Grading

The class requirements include participation, a paper presentation, two homework assignments, and a course project. The grading breakdown is as follows:

  • Homework assignments (30%)
  • Paper presentation (20%)
  • Course project (46%)
  • Participation (4%)

Participation

We appreciate everyone being actively involved in the class! There are several ways of earning participation credit, which will be capped at 4%:

  • Peer evaluation / Quiz: Submission of quiz answers and feedback on paper/project presentations (see below): 3%
  • Piazza participation: The top ~10 contributors to Piazza will get 2%; others will get credit in proportion to the participation of the ~10th person. (To prevent abuse of the system, not all contributions are counted and instructors hold the right to determine to count contributions as positive or negative.)
  • Karma point: Any other act that improves the class, which the TA or instructor notices and deems worthy 1%.

Homework Assignments

There will be 2 homework assignments over the course of the quarter.

The students are required to typeset homework solutions using the provided template.

Collaboration Policy

Homework assignments must be done individually: each student must hand in their own answers. However, it is acceptable to collaborate when figuring out answers and to help each other solve the problems. We will be assuming that you will be taking the responsibility to make sure you personally understand the solution arising from such collaboration. You also must indicate on each homework with whom you have collaborated.

Late Policy

You will be allowed 3 4 total late days without penalty for the entire quarter. You may be late by up to 3 4 days on any assignment. Once those days are used, you will be penalized according to the following policy:

  • Assignment is worth full credit at the due time on the due date.
  • The allowed late days are counted by day (i.e., each new late day starts at 12:00 am PT).
  • The assignment is worth 80% credit 0-24 hours after exceeding the late day limit.
  • The assignment is worth 50% credit 24-48 hours after exceeding the late day limit.
  • The assignment is worth 0% credit 48 hours after exceeding the late day limit.

You must turn in all assignments, even if for zero credit, in order to pass the course.

Paper Presentation

Each student will give an oral presentation on a research paper that is broadly related to machine learning. Each talk is 10 mins in length, including 8 mins for presentation and 2 mins for QA/discussion (tentative).

  • This is a hard time constraint: if you run over the expected time limit (8min), there will be no QA session for your presentation, and thus no credits for the QA component
  • The presenter will also need to design a few quiz questions for audience to answer after the presentation
  • Peer grading: other students will rate your presentation and give feedback (5% of grade)

Each student will need to sign up for the presentation in a google sheet (TBA).

Course Project

The course project will be carried out in groups of 3 or 4 people, and has four main parts: a proposal, a midway report, a final report, and an oral presentation.

Please see the project page for more information about the final project.