Attendance

Regular attendance is strongly encouraged. If you miss a class session for any reason, you must write up and submit answers to the study questions designated as makeups for that session.

Submitting papers

If an exercise involves writing a computer program, please submit your solution by e-mail. Construct a compressed tape-archive (.tgz) file containing your source-code files, any files containing documentation or non-public input data, and any files containing output from your test runs, and attach that file to a cover message.

For non-programming exercises, you may submit your answers either by e-mail or on paper. For e-mail solutions, I accept files in the following formats:

• Plain text (ASCII or UTF-8)
• Open Document Format (.odt)
• Portable Document Format (.pdf)
• T_EX or L^AT_EX source (.tex)
• For diagrams and other graphics: Portable Network Graphics (.png)

In addressing the issue of open document formats at their meeting of January 27, 2010, the Instructional Support Committee took the position that everyone on campus needs to make intentional software choices. In accordance with this thoughtful advice, I do not accept files in any of the .doc or .docx formats that various versions of Microsoft Word produce by default. If you're currently using Microsoft Word, I recommend that you download, install, and use the free OpenOffice.org software instead.

For solutions on paper, I accept hand-drawn diagrams, but I require all text, including mathematical text, to be typeset. I strongly recommend the use of L^AT_EX for this purpose.

Late work

Given the choice between good work that is late and poor or incomplete work that is on time, I prefer the former. Therefore, if you submit a paper that is correct, but late, I generally do not impose a penalty. On the other hand, if you take extra time for an assignment and still turn in poor work, I judge it more harshly than if you had turned in the same paper on time.

There is, however, an absolute deadline: Once I return corrected papers for an exercise, or post a solution on the Web, I cannot give credit for subsequently submitted solutions to that exercise, though I will still examine and comment on them. Similarly, I cannot give credit for papers submitted after the solution has been discussed or presented in class, either by me or by a student, even if the submitter did not attend the class.

Collaboration and plagiarism

Since you will receive credit for this course on the basis of your individual performance, it would be unethical to submit the work of others as your own. Please prepare your solutions to homework exercises individually and independently. You may, of course, consult any sources you like, including other participants in the class, for general background on the topic of the exercise, but you may not collaborate on solutions or copy your solutions from any external source whatever.

If I encounter clear indications of plagiarism, the Committee on Academic Standing will deal with them. The College's policies for faculty members, which I support enthusiastically, prohibit me from trying to investigate such matters and from imposing any penalties for academic dishonesty on my own.

Grading

At the end of every other week, I shall evaluate your performance and report to you what letter grade I'd give it and what your rank in the class is. I use the grading system described in the academic catalog: an A or A− for excellent work, a B+, B, or B− for good work, a C+ or C for satisfactory work, a D for passing work, and an F for failing work.

Your performance on the exercises will determine seven-tenths of your final grade, the final examination will determine one-fifth, and class participation and similar imponderables the remaining one-tenth.

Copyright and licensing

Source code that I have created for this course and placed either on the Web or in the /home/stone/courses/automata/code directory on MathLAN is licensed under the GNU General Public License. Code released under the GPL can be copied, studied, revised, improved, and redistributed freely, subject to the restriction that any copies or derived programs are released under the same license.

Similarly, course materials that I have created and distributed either on the Web, or in hard copy, or in the /home/stone/courses/automata/handouts directory are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License and can be copied, studied, revised, improved, and redistributed freely, provided that my authorship of the original work is acknowledged and that any copies or derived works are released under the same license.

Under Grinnell College's copyright policy, a student who submits source code or a prose solution to an exercise to satisfy a requirement of this course retains the copyright to it. However, the College asserts the right to distribute the work within the College community for instructional or administrative purposes without paying any royalty to the student.

You may, of course, choose to publish your work under some more generous license, and for your solutions to exercises I encourage you to use the same ones I do: the GNU General Public License (version 3) for software and the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License for prose text.