Syllabus

Note

This is a tentative syllabus and subject to change.

This course is the second in a three-quarter sequence that teaches computational thinking and skills to students from a wide-variety of fields. Lectures cover topics in (1) data representation, (2) relational databases, (3) data cleaning and presentation, (4) shell scripting, (5) data structures, such as graphs, hash tables, and heaps. Applications and datasets from a wide variety of fields serve both as examples in lectures and as the basis for programming assignments. In recent offerings, students have written a course search engine and a system to do speaker identification.

Students will program in Python and do a group programming project.

Prerequisite: CAPP 30121

Course Staff

Instructor

• Lamont Samuels

Teaching Assistants

• Yue Kuang

• Hana Passen

• Kenny Shaevel

Graders

• Nixon Joshy

• Amanda Whaley

Lecture sections

Each section will meet with the instructor twice a week. We will use this time to cover additional material, review extended examples, to work through exercises, and to answer questions.

Pre-recorded lectures will also be posted most weeks.

Section	Time	Location	Instructor
Section #1	WF 8:00am-8:50am CT	Zoom	Samuels
Section #2	WF 1:50pm-2:40pm CT	Zoom	Samuels
	WF 1:50pm-2:40pm CT	JCL 011	Samuels

Discussion sections

Once a week, each section will meet with a teaching assistant to review the week’s programming assignment, to work through exercises, and to allow students to ask questions.

Section	Time	Location	Instructor
Section #1	M 8:00am-8:50am CT	Zoom	Kenny Shaevel
Section #2	M 8:00am-8:50am CT	Zoom	Hana Passen
Section #3	M 1:50pm-2:40pm CT	JCL 011	Yue Kuang

Course Structure

CAPP 30122 will follow a flipped classroom model, where most content delivery happens via pre-recorded lectures that are usually posted at the start of the week. The class will meets three times a week for more interactive and hands-on activities. In general, each week covers a specific topic, and class meeting times are structured as follows:

• Monday: Discussion session focused on that week’s programming assignment. Pre-recorded lectures are posted.

• Wednesday: The class meets to work through an ungraded lab related to that week’s topic or will continue to discover other topics related to that week’s module in a lecture format. For labs, students are given a few minutes to work individually or in small groups on a short exercise, followed by an instructor-led discussion of the solution (each lab involves working through several of these exercises).

• Friday: The class meets for a discussion of an extended example and/or general Q&A related to that week’s topic.

All three class meetings will be fairly interactive sessions designed to reinforce what is covered in that week’s pre-recorded lectures.

Graded work includes programming assignments, a course project.

Please see the calendar for more details on what happens on a day to day basis.

Programming assignments

We will be assigning five programming assignments. You will be allowed to work in pairs in some of these assignments. See the calendar for details.

Programming assignment deadlines mainly be Fridays; however, some assignments may fall other days. Please see the calendar for details.

The Monday discussion sessions will be used to provide additional support for these programming assignments.

Please see the Programming Assignment Rubric page for more details on how the programming assignments will be graded.

Practice problems

We additionally provide a series of short problems available that you can use for extra practice. You will not submit these problems and they will not be graded. However, if you are struggling with a particular topic in the class, working on practice problems can help you build more fluency in that topic, as well as reinforce your programming skills.

Labs

We will perdiocally publish labs that will be intended to help you build skills that are needed for the programming assignments (for example, SQL) or that are discussed in class, but not covered by any specific assignment (for example, regular expressions). These labs will not be graded.

The labs will provide anopportunity to get help with programming assignments and labs and will be discussed on Wednesdays.

Project

We will be assigning a final group project where you will work in groups of three. More details about the project will come shortly.

Grading

Your final grade will be based on the following:

Programming assignments	50%
Group Project	50%

Grades are not curved in this class or, at least, not in the traditional sense. We use a standard set of grade boundaries:

• 95-100: A

• 90-95: A-

• 85-90: B+

• 80-85: B

• 75-80: B-

• 70-75: C+

• <70: Dealt on a case-by-case basis

We curve only to the extent we might lower the boundaries for one or more letter grades, depending on the distribution of the raw scores. We will not raise the boundaries in response to the distribution.

So, for example, if you have a total score of 82 in the course, you are guaranteed to get, at least, a B (but may potentially get a higher grade if the boundary for a B+ is lowered).

MS-CAPP students must take this course for a letter grade. PhD students may take the course Pass/Fail and should reach out to the instructor to get information on what is required to earn a Pass.

Late submissions

You are allowed to make at most two late submissions on the programming assignments, regardless of whether you worked on those assignments individually or in a pair. Late submissions will be accepted up to 48 hours after the deadline.

No credit will be given for late submissions after you have used up your two allowed late submissions.

No credit will be given for any submission made 48 hours after the deadline.

Please note that, while Gradescope does enforce the 48-hour limit on late submissions and will clearly flag late submissions with a red “LATE” label, it does not enforce our specific limit of two late submissions. It is your responsibility to keep track of how many late submissions you have made so far, and to ensure you don’t make more than two late submissions.

If extraordinary circumstances (illness, family emergency, etc.) prevent a student from meeting a deadline, we may grant additional extensions on a case-by-case basis. Whenever possible, the student must inform their instructor of these extraordinary circumstances before the deadline.

Please note that having a heavy workload in a given week does not qualify as an extraordinary circumstance. The purpose of the two extensions is precisely to give you some flexibility in weeks when you are busier than usual.

Regrades

We sometimes make mistakes, and are happy to review any incorrect grading decision.

However, please note that we will only consider regrade requests where a grader made an actual mistake (e.g., they took points off claiming you didn’t do something, when you actually did do it and the grader maybe missed that when reading over your submission). We will not consider regrade requests that ask for point penalties to be reduced, or try to argue that we should not be taking points off for a given issue in your code.

