, the instructor and/or TAs will be available on this zoom call.
      • You can join when you have questions or stay on the call throughout. 
      • While on the call, please keep your audio and video muted. 
      • If you have any questions, please raise your hand. Someone will assign you to a breakout room. Once in the breakout room, feel free to unmute and ask your question. 
      • Any clarifications that need to be communicated to the entire class will be (a) announced verbally on the Zoom call and (b) posted on Piazza and the course web page in real time. 
    • Practice midterms: Practice midterms and their solutions are available from the Tutorials & Assignments page. I do not take any responsibility for the accuracy of the posted questions and solutions.
  • Assignment 3 is posted.
  • Assignment 1 marks are now available on MarkUs. Please submit any remark requests through MarkUs within a week (i.e., by Nov 10, 11:59pm ET). In your remark request, please indicate which questions or subquestions you want to have remarked, and for each of them, provide a detailed explanation of why you disagree with the given marks. 
  • Here is the link to the pre-module survey for the Embedded EthiCS component of the course. This survey should take approximately 10 minutes to complete and it is worth 0.5% of the whole course. Please complete this survey by 11:59pm ET on Monday, Nov 1. The module itself will be conducted on Nov 25 and Nov 30, during the 2-hour lecture in each section. The reason for posting the pre-module survey so early is that several courses will be conducting an EthiCS module at different dates this year and the EthiCS team wants everyone to complete the pre-module surveys before they encounter any module in any course this year to minimize any bias effects.
  • Due to requests from a large number of groups, I'm extending the deadline for Assignment 2 by 4 days to Oct 30, 11:59pm. Please note that I will likely deny any extension requests beyond this date.
  • I am giving an invited talk on Oct 19 at 1pm. So, Prof. Allan Borodin will give the lecture on Oct 19 in LEC 0101 (1-3pm ET) in my place. He will cover the same content that I would have covered. I will teach in LEC 0201 (3-4pm ET) and conduct the subsequent office hour as usual.
    • We are getting tech help to ensure that Prof. Borodin can run the hybrid lecture just as we've been running it and that his lecture is recorded. That said, there is a small chance that he might encounter unforeseen difficulties in running the hybrid lecture and/or in recording the lecture. In case of a problem with recording, I will do my usual trick of posting the relevant parts of my recording from the other section.
  • Midterm 1: Please read this carefully. 
    • Date: October 25, Monday
    • Time: 4:10-6pm ET. You will be given 10 extra minutes (6-6:10pm ET) for scanning and uploading your solutions.
      • While I cannot prevent you from writing answers during this additional 10-minute window, please note that in the past students have needed 10 minutes to compile their solutions and upload.
    • Syllabus: Divide and conquer, greedy algorithms, dynamic programming
    • Aid: You can keep with you the three textbooks recommended on the course web page along with any handwritten notes that you (and not your friends) have personally written. Accessing the internet (other than to obtain the test, join clarification Zoom call, and upload your answers) or communicating with anyone (other than with the instructor/TAs) is strictly prohibited. 
    • Obtaining test paper: The test paper will be uploaded to the course web page on the same tab where tutorials/assignments are posted. 
    • Writing solutions: You can type your answers in LaTeX/Word, write them by hand on blank sheets of papers or a device, or do both (write parts by hand and type the rest). You will be responsible for making sure that any handwritten parts are legible and scanned in high quality. 
    • Submitting solutions: You will combine all your answers into a single PDF named "midterm1.pdf" and upload that single PDF on MarkUs. 
    • Technical difficulties: Please reserve the additional 10-minute window to take care of any technical difficulties. That said, if you encounter any unexpected difficulties at the last moment, please email your PDF to me at nisarg@cs.toronto.edu by 6:10pm ET. PLEASE DO THIS ONLY AS THE LAST RESORT. 
    • Clarifications: During the test, the instructor and/or TAs will be available on this zoom call.
      • You can join when you have questions or stay on the call throughout. 
      • While on the call, please keep your audio and video muted. 
      • If you have any questions, please raise your hand. Someone will assign you to a breakout room. Once in the breakout room, feel free to unmute and ask your question. 
      • Any clarifications that need to be communicated to the entire class will be (a) announced verbally on the Zoom call and (b) posted on Piazza and the course web page in real time. 
    • Rehearsal: I will soon create a dummy assignment on MarkUs.
      • At your own convenience, please write something in your preferred mode and try uploading a single PDF to MarkUs. This step will help possible technical difficulties ahead of the actual exam. 
      • Please also time yourself compiling your solutions and uploading the PDF to MarkUs. The time needed during the actual exam would be likely higher because you will have more pages to scan, you will be under stress, and/or MarkUs will be slower with everyone trying to upload their solutions. 
  • Assignment 2 is posted.
  • Oct 4: The TA for Tutorial Section 0201-B (scheduled in BA 2135) is not feeling well and will not be able to conduct the tutorial today. Students in this section can feel free to attend any of the other five tutorials today. For example, there are three other tutorials in Bahen: 0101-A (BA 2195), 0101-B (BA 2185), and 0201-C (BA B024).
  • Q5 (the bonus question) in Assignment 1 had a slight typo in the hint. Please check the corrected version.
  • Starting Sep 27, tutorials will be held in-person while lectures will be delivered in a hybrid format (you can join in-person or via Zoom). Tuesdays' office hours are shifted slightly to 4:30-5:30pm ET.
  • Assignment 1 is posted.
  • There will be no tutorial on Sep 13. The first tutorial will take place online on Sep 20 (see the course info page for Zoom links).
  • The Zoom link for the lectures during the first two weeks (both sections) is here. You should have received the password via email. It is also available on the course Piazza board.
  • All course activity will be online for the first two weeks.