AY2008/9 Semester I
Module Information - Policies

Correspondence and Communication Channels

Information will be disseminated to you through these means: e-mail, IVLE and this module website. It is your responsibility to check your mailbox, IVLE and the course website regularly (once a day) for news and information. Failure to do so is no excuse. We will refrain from sending mass e-mails except for very urgent matters, and rely more on the course website and IVLE to reach you.

For incoming e-mails (to us), we only recognise your OFFICIAL e-mail address, that is, address with domain @comp.nus.edu.sg or @nus.edu.sg. If you send us any e-mail from a non-official account, we will only reply if you include your official e-mail address in your message. This is necessary as we need to ascertain your identity.

For outgoing e-mails (from us to you), we will send them to your official e-mail address. If you have set forward service to your own ISP mailbox or other external mail server, you must ensure that the mail server in use is reliable, otherwise e-mails from us will not reach you on time, or even reach you at all.

If you have queries, please e-mail your respective discussion leader or the lecturer, whoever is more appropriate.

Most of the time, especially for queries on general matters, you are encouraged to post them on the discussion forums in IVLE. This would allow others -- staff, seniors and your fellow classmates -- to help answer your queries. Discussion can also be more lively and involved in a forum than through private e-mail exchange.

We reserve the right to publish our answers to your private queries to the class (in IVLE or e-mail) if we feel that they are of interest and benefit to the class. However, you may request for anonymity and we will shield your identify.

Notes and Handouts

To reduce wastage of papers, lecture notes, assignments other handouts are all available on the website or IVLE for downloading.

Attendance

Your attendance will be monitored. If you have been absent from class and are not coping well with the course, you will be required to see your lecturer. I hope that this won't happen - you should help yourself by consulting your lecturer, discussion leader or seniors the moment you face problems.

If you have a medical certificate, you may submit it to your discussion leader or lecturer.

A student who is absent from his assigned class without acceptable reason will not be allowed to attend another class. If you have a valid reason, please inform your discussion leader of your intention.

Weightage of Examination

Weightage of a CA component is not allowed to be transfered to the examination. That is to say, if the examination's weight has been fixed at 40% (which is the case for CS1101), then it shall remain at 40%.

Students who miss a major assessment with valid reason will be required to sit for a make-up assessment. For other continual assessment (CA) components, appropriate adjustments will be made within the CA weightages.

Preparation for Class

Please prepare well before your lecture and discussion sessions. You are to read all instructions carefully.

Late Submission of Assignments

Deadlines of submission of assignments must be strictly adhered to and late submissions without valid reason will not be accepted.

Plagiarism

We permit and encourage healthy discussion among students. However, students must draw the line between discussion and plagiarism (copying of other's work or taking credit for a piece of work that is not original).

The university does not condone plagiarism. If detected, both the party who copied and the party who had permitted the copying will be penalised equally.

Please refer to Preventing Plagiarism site for more information.

Be Serious in Your Study

All these seemingly 'harsh' policies and rules are to be taken in the right light. In a small class, we do not need to spell these out explicitly as we can easily monitor the situation. But as this is a very large class, we need these policies to maintain uniformity and fairness as much as we can, and to ensure smooth running of the course. If everybody cooperates, your tutors will be relieved of many unnecessary tasks and hence will be able to devote more quality time on you.

But this is not a one-way traffic. We welcome your comments and suggestions, if you spot any possibility for improvements. Just drop us an e-mail or pop by our offices.