We provide office hours every weekday--on Mondays from 8 - 10 PM and all other weekdays from 3 - 5 PM--to reserve time specifically to answer students' questions. Each day's session takes place either over Zoom or in person. At the start of each week, we post the location of each day's session (either a Zoom link or a physical location) on the relevant day on the 0019 Calendar page. All Zoom sessions require a UCL email address for login.
The final mark for 0019 consists of the following components:
Unless otherwise stated in a coursework handout, all courseworks in 0019 are individual courseworks. Every line of code or prose you submit must have been written by you alone, and must not be a reproduction of the work of others--whether from the work of students in the class from this year or prior years, from the Internet, or elsewhere. Use of ML/AI tools (ChatGPT, Bard, Copilot, or any other ML/AI-based tool) to produce any lines of code for any 0019 coursework is strictly prohibited.
Students are permitted to discuss with one another the definition of a problem posed in the coursework and the general outline of an approach to a solution, but not the details or code for a solution. Students are strictly prohibited from showing their solutions to any problem (in code or prose) to a student from this year or in future years. In accordance with academic practice, students must cite all sources used; thus, if you discuss a problem with another student, you must state in your solution that you did so, and what the discussion entailed.
Students are free to read reference documents found on the Internet (and any other reference documents), and may of course use any code the instructors have provided. Asking for assistance in solving coursework on any Internet forum (e.g., StackExchange, or any other similar site) other than the class Ed site is absolutely prohibited, and will be treated as a severe infraction equivalent to copying of solutions. Using AI tools such as ChatGPT to obtain code for use in your coursework solution will be treated in exactly the same way. No warnings will be given.
Copying of solutions (code or prose) from student to student is a serious infraction; it typically results in the awarding of zero marks to all students involved, and is viewed by the UCL administration as cheating under the regulations concerning Plagiarism, Collusion, and/or Falsification. Penalties imposed can include exclusion from all further examinations at UCL. The course staff use extremely accurate plagiarism detection software to compare code submitted by all students; this software sees through attempted obfuscations such as renaming of variables and reformatting, and compares the actual parse trees of the code, to produce color-coded comparisons of code for all pairs of students in the class. You have been warned--you will be caught and UCL's rules enforced if you cheat.
If you have any questions about the academic honesty rules above, you are encouraged to consult an instructor.
Start the courseworks early! They are intended to be challenging, and require hours of effort (debugging is hard). If you do not begin a coursework immediately after it is handed out, you will likely run out of time to complete it before the deadline. If you have questions for the class staff about a coursework, the only way you can get such assistance in time is by starting the coursework early.
In Winter/Spring 2024, 0019 will follow the centrally mandated late work penalties specified in UCL's academic regulations. Note that 0019 is a "Level 6" module, and so the rules for Level 6 modules apply.
Programming courseworks are submitted electronically via GitHub, and can thus be submitted 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
The class staff for 0019 cannot grant extensions to coursework deadlines. UCL's regulations stipulate that when students encounter severe difficulties that interfere with the timely completion of coursework, students should formally apply for Extenuating Circumstances (ECs). An independent panel of CS academics reviews applications for ECs, and can grant an extension to a deadline when they deem one is warranted, as determined by the severity of the circumstances and the evidence the student provides to support the application.
If you believe circumstances beyond your control are interfering materially with the completion of your work, you should apply for Extenuating Circumstances as early as possible. Note that the department may not be able to grant an extension if you only apply for ECs after the deadline. Please notify the instructors by private Ed post if you apply for ECs, and notify them by Ed post if your ECs application is approved.