For example, suppose you receive a penalty that says “-2 points: Function X did not check that parameter Y is greater than zero”. If function X in your code did perform this check, and the grader missed this fact (and erroneously applied that penalty), you can submit a regrade request asking us to review this decision. We ask that you keep these requests brief and to the point: no more than 1-2 paragraphs identifying the exact penalty and the reasons you believe it was applied erroneously, including references to specific parts of your code (e.g., “I did check the value of the parameter in line 107”). Focus on laying out the facts, and nothing else.

On the other hand, let’s say you received the “Function X did not check that parameter Y is greater than zero” penalty, and function X in your code did not perform this check. In this case, you cannot submit a regrade request arguing that this is not something for which we should deduct points, or that the point deduction should be lower. Please note that all penalties are explicitly approved by an instructor (graders have no discretion to come up with penalties on their own and, if they took points off for something, it is because they were directed to do so by the instructors).

Please note that, while you may request a regrade for a specific issue, an instructor may do a full regrade of your submission if they feel there are other issues with the grading of your submission. This can result in you ending up with a lower score on the assignment.

Finally, it is also your responsibility to make these requests in a timely manner. Requests for regrades must be submitted no later than one week after a graded piece of work is returned to you. After that time, we will not consider any requests for regrades, regardless of whether the regrade request is reasonable and justified.

Books

This course will not be using a textbook. We will post slides and additional readings that will supplement the lecture material. This material will be posted on the modules page for each week. Labs will also serve the purpose as reference material for recent topics.

Policies

Policy on academic honesty

We take academic honesty very seriously in this class. Please make sure to read our Academic Honesty page.

Zoom guidelines

We will be using Zoom for some parts of this class. We expect your interactions via Zoom to be consistent with an in-person class experience. Respect the people you’re working with. Enter the Zoom meetings muted if possible (unfortunately, it will not be possible if you’re calling in), and unmute to speak. Raise your hand if you’d like to speak. [There’s a “Raise Hand” button on the participant page.] If your background is unusually noisy, use the chat channel instead of unmuting. We strongly encourage you to have your camera on during our Zoom sessions, but we’ll understand if some of you prefer to keep your video off.

Note that you can set your name in your Zoom profile, so you don’t have to go with whatever was assigned. Feel free to include your pronouns in your name (if you do, please include them after your last name).

Some of our Zoom class meetings will be recorded and saved to the cloud to allow students in this class to review the discussion, and especially to allow students who can’t participate the opportunity to benefit from class. We will not make these recordings available to anyone but class participants, we will not make them available after the quarter, and students will not be allowed to save copies. However, we have no way to guarantee that students will follow this policy. If you have FERPA concerns, please mask yourself accordingly, e.g., by turning off video and using an alias.

Diversity statement

The University of Chicago is committed to diversity and rigorous inquiry that arises from multiple perspectives. We concur with that commitment and also believe that we have the highest quality interactions and can creatively solve more problems when we recognize and celebrate our diversity. We thus expect to maintain a productive learning environment based upon open communication, mutual respect, and non-discrimination. We view the diversity that students bring to this class as a resource, strength and benefit. It is our intent to present materials and activities that are respectful of diversity: gender, sexuality, disability, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, race, religious background, and immigration status. Any suggestions as to how to further such a positive and open environment in the class will be appreciated and given serious consideration.

If you have a preferred name different from what appears on the class roster, or preferred gender pronouns you would like us to use, please let us know.

Disability statement

If there are circumstances that make our learning environment and activities difficult, please let us know. We will maintain the confidentiality of any such discussions.

MS-CAPP students who need to request formal accommodations due to a disability should follow the Harris Accommodations Process. PhD students should contact their program administrator for information about how to request formal accommodations.

COVID-19 Policies

UChicago Health Pact

All students on campus are required to adhere to the guidelines in the UChicago Health Pact in order to promote a safe environment in the classroom.

• Secure face coverings must be worn appropriately at all times while in University buildings

• Maintain a distance of 6 feet from others

• Do not attend an in-person class if you feel unwell or are experiencing COVID-19 related symptoms

The complete text of the UChicago Health Pact along with additional information about COVID-19 protocols can be found here.

Reporting COVID-19 Related Concerns

Any concerns over inappropriate PPE usage, physical distancing, cleaning/disinfection, or other COVID-19 related public health concerns should be directed to UCAIR.

If there is an emergency, call 773-702-8181 or dial 123 on any campus phone.

Reporting COVID-19 Exposure or a Confirmed Case

If you were potentially exposed to COVID-19 or your COVID-19 test results come back positive, reach out immediately to C19HealthReport@uchicago.edu.

Recording and Deletion Policies for Academic Year 2020-1

The Recording and Deletion Policies for the current academic year can be found in the Student Manual under Petitions, Audio & Video Recording on Campus.

• Do not record, share, or disseminate any course sessions, videos, transcripts, audio, or chats.

• Do not share links for the course to those not currently enrolled.

• Any Zoom cloud recordings will be automatically deleted 90 days after the completion of the recording.

Attendance

Absent any extraordinary circumstances, we expect students to attend all lectures and discussions. That said, we do not keep track of attendance in this class and no part of your final grade is computed based on your attendance to lectures or discussions.

Students who have been exposed to or who are experiencing symptoms of COVID-19 should contact UChicago Student Wellness immediately to be tested, and reach out to their area Dean of Students to request accommodations for classes until:

• At least 10 days have passed since symptoms first appeared and;

• At least 3 days (72 hours) have passed since recovery- defined as resolution of fever without the use of fever-reducing medications and improvement in respiratory symptoms (e.g., cough, shortness of breath).