Course Information

Lectures

Lecture attendance is required except for SCPD students (see Grading Policy below for details). Lecture notes are available in advance and provide an outline for much of the material that will be presented in class; we recommend that you bring them to class (either in printed form or by cutting and pasting into an editor such as Microsoft Word) so that you can mark them up with additional information during lecture. Lecture slides are also available.

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.

Books

There is no required textbook for this class: the material of the course is defined by the lectures and does not exactly correspond to any existing book. However, we recommend the following book if you would like an additional source of material to supplement lectures:

• Operating Systems: Principles and Practice (2nd Edition), by Thomas Anderson and Michael Dahlin. Each page of lecture notes lists related readings in this book at the front of the notes page. Most students find that the material from lecture is sufficient for their course needs, so we recommend that you start the course without the book and only purchase the book if you decide you would like additional material and explanations beyond what is in lecture.

Sections

The class will have weekly discussion sections, which will provide background material for the class assignments. The sections for each "week" start on Fridays and run through the following Tuesday (assignments are due on Thursdays). The first sections will meet on Friday of the first week of classes. Section attendance is required (see Grading Policy below).

Sections will be assigned during the first week of classes. Starting at noon on Monday, April 3, you can use a Web form to specify your section preferences. Preference selection ends on Wednesday, April 5, at 5:00 PM; your priority will not be affected by when you fill out the form. We will make initial section assignments by Thursday, April 6 and notify you via email. Once the initial assignments have been made, you will be able to use another Web form to switch sections, as long as there is room available in the section you switch into. You can also use that form to view your section assignment.

Assignments

The class includes nine programming assignments. One assignment is due each week of the quarter except the sixth week. You will work individually on the assignments.

Late Days

Each student is allowed a total of 3 late days for the assignments, which may be spent in units of one day (24 hours) on any assignment(s) throughout the quarter. You can take additional late days beyond 3, but each of these days will result in a 2% deduction from your overall homework score for the quarter. In any case, you may not use more than 2 late days for any given assignment. Late days are intended to handle all issues, including unexpected problems such as illness, so it's risky to use them all up early in the quarter.

Resubmits

If your score for any assignment is less than 70% of the total possible for that assignment, you may resubmit the assignment once, no later than seven days after grade reports are sent out, to increase your score up to the 70% level. We're doing this so that no single assignment grade destroys your overall average and to encourage you to really learn the material. If you do resubmit, please post a private message on Ed so that we know to regrade it.

Exams

The class will have two exams: a 90-minute midterm exam during the sixth week of the quarter, and a final exam. We will provide alternate exam times for people who have compelling conflicts with the scheduled times. Exams are closed-book, except that for the midterm exam you are allowed to bring 2 double-sided pages of notes (4 total surfaces). For the final exam you are allowed to bring 3 double-sided pages of notes. The notes may include any material you wish and may be either hand-written or typed (but they must be in a font large enough to read with the naked eye).

For SCPD students, exams are administered remotely through SCPD; be sure to check with them about the arrangements. You may also take exams "live" with the rest of the class, if you prefer; just let us know ahead of time.

Regrades

We sometimes make mistakes in grading, both on assignments and exams, and are happy to correct these if you point out the error. To request a regrade for an assignment, post a private question on Ed Discussions and we will respond as quickly as possible. For exams, use Gradescope to request regrades. Regrade requests must be submitted within 5 days after we send out the grades for an assignment or exam.

Regrade requests should focus on errors (i.e., something we thought was wrong but actually was right, or we misunderstood your work). There may be situations where you made an error but disagree about the number of points deducted; it is highly unlikely that we will change your score in these situations, since this would require us to regrade all of the other assignments/exams.

Grading Policy

Grades for the class will be determined based on a 100-point total score computed as follows:

If you attend all of the sections you will receive the full 5 points for Section Attendance. For each section you miss, 1 point will be deducted from your Section Attendance score and the weight of your Final Exam grade will increase by 1 point. If you miss 5 or more sections, your Final Exam grade will count for 5 additional points and you will receive no credit for Section Attendance.

Honor Code

As in all Stanford classes, you are expected to follow the Stanford Honor Code. For details, please read our Honor Code and Collaboration Policy.

Students with Documented Disabilities

Students who may need an academic accommodation based on the impact of a disability must initiate the request with the Student Disability Resource Center (SDRC) located within the Office of Accessible Education (OAE). SDRC 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 SDRC as soon as possible since timely notice is needed to coordinate accommodations. The OAE is located at 563 Salvatierra Walk (phone: 723-1066).