Syllabus: CS 448/548 Survivable Systems and Networks

The class web page contains most of the general information for the class as well as down-loadable material. Additional material will be handed out in class (or will be send to you by engineering outreach) as a hard copy. This page focuses on guidelines:

• MOTIVATION: You are responsible for all material presented in class and/or in assigned readings. Contact me as soon as practicable if you have a legitimate reason for missing any work (e.g. illness or death in the family). The sooner the better! In most cases, some requirements can be modified or waived.

• PLAGIARISM and CONTRACT: Plagiarism or cheating of any type will not be tolerated. This includes, but is not limited to, copying or collusion on programs, projects, assignments, abstracts, documentation, wandering eyes on tests, using homework assignments from a previous semester, turning in previously submitted term papers, using other person's computer accounts to do projects, programs, etc., getting other people to do your assignments, etc. NOTE: I do not mind you discussing the logical solution to problems, but not code, diagrams, or physical solutions of any type.

  This explicitly includes the copying of portions of a book, article, or copying of an authority without explicitly crediting the author. If you are uncertain about how to cite other work properly, please ask me any time and I will give you some examples. In general, look at the research papers we discuss in class, they all cite other peoples work. All textual assignments must include work written and conceived by the student, and cannot be simply an amalgamation of quotes from various sources. You may use code you previously created in other classes.

  If you plagiarize any assignment (homework, exams, projects etc), I reserve to right to do any of the following, at my discretion (1) Give you a warning (2) Fail you on the portions I believe you plagiarized (3) Give a zero (or negative points) on the assignment which was plagiarized (4) Fail you for the entire class

  About references and citations: Every student must sign a contract that will be handed out (emailed to EO students) and discussed in class. At the bottom of a brief document giving examples of how to reference and cite it says: Our Contract: ``Here I want you to acknowledge (with a signature) that you will not use other peopleÕs materials without proper referencing and citing. Failure to do so will be seen as and act of academic dishonesty and it will lead to failure of the exam, paper, or project to the extend that you may fail the course. I (printed name:) understand the above statement and hereby guarantee to adhere to proper referencing standards. Signature: Date:''

  Contract: (How to Reference).

• GRADING POLICY:
  • Three exams will be given during the course. Each exam will cover mainly material presented since the previous exam.

  • Several assignments will be given. These assignments are for you to test your knowledge of the material. They will be graded as Pass/Fail based on the effort put into the assignment. I will elaborate on what exactly that means in class. After posting the assignments I will also discuss solutions/hints, so you can better prepare or judge your understanding of the material. The assignments will not be returned unless there are issues, e.g.., a Fail grade.

  • 500 level students will have an additional term project. The specifics of the project will be addressed separately. The project will count for 15% of the course grade.

  • Engineering Outreach students will receive their exams through engineering outreach (EO). The process of administering exams is out of my control. For questions about this, please contact Engineering Outreach.

  • Instructor's discretion may be used in rare instances to raise (but not lower) a borderline final course grade. It will be used only when (in my opinion) a gross statistical aberration has occurred which is so unique and so blatantly obvious that there can be no questions regarding fairness or favoritism.

  • Grading 448: assignments 10%, each exam 30%.
  • Grading 558: assignments 10%, each exam 25%, 500-level project 15%.

• EMAIL: Email will only be accepted if it is of personal or sensitive nature or if I request you to email me, e.g., to submit assignments. All questions regarding the class or the material are to be posted to the class forum, indicated on the class web page. The reason for this "email restriction" is that the volume of class-related emails I received in recent semesters was unmanageable.

• Textbooks:
  • There will be no textbook for the class. The topic is too new, and there does not exist a suitable book yet.
  • A reading list consisting of many research and general papers will be made available as the class goes on. Please note that the university has subscriptions to access these papers from within campus. Otherwise you may have to go though the UI Library login to be covered by the subscriptions.