A basic familiarity with Computer Science (i.e. CS 106A) will be helpful as it informs an understanding of what these systems can and cannot do.
Specific directions and expectations will be given for each assignment. We will aim to provide clear guidelines and expectations for each assignment that explain how you and the staff will grade your submission. If there are any questions, please feel free to ask for clarification.
Sometimes life gets hard: assignments pile up, family situations arise, or health dips. To address these, you may use up to a total of four free late days on assignments or project submissions. Late days cannot apply to reading responses, since you can separately drop one reading response. Each late day is a 24-hour extension. A late day on a group assignment (e.g., project proposal) requires one late day from each member. After late days are exhausted, a penalty of 10% of the assignment's score will be assessed for each day the assignment is late. Late days cannot be used on the exam or on the final project paper. The staff may also disallow late days on specific deadlines for assignments in cases where taking a late day would harm other students or the class.
Gradescope is the place to submit all assignments. Gradescope entry will be enabled via a link from Canvas.
It is very important to us that all assignments are properly graded. The teaching staff works extremely hard to grade fairly and to turn around assignments quickly. We know what you work hard, and we respect that. Occasionally, mistakes happen, and it's important to us to correct them. If you believe there is an error in your assignment or exam grading, please submit an explanation in writing to the staff within seven days of receiving the grade. We will regrade the entire assignment to ensure quality. No regrade requests will be accepted orally, and no regrade requests will be accepted more than seven days after receipt of the assignment. Regrade requests must be respectful; we will not consider any regrade requests containing disrespectful language.
Lecture time and class discussion are key to our learning goals! We will take attendance using our attendance app.
Please do not sign in for peers who are not present in lecture, as this is an honor code violation. SCPD students will fill out a separate form asynchronously.
We will allow 2 unexcused absences from lecture over the course of the quarter, and 1 unexcused absence from discussion section. Beyond these, unexcused absences will start to affect your attendance grade. Illness is an excused absence and does not count against this total. If you want to register an excused absence for lecture, please let the staff know via a private post under the "Attendance" category on Ed; if you want to register an excused absence for section, please ping your discussion section TA.
If you are immunocompromised or substantially concerned about health risks for in-person attendance, and are thus not attending your courses in person, please contact the staff via a private Ed post to request an arrangement for remote attendance.
The staff will, at their discretion, give 0.5% extra credit to students who suggest an example illustrating course concepts that Michael can integrate into future years' lectures. You may suggest an example for a lecture that was already delivered so that it can be integrated next year, or it can apply to an upcoming lecture so that it can be integrated this year. The bar for extra credit is that the staff considers the example strong enough that Michael intends to integrate it into the lecture. Up to 0.5% extra credit per selected example, for up to a maximum of 2.5% extra credit in the course. Examples used in the Ghost Towns lectures include:
To submit an example for consideration, post on the Ed forum under the "Lectures" category.
This course is offered for 3–4 units. There is no difference in workload—the range is available to graduate students who want to remain below a unit cap. For all students, the class consists of lectures, three assignments, an exam, a project, readings, and a weekly discussion section.
The course is also crosslisted as SOC 174/274. BA students in Sociology enroll in SOC 174 for 3 units or SOC 274 for 4 units. MA students in Sociology must enroll in SOC 274 for 4 units.
It's possible for even well-intended students to accidentally alienate your peers. Comments can make unwelcome assumptions that don't fit some lives, and it's also possible for critiques and conversations to constitute what's called harassment. Harassment means unwelcome or even hostile behavior, including speech, that intimidates, creates discomfort, or interferes with a person's participation or opportunity for participation. That behavior will shut the person down in class, and that is simply not fair and not something we want. Harassment can involve nationality, age, color, creed, disability, gender, sexual orientation or any other protected status. It also extends to unwelcome sexual advances. A response that the participant was “just joking,” or “teasing,” or being “playful,” is not acceptable. If you have witnessed or experienced any harassment, please let an instructor know privately and promptly.
Students who may need an academic accommodation based on the impact of a disability must initiate the request with the Office of Accessible Education (OAE). Professional staff will evaluate the request with required documentation, recommend reasonable accommodations, and prepare an Accommodation Letter for faculty dated in the current quarter in which the request is being made. Students should contact the OAE as soon as possible since timely notice is needed to coordinate accommodations. The OAE is located at 563 Salvatierra Walk (phone: 723-1066, URL: http://oae.stanford.edu). Please send any accomodations letters to cs278@cs.stanford.edu.
Due to the complex interdependencies involved with group projects, we cannot feasibly apply OAE extensions to group deadlines for the project.
Academic accommodations are available for students who have experienced or are recovering from sexual violence. If you would like to talk to a confidential resource, you can schedule a meeting with the Confidential Support Team or call their 24/7 hotline at: 650-725-9955. Counseling and Psychological Services also offers confidential counseling services. Non-confidential resources include the Title IX Office, for investigation and accommodations, and the SARA Office, for healing programs. Students can also speak directly with the teaching staff to arrange accommodations. Note that university employees – including professors and TAs – are required to report what they know about incidents of sexual or relationship violence, stalking and sexual harassment to the Title IX Office. Students can learn more at https://vaden.stanford.edu/sexual-assault.
It is expected that you accurately represent your own work and the work of others in this class. Ideas should be your own. Any use of tools (e.g., ChatGPT) should be limited to clarity and credited appropriately in your submission.
The Honor Code (https://communitystandards.stanford.edu/policies-and-guidance/honor-code) is a part of this course. The Honor Code is the university's statement on academic integrity written by students in 1921. It articulates university expectations of students and faculty in establishing and maintaining the highest standards in academic work. The Honor Code is an undertaking of the students, individually and collectively: that they will not give or receive aid in examinations; that they will not give or receive unpermitted aid in class work, in the preparation of reports, or in any other work that is to be used by the instructor as the basis of grading; that they will do their share and take an active part in seeing to it that others as well as themselves uphold the spirit and letter of the Honor Code. The faculty on its part manifests its confidence in the honor of its students by refraining from proctoring examinations and from taking unusual and unreasonable precautions to prevent the forms of dishonesty mentioned above. The faculty will also avoid, as far as practicable, academic procedures that create temptations to violate the Honor Code. While the faculty alone has the right and obligation to set academic requirements, the students and faculty will work together to establish optimal conditions for honorable academic work.
Video cameras located in the back of the room will capture the instructor presentations in this course. For your convenience, you can access these recordings by logging into the course Canvas site. These recordings might be reused in other Stanford courses, viewed by other Stanford students, faculty, or staff, or used for other education and research purposes. Note that while the cameras are positioned with the intention of recording only the instructor, occasionally a part of your image or voice might be incidentally captured. If you have questions, please contact a member of the teaching team.
For other questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to reach out to the teaching staff. TA office hours are a good place to do so, and we encourage you to talk to them if there is something that has not been covered here or explained in the first week of classes.
Here is the schedule for TA Office Hours this quarter.