Course Logistics

Inclusion and Respect

Diversity & Inclusion. UC Davis values an inclusive environment and so do I. I hope to foster a sense of community in this classroom and consider this classroom to be a place where you will be treated with respect. I welcome individuals of all backgrounds, beliefs, ethnicities, national origins, gender identities, sexual orientations, religious and political affiliations – and other visible and nonvisible differences. All members of this class are expected to contribute to a respectful, welcoming, and inclusive environment for every other member of the class. If this standard is not being upheld, please do remember we are a community of learners and I personally welcome any open communication including but not limited to your ideas, challenges, triumphs, questions, expectations, values.

Access and Disability Accommodations. We are committed to the principle of equal access. If you are in need of disability accommodations, please speak with the Student Disability Center (SDC) prior to or early in the quarter so that accommodation requests can be addressed in a timely fashion. If you have a disability and are not planning to use accommodations, we still recommend meeting with SDC staff to familiarize yourself with their services and resources. If you have already been approved for accommodations, please get in touch with the course staff (Professor Liu and TA Jessica) who will be ready to assist you with implementing the accommodation.

Email Etiquette. Please give us at least 24 hours to reply to your emails, and we will do the same for you. Please put the course number in the Subject line and remember to sign your email with your name. We expect the language and structure of your emails to be professional. This includes punctuation, salutations/signature, etc.

Grading Policies

Grade Allocation. Your final grade will be calculated according to the breakdown (see course syllabus). Letter grades will be determined at the end of the quarter. As a note, there is no centering of the grade distribution at a particular boundary (i.e., we do not “curve” the class).

Individual Assignments. The first four assignments are solo assignments, and should be completed without collaboration. You are encouraged to ask the instructor and/or TAs for advice during office hours, and to use Piazza to obtain answers to questions from other students.

Team Projects. Team projects, of course, encourage collaboration. You are encouraged to work together on all parts of the project, and must ensure that every team member is involved in all aspects of the project (design, coding, and documentation). Although the team will receive a single grade, each team member will be asked to identify their own work product to ensure equitable divison of labor. Participation in team check-in meetings and project presentations will be evaluated on an individual basis.

Reading Summaries. Your paper summaries are expected to reflect your both creative and critical thinking about the research a paper presents, and why that research is important. Some questions to spark your thinking: What is the point the paper is trying to make? What do you appreciate about its arguments? And what critiques might you have? What are the implications of the work discussed? What connections do you see to concepts discussed in lecture? What about connections to your own research? How has the paper changed your opinion or outlook on the topic? Do you have any insightful questions based on what you read? For each paper, your summary should be less than ~300 words and will be due by 11:55 am (5 min before noon) on Monday before the Tuesday discussion session to give the TA sufficient time to read and organize them into themes. In the discussion session (every Tuesday 6:10-7:00pm in Young 184), we will use the hour to have interactive discussions—in pairs, small groups, and as an overall class—about the papers assigned for the week. Your contributions to the conversations will be included in the Class Participation grading.

Reuse of third-party material. Unless otherwise stated in an assignment, you are free to use any third-party code, whether as libraries or code fragments, and to adopt any idea you find online or in a book as long as it is publicly available and appropriately cited (see UC Davis Code of Academic Conduct). Please include these citations directly on your visualization(s) as well as part of any required writeups.

Lateness and extensions. Late submission is technically not allowed. However, in the event you experience an emergency or illness that cannot be accommodated, we will of course work with you on an appropriate extension. However, to support your request, we ask that you get in contact with the Student Disability Center (SDC), and include written support from them (including an explicit description of how many days extension they believe you should be granted) as part of your request to us. 

Academic Integrity

In this course, I will hold you to the high standard of academic integrity expected of all students at the University. I do this for two reasons. First, it is essential to the learning process that you are the one doing the work. I have structured the assignments in this course to enable you to gain a mastery of the course material. Failing to do the work yourself will result in a lesser understanding of the content, and therefore a less meaningful education for you. Second, it is important that there be a level playing field for all students in this course and at the University so that the rigor and integrity of the Institute’s educational program is maintained.

Violating the Academic Integrity policy in any way (e.g., plagiarism, unauthorized collaboration, cheating, etc.) will result in official Institute sanction. Possible sanctions include receiving a failing grade on the assignment or exam, being assigned a failing grade in the course, having a formal notation of disciplinary action placed on your UC Davis record, suspension from the University, and expulsion from the University for very serious cases.

Please review the UC Davis Code of Academic Conduct and related resources (e.g., working under pressure; how to paraphrase, summarize, and quote; etc.) and contact me if you have any questions about appropriate citation methods, the degree of collaboration that is permitted, or anything else related to the Academic Integrity of this course.

Acknowledgments

Some material in this course has been adapted from classes taught by Kwan-Liu Ma at UC Davis, Arvind Satyanarayan at MIT, Tamara Munzner at the University of British Columbia, Huamin Qu at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and John Stasko at Georgia Tech.

Our course extensively utilizes materials and examples sourced from the internet, and we endeavor to meticulously attribute credit by providing links to the original sources. Should you encounter any content for which credit appears to be lacking, or if you wish for certain materials to be excluded, please do not hesitate to inform us.