Schedule

ALL THE LECTURE SLIDES WILL BE POSTED HERE

The schedule is subject to change as the semester progresses!

Deliverables

Assignments

All the Assignments will be posted on Piazza/ ELMS. Instructions will appear over the course of the semester. Most assignments get released one or two days before the lecture material gets presented and are due one or two weeks after that.

Weights: HW1 — 5%, HW2 — 5%, HW3 — 6%, HW4 — 7%, HW5 — 12% (Total 35%)

Final Project/Tutorial

There will be a group final project/tutorial with four to six (four recommended) persons in each group. Keep in mind that this is a semester-long group project/tutorial for this course, and you should strive to make it your best work. It will be graded to a higher standard than the rest of the homework, considering that you have had the opportunity to practice these skills beforehand. Project details will be posted on Piazza/ELMS. It will be your responsibility to select the project topic as well as your project partners.

Additional Administrative Information

University Policies and Resources

Policies relevant to Undergraduate Courses are found here: http://ugst.umd.edu/courserelatedpolicies.html. Topics that are addressed in these various policies include academic integrity, student and instructor conduct, accessibility and accommodations, attendance and excused absences, grades and appeals, copyright and intellectual property.

Projects/Labs: On any graded project or lab, you are NOT allowed to exchange code. We compare each student's code with every other student's code to check for similarities. Every semester, we catch an embarrassingly high number of students that engage in cheating and we have to take them to the Honor Council.

GroupMe/Other Group Chats: We encourage students to talk about course material and help each other out in group chats. However, this does NOT include graded assignments. There have been a couple instances in the past where students have posted pictures/source files of their code, or earlier sections have given away exam questions to later sections. Not only did this lower the curve for the earlier section because the later one will do better, the WHOLE group chat had to pay a visit to the Honor Council. It was an extremely ugly business. Remember that in a group of 200+, someone or the other will blow the whistle. If you happen to be an innocent person in an innocent groupchat and someone starts cheating out of the blue, leave it immediately (and better yet, say you are leaving and say you will report it).

Github: You may post your project code to private Github (or similar service) repos only. As a student, you can make a private repo for free. Just remember that your free premium subscription has an expiration date, and your code becomes public once it expires. The Honor Council can retroactively give an XF (even to students who have already graduated) if your code is then used by another student to cheat. So just be careful. Posting graded code to a public repo will give you a free ticket to the Honor Council(Unless the instructor has given you permission with some strict conditions).

Excused Absences

Missing an exam for reasons such as illness, religious observance, mandatory military obligation, physical or mental health conditions of the student or an immediate family member, death of someone close to the student, participation in university activities at the request of university authorities, or compelling circumstances beyond the student’s control (e.g., required court appearances) will be excused so long as the absence is requested in writing at least 2 days in advance and the student includes documentation that shows the absence qualifies as excused; a self-signed note is not sufficient as exams are Major Scheduled Grading Events. For this class, such events are the final project assessment and midterms, which will be due on the dates listed in the schedule above. The final exam is scheduled according to the University Registrar.

Absences stemming from work duties other than military obligation (e.g., unexpected changes in shift assignments) and traffic/transit problems do not typically qualify for excused absence.

For medical absences, you must furnish documentation from the health care professional who treated you. This documentation must verify dates of treatment and indicate the timeframe during which you were unable to meet academic responsibilities. In addition, it must contain the name and phone number of the medical service provider to be used if verification is needed. No diagnostic information will ever be requested. Note that simply being seen by a health care professional does not constitute an excused absence; it must be clear that you were unable to perform your academic duties.

It is the University's policy to provide accommodations for students with religious observances that conflict with exams, but it is your responsibility to inform the instructor in advance of intended observances. If you have a conflict with a planned exam, you must inform the instructor prior to the end of the first two weeks of the class.

The policies for excused absences do not apply to project assignments. Projects will be assigned with sufficient time to be completed by students who have a reasonable understanding of the necessary material and begin promptly. In cases of extremely serious documented illness of lengthy duration or other protracted, severe emergency situations, the instructor may consider extensions on project assignments, depending upon the specific circumstances.

One time per course per semester, students may provide a self-signed excuse as documentation of an absence from a single class (e.g., lecture, recitation, or laboratory session) that does not coincide with a major assessment or assignment due date.

For the full University of Maryland policy on excused absence, including definitions and procedures, see the official policy: University of Maryland Policy on Excused Absence.

If you experience difficulty during the semester keeping up with the academic demands of your courses, you may consider contacting the Learning Assistance Service in 2201 Shoemaker Building at (301) 314-7693. Their educational counselors can help with time management issues, reading, note-taking, and exam preparation skills.

Information regarding official University closing and delays

Students can find information about official university closings and delays on the campus website or by contacting the weather emergency phone line at 301-405-7669. If any exam or class assignment is rescheduled or a class is canceled due to inclement weather, we will provide announcements via ELMS. We will ensure to follow the university campus rules

Right to Change Information

Although every effort has been made to be complete and accurate, unforeseen circumstances arising during the semester could require the adjustment of any material given here. Consequently, given due notice to students, the instructors reserve the right to change any information on this syllabus or in other course materials. Such changes will be announced and prominently displayed.

Course Evaluations

Course evaluations are important and the department and faculty take student feedback seriously. Near the end of the semester, students can go to http://www.courseevalum.umd.edu to complete their evaluations.

Miscellaneous Resources

Textbook: We will use the free version of the "CMSC320 Textbook", written by Dr. Fardina Alam and Gavin Hung (along with the class lecture slides). The link will be provided in ELMS. As we go through the course sometimes I will mention additional resources or next steps. None of this is required for the course, but students have asked for me to keep a record of which texts/websites I mention.

• Python for Data Analysis covers some of the same topics that we cover in this class, but in textbook form.
• Data Science From Scratch this book is meant to give you a grounding in how some of the statistics and math could be implemented. Mostly, data scientists use off-the-shelf libraries for their mathematical routines/functionality, this books works through how you would implement some of those libraries. The idea is that this might give you a deeper understanding of what is going on. The implementations in this book are not meant to be high-performance, or industrial strength, but illustrative.
• Web Scraping 101 is a good overview to how web scraping works.