Time Conflicts

Many of these questions are answered in the course FAQ. However, for reasons of convenience, we want to highlight the most important policies here.

Lecture Attendance is Not Required

Traditional lectures will be delivered asynchronously as short videos on the lessons page. The schedule lecture time of 10:20 TuTh will not be used to deliver new material. Instead, it will present audience-interactive demos related to the lesson material, and serve as a question-and-answer session for students. Furthermore, this interactive session will be recorded and posted for students that are unable to attend. Therefore, attendance is not required.

Because of this we are allowing students to take the course even if they have a course overlapping this lecture section. Enrolling in both courses requires a petition filed with your college registrar. Talk to your advisor about how to get this petition. Be aware that different colleges have different policies. Even though we are permitting course overlaps, this is no guarantee that your college is allowing course overlaps.

Discussion Attendance is Partially Required

While labs are completed via the online lab system, some labs will have manually graded questions. These questions require a short discussion with your lab instructor in order to earn credit. This process must take place in your discussion section and cannot take place (except in the case of legitimate conflicts) during office hours. These questions exist to improve personalized contact and to monitor your well-being in a largely online semester.

This policy applies even to students in different time zones. Cornell policy is that students can be asked to attend an event so long as it is within 8am-10pm in their time zone. For each time zone, there is a section guaranteed to fit in that window. Sign up for the appropriate section in your time zone.

In-Person Section Attendance is Required

In-person sections are extremely limited this semester and are to be reserved for students that absolutely need it. This means students with insufficient computers or international students that need in-person credits. While we will not prohibit other students from signing up for these sections, we will require attendance for these sections to ensure that only students committed to these sections enroll in them.

In-Person Exams are Required When Possible

This course will have two timed and proctored exam. After much research, we do have the ability to fairly proctor exams to students online. However, the capacity to do so is limited. Therefore, if you are in Ithaca and do not have significant health concerns we will ask you to take these exams in person. For more information, see the exams page.