Required: Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach (4th edition) by Russel and Norvig. Note that the 4th edition adds substantial new material over the 3rd edition, so you should buy the 4th edition. You can buy the textbook on Amazon or from the UPenn bookstore, where you can rent the digital version for $40.
Supplemental: Speech and Language Processing (3rd ed. draft) by Jurafsky and Martin. This textbook is currently free online while the textbook authors are revising it to write their 3rd edition. We will use it in the last third of the course.
Materials for Extra Credit Assignments
In addition to the normal homework assignments, we will have a series of optional extra credit assignments that use programmable toy R2D2s. These assignments can be done in groups. Each extra credit homework assignment if worth up to about 1% towards your final grade. The total amount of extra credit earned will be divided among each student in a group (so students in a large group get less extra credit than students in smaller groups to refelct the effort done).
You can borrow one of the R2D2 robots from us. It must be returned at the end of the semester in good working order, or you will have to pay $100 to replace it.
Grading
70% Homework Assignments
30% Exams and Quizzes
10% for weekly quizzes (equally weighted)
10% for midterm 1
10% for midterm 2
Up to 3-5% in Optional Extra Credit
The course is not curved. Your overall score is computed as 0.3 * exam score + 0.7 * homework score. All homeworks are equally weighted. Here is how letter grades are assigned based on your overall score:
Score
Grade
≥ 97
A+
93-97
A
90-93
A-
87-90
B+
83-87
B
80-83
B-
75-80
C+
70-75
C
65-70
C-
50-65
D
below 50
F
Differences between 4210 and 5210
There is roughly one homework assignment per week, aside from weeks with exams. Students enrolled in CIS 4210 may skip one HW assignment, or they may discard their lowest scoring HW assignment. You do not get late days back on the homework that you discard. Students enrolled in CIS 5210 must complete all HW assignments and cannot discard their lowest scoring assignment. If you are an undergraduate who is considering submatriculating into the master’s program then you should enroll in CIS 5210.
Collaboration Policy
Quizzes and exams must be completed on your own without help from others. For quizzes or exams that are open notes or allow a “cheatsheet”, you must create the notes yourself and not use anyone else’s notes. Since exams are sometimes administered on different days, you should not discuss the exam with anyone else in the course until after the scores have been released.
Unless otherwise noted, you are not allowed to work in groups on the homework assignments. You can discuss homework problems with others (you must explicitly list who you discussed problems with on each homework submission), but all code must be your own independent work. You are not allowed to upload your code to publicly accessible places (like public github repositories), and you are not allowed to access anyone else’s code. If you discover someone else’s code online, please report it to the course staff via a private note on Piazza.
Late Day Policy
Each student has 5 free “late days”. Homeworks can be submitted at most two days late. If you are out of late days, then you will not be able to get credit for subsequent late assignments. One “day” is defined as anytime between 1 second and 24 hours after the homework deadline. The intent of the late day policy it to allow you to take extra time due to unforseen circumstances like illnesses or family emergencies, and for forseeable interruptions like on campus interviewing and religious holidays. You do not need to ask permission to use your late days. No additional late days are granted.
