Policies

Homework

Students will complete 6-8 homeworks, comprised of both written questions and small programming assignments. All homework will be submitted via Blackboard. Homeworks will be worth 40% of the total grade.

Projects

Students will complete one midterm and one final project. The midterm project will be worth 20% and the final project 30% of the final grade. These projects will be larger and more open-ended than the homeworks, prompting students to apply data analysis techniques to real-world language data, and write up the results.

Deadlines and late work

All deadlines and meeting times for this class are in "Eastern Time". Please note: on Sunday March 9, this will change from Eastern Standard Time (EST/UTC-5) to Eastern Daylight Time (EDT/UTC-4). All work should be submitted by 11:00pm the day it is due. Work that is received late will incur the following penalties:

• Up to 1 hour late: 5%
• Up to 24 hours late: 10%
• Up to 48 hours late: 20%
• Later than 48 hours: not graded (0 for the assignment)

Extensions (without penalty) may be offered if they are requested within a reasonable amount of time (relative to the reason for the extension) before the work is due. Please don't hesitate to ask for an extension if you need one.

Attendance and participation

Because of the hands-on nature of this class, both attendance and participation are important. I will keep track of class attendance. Students are allowed to be absent from up to four sessions for any reason, without needing to contact me, and without penalty. These excused absences may be used for travel, illness, catching up with other courses, etc. However, unexecused absences beyond these four sessions will count against the student's final attendance grade, with the exception of important obligations listed below. Attendance will be worth 5% of the final grade.

Much of class time will be devoted to live demonstrations of software tools that students are encouraged to follow along with, as well as "workshop" days during which students will be given time to work on their projects and receive live feedback from the instructor. Becuase of this, students are expected to bring a laptop or other device to each class, on which they can develop and test data-intensive software. Please contact me as soon as possible if you do not have an appropriate device. Participation will be worth 5% of the final grade.

Final grading

• 40%: homework assignments
• 30%: final project
• 20%: midterm project
• 5%: attendance
• 5%: participation

Exceptions

Students will not be penalized because of important civic, ethnic, family or religious obligations, or university service. You will have a chance, whenever feasible, to make up within a reasonable time any assignment that is missed for these reasons. Absences for these reasons will count as excused for the sake of the participation grade. But it is your job to inform me of any expected missed work in advance, as soon as possible.

Academic honesty

All assignments and activities associated with this course must be performed in accordance with the University of Rochester's Academic Honesty Policy. More information is available here. Please note: The use of Generative AI to produce any part of written/essay (prose) assignments is not allowed. Students may use Generative AI to assist in programming only. However, students are fully responsible for the success or failure of their code.