Course information
Textbook
This course does not have a required textbook. However, you might find the following textbook useful:
- Discrete Mathematics and Its Applications, Rosen; McGraw-Hill (7th edition)
Rafael Pass and Dustin Tseng's lecture notes from earlier editions of this course are also very helpful (note: we do not follow exactly the same order or material). We will post other handouts and study aids as the course progresses.
Course Administration
We are using the course management system, CMS. Please login to http://cms.csuglab.cornell.edu/ and check whether you are registered. There will be a list of courses you are registered for, and CS 2800 should be one of them. If not, please send your full name and Cornell netid to staff (via Piazza) using the "logistics" folder (tag) so that we can register you. You can check your grades in CMS.
Piazza
We will be using Piazza as the one and only online communication platform. Piazza allows for open discussions of all course-related questions. You are encouraged to post any questions you might have about the course material. The course staff monitor Piazza closely and you will usually get a quick response. If you know the answer to a question, you are encouraged to post it.
By default, your posts are visible to the course staff and other students, and you should prefer this mode so that others can benefit from your question and the answer. However, you can post privately so that only the course staff can see your question, and you should do so if your post might reveal information about a solution to a homework problem. You can also post anonymously if you wish. If you post privately, we may ask your permission to make your question public if we think the class will benefit.
Everyone who preregistered for the course should already be signed up. If you have never used Piazza before, or if you did not preregister for the course, visit the Piazza CS 2800 page to sign up.
Piazza is the standard, recommended and most effective way to communicate with the staff outside of office hours. Please avoid email except in dire emergencies. You can send a message to the staff (in general you should treat the entire staff as a unit and not message individual members unless this is particularly necessary) by using "Instructors" as the "Post to:" field.
Broadcast messages from the course staff to students will be sent using Piazza and all course announcements will be posted there, so check in often!
Homeworks and Grading
There will be weekly homeworks, 2 in-class prelims and a final exam. The dates and locations will be announced soon.
The homeworks will be distributed on CMS. You must submit your homework as a PDF file. We recommend using LaTeX to type your homework, but you are free to use other tools, or to submit scanned handwritten work. If you choose the latter option, please ensure that your submission is legible. PLEASE do not submit non-PDF submissions, such as Microsoft Word (.doc) or Rich Text Format (.rtf) files!
Academic Integrity
The utmost level of academic integrity is expected of all students. Violations will be penalized severely. Please read the following carefully.
On the homework, you may discuss general approaches and techniques with others, but the specifics of the solution must be your own work. You must write up (and understand) the solutions by yourself, with no collaboration. In particular, you may not work from written notes taken in discussion with others. Under no circumstances may you hand in work done with or by someone else under your own name or share solutions with anyone else. You also may not consult homework solutions from previous semesters. It is a violation of this policy to submit a problem solution that you are unable to explain orally to a member of the course staff.
You must acknowledge by name anyone with whom you collaborated and any outside sources (apart from the course texts/lecture notes) that you consulted, including Internet sources.
All exams are closed book. You may not give nor receive assistance from anyone else during an exam.
You may not give any hints or post any material that might be part of a solution publicly on Piazza. If your question necessarily includes such material, post privately.
If you are unsure about what is permissible and what is not, please ask.
- The Essential Guide to Academic Integrity at Cornell
- Computer Science Department Code of Academic Integrity
- Explanation of AI Proceedings
Special Needs
We provide appropriate academic accommodations for students with special needs and/or disabilities. Requests for academic accommodations are to be made during the first three weeks of the semester and must be accompanied by official documentation. Please register with Student Disability Services in 420 CCC to document your eligibility.