Course Logistics

Grading Policies

Grade Allocation. Your final grade will be based on the breakdown in the course syllabus, with letter grades assigned at the end of the quarter. A few important notes: (1) we do not always follow the default grade thresholds strictly; (2) we do not "curve" the class; (3) we finalize the grading scheme to best reflect our expectations and your overall performance. Since grading involves multiple people (TA, instructor, student), there may be slight inconsistencies. The course staff will review and adjust thresholds at the end to ensure consistency, with minimal changes to standard cutoffs. For example, we start with standard thresholds (90 for A, 80 for B, etc; we are using letters +/-) and may make small upward/downward adjustments if appropriate (<=3). You must achieve at least 60 course grade points to pass the course.

Homework Assignments. All homework 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. We also welcome students to discuss high-level ideas with peers at the "whiteboard" level.

Team Projects. Team projects, of course, encourage collaboration. The final project can be completed in a team of 4-6 students (5 is recommended ). You're encouraged to collaborate on all aspects of the project and ensure every team member participates in design, coding, and documentation. While the team will receive a single grade, each member will be required to identify their individual contributions to ensure fair distribution of work. However your final project video presentations will be evaluated on an individual basis.

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.

Attendance. Check this page for details.

Lateness and extensions. You have total three "slack" days for home assignments and reading reports, to be used for minor illnesses, special occasions, or unexpected problems. To use them, email both the instructor and the TAs in advance—requests are automatically approved but must be recorded for tracking. Each slack day corresponds to 24 hours. For instance, a submission that is 30 hours late will use 2 slack days. Late submissions not covered by slack days (or without an email record) will incur a penalty of 25% of the total available grade for each day of lateness. Late submission is technically not allowed for all final projects-related tasks.

Medical reasons or emergencies. If you experience an emergency or illness that cannot be addressed with slack days, we will work with you to arrange an appropriate accommodations. To support your request, you must contact either the Student Disability Center (SDC) or the Office of Student Support & Judicial Affairs (OSSJA). They will notify us on your behalf. Please do not share any sensitive personal information directly with the course staff.

Using GenAIs: You may use generative AI tools such as ChatGPT, as well as coding assistants (e.g., Claude Code, Github Copilot, Cursor, or OpenAI Codex) to support your learning in this course. These tools can be useful for exploring new programming languages (such as JavaScript or D3), understanding unfamiliar libraries, and generating example code snippets to help you implement specific functions. However, you should NOT directly copy and paste the generated code into your assignment submissions without modification. You are responsible for understanding every line of code you submit. In most cases, the output from these tools will not fully meet the requirements of the assignments, and it is important that you understand and adapt the code as part of your solution. When submitting your work, please include a short note indicating that you used a generative AI tool, such as “Used ChatGPT to learn D3 syntax for interactive chart rendering.” This disclosure will NOT affect your grade. On the other hand, if you submit AI-generated code without modification and without disclosure, it will be considered a violation of the academic integrity policy. The purpose of this policy is to support your learning, not to bypass it—use these tools as aids, not substitutes.

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. All suspected cases of cheating and other misconduct will be reported to and directly handled by the Office of Student Support and Judicial Affairs.

Please review the UC Davis Code of Academic Conduct 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. 

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 instructors/TAs who will be ready to assist you with implementing the accommodation.

Team Open Communication. All project-related communication (including emails, Teams, or Slack messages) must be visible to the entire team. Do not send private messages to only a subset of team members. This ensures transparency and keeps everyone informed. Please read the [Tips for Working Successfully in a Group].

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.

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.