Part of this coursework includes regular short assignments, approximately one per week. These assignments are important as a way to engage with frequent practice with the material in preparation for the exam, as well as a method to provide regular feedback on your progress and understanding. As such, completing the assignments each week is CRUCIAL for your success in this course. ALWAYS do your best to turn in your best attempt on every assignment, as partial credit for imperfect answers may be given when appropriate.
Assignments will be turned in online, via Blackboard. If you have multiple files to turn in, submit a single archive that includes all of them. If there is a written (or drawn) portion to the assignment, then turn in your written answers in a portable document file format (e.g. pdf, txt, markdown). Microsoft Word and other similar word processor formats should be converted to a portable format before turning in your answers. Alternatively, you may hand-write your answers on paper and submit a pdf or image file by scanning or taking a photo of your answers. If you submit a photo, ensure that all answers are clearly visible and legible. Illegible answers that cannot be read will be treated as no answer.
All assignments must be completed and turned in on-time by their due date. Unless otherwise specified, the time of all due dates is before midnight of that day.
For the sake of fairness among all students, and to accommodate unexpected emergencies that might keep you from finishing your homework on time, you will start with an initial pool of 10 FREE LATE DAYS. Every time you want turn in an assignment n days late, you can use n days from your pool of free missed deadline days, and it will be graded without penalty no-questions-asked. Otherwise, if you do not have enough days to make up for a missed deadline, your late assignment will not be accepted, and the grade will be 0.
In very exceptional circumstances, additional extensions to due dates may be granted at the discretion of the instructor if a student has unusual circumstances (such as long-term health issues) that would reasonably interfere with the on-time completion of several assignments throughout the course of the semester. To ensure that all students can be fairly accommodated, these exceptional extensions must be requested well in advance of the due date in question, as soon as possible. Ordinary illness, short-term personal emergencies, or other school or work obligations (especially on the day of the due date) do not count as exceptional circumstances, and are covered by your free missed deadline days. So be sure to budget your free missed deadline days wisely to help you in these situations.
Students are expected to attend class regularly, as regular attendance is one of the most important contributors to student success. However, students may occasionally need to miss class due to illness, emergency, or caring for a sick family member. In such cases, you are responsible for notifying me of your absences and working with me to arrange to make up any missed work.
I will be very accommodating to students who are experiencing pandemic-related challenges, but you must communicate your requests with me regularly and with as much advance-notice as possible. Likewise, if I should need to miss class, I will communicate with you via email as soon as possible with clear instructions.
A note on Zoom Participation: Class lectures will be recorded and streamed live on Zoom, and available for (re)viewing afterward. If regularly attending class in-person is an issue for you, please discussion your situation with me in advance, to make sure that you will be able to successfully keep up with the class online via Zoom. Occasionally, certain lectures may be moved online instead of the regular in-person meeting. These special online lectures will be announced by email in advance. Because I believe that the class will be more engaging if we can see one another, I strongly recommend that students keep their cameras on during a virtual class unless you have a valid reason not to, which you should discuss with me ahead of time.
With that being said, this class is intended to have an in-person format, where the professor and students meet together in the same physical location, and the online videos serve as only a backup method for special circumstances and studying purposes. In the event that no students are present physically in the classroom at the scheduled time and place, and no special arrangements have been made in advance, then the professor may consider that the lecture has zero attendance and elect to skip lecturing in an empty room. If you are able to attend a lecture in-person, it is in your best interest to do so, both for the significantly improved learning experience as well as ensuring that the class has non-zero attendance.
CLASS will be offering tutoring and Writing Center services both in-person and virtually.
We are a campus that cares about the mental health and well-being of all individuals in our campus community, particularly during this uncertain time. If you or someone you know are experiencing mental health challenges at UMass Lowell, please contact Counseling Services. They will be offering free in-person counseling for all students.
All students are advised that there is a University policy regarding academic integrity. Students are responsible for the honest completion and representation of their work.
Students are welcome discuss the exercises with one another. However, each student is responsible for their own work and completing all exercises independently. Copying another students solutions (either by sending files directly or copying down from another's' screen or paper), or from some other source (e.g. the internet), and turning them in as their own work constitutes plagiarism, and will result in a failing grade. What specific actions constitute plagiarism is left to the discretion of the instructor, and will not be fully enumerated here. If in doubt, please ask before doing something that seems fishy.
Posting answers to homework exercises to any publicly-visible website or location also counts as plagiarism. Future students deserve the chance to fully engage with the homework assignments on their own. If you are found publicly posting any answers to a homework assignment, it will be treated the same as if you provided your answers to another student of this same class.
Federal definition of a credit hour requires that for every course credit awarded, a course must offer 15 hours of instructor-led course activities and 30 hours of out-of-class student work. This means that a standard 3 credit hour course requires 45 hours of instructor-led course activities and 90 hours of out-of-class student work.
UMass Lowell recognizes the importance of mutual trust between students and faculty. Massachusetts is a two-party consent state, which means it is illegal to record someone without their permission. Recordings of classroom lectures are the intellectual property of the instructor. Instructors have the right to prohibit audio and video recording of their lectures, unless the requesting student is registered with Disabilities Services and recording of class sessions is an approved accommodation. In addition, sharing or selling recordings of classroom activities, discussions or lectures with any other person or medium without permission of the instructor is prohibited.
The safety and health of the UMass Lowell community is our shared priority. In seeking to provide the fullest academic and campus life experience possible, UMass Lowell will rely on all members of our community to act responsibly. For the latest updates on UMass Lowell’s COVID policies, please visit www.uml.edu/coronavirus.
UMass Lowell has implemented reasonable health and safety protocols in accordance with national and state public health guidelines. These standards apply to anyone who is physically present on campus or participating in a UMass Lowell-sponsored activity.