University of Massachusetts Amherst College of Information and Computer Sciences
CMPSCI 683	Artificial Intelligence	Spring 2020
	Shlomo Zilberstein

FAQ Page

• What can I do if I have a question that is not answered on this page?
  We will be using Piazza for class discussions. The system provides an environment for discussing class-related questions and getting help efficiently from classmates, the teaching assistant, and the instructor. Rather than emailing questions to the teaching staff, we encourage you to post your questions on Piazza. All 683 students should enroll in Piazza during the first week of classes. Here is the signup link: https://piazza.com/umass/spring2020/compsci683/home.

• Can I use an older edition of the textbook for the reading assignments?
  The second edition has significant overlap with the third edition, so it is acceptable. The schedule shows the assigned readings both referring to the third edition (3e) and the second edition (2e).
• How do I access the Edlab account?
  The EdLab page is: http://www-edlab.cs.umass.edu/. You should each have an EdLab account. Your username is generally the same as your UMass username (not the CS department username). If you had an account last semester, your password should be unchanged. Otherwise, the initial password will be given to you in class or by a TA. If you cannot log in send email to system at cs. The Linux EdLab machines are called elnux1.cs.umass.edu, elnux2, elnux3, elnux7. Use one of these machines for any remote session. Please refer to the EdLab page for more details.
• Can I work with others on a homework assignment?
  Working in pairs is encouraged, but larger groups are unacceptable. You can team up with one other student on each homework assignment. Gradescope allows you to identify the other student and to upload the completed homework only once.
• How do I hand in homework assignments?
  This semester we will use an online tool called Gradescope for collecting and grading homework assignments. Information on how to enroll in this class in gradescope will be provided duing the first week of classes. You will be notified when the system is ready for accepting the first homework assignment. Here are a few guidelines regarding the preparation of homework assignments:
  • Submissions have to be in portrait letter paper format and submitted as a single PDF file. No other format is accepted, including any kind of compressed file containing the PDF.
  • When you upload a submission to Gradescope, it requests that you identify which page contains the answer for each part. This can take around 2 minutes, but some students wait until the very last minute to submit and then rush through this process by selecting all pages for every question. Please do not do this, as it makes grading much more difficult. Please only assign the relevant pages for each part when prompted. You may find it easiest (and it is certainly easiest for us) if you answer each part of each question on a separate page, which is quite easy to do in LaTeX with only a marginal increase in submission size.
  • Please ensure the readability of your submissions. Typesetting submissions (LaTeX, LyX, Overleaf, etc.) is strongly encouraged.
  • Do not submit completely handwritten solutions, or solutions written in a pure text editor, please! This makes it really hard for us to grade, and more often leads to incorrect grades. Exceptions are complex graphs, where hand drawing makes everything that much easier.
  • Scanned portion of the homework assignment are acceptable, provided that they are clear and well-organized. Cell phone pictures are unacceptable. If you use your cell phone to generate the PDF, use a scanning app such as Dropbox or CamScanner, which produce high quality results.
  • Once a submission has been uploaded, we strongly recommend that you verify the uploaded file.
  • Sharing or copying solutions is unacceptable and could result in failure.
• What programming languages are allowed for the homework assignments?
  You can use C++, Java, or Python to complete the programming parts of the homework. If you are interested in using another language, you must obtain prior permission from the TAs. In any event, your code must run on the Edlab machines.
• How do I hand in the programming portion of the homework?
  Programming portions should be submitted electronically via the Edlab. Please don't print out your code. Upload the whole code through the Edlab. The area for this course on the Edlab machines is located at /courses/cs600/cs683. Each student has a subdirectory, accessible only to that student and the course administrators. In your directory, please create a subdirectory called hw_x, and use it to place code that you used for Assignment x and the output. On linux, you can use scp to upload the files. For instance, typing:
  scp filename elnux7.cs.umass.edu:/courses/cs600/cs683/username
  will copy a file from your current directory to the Ed Lab machines. You can use WinSCP with Windows.
  Note that you will be depositing the code to /courses/cs600/cs683/username/hw_x directory, not your home directory. Please follow the hw_x naming convention because the contents of this directory will be collected automatically. When working in pairs, only one student needs to upload the code.
• What are the guidelines for the programming parts of the homework?
  Here are a few guidelines regarding the programming portions of homework assignments:
  • You must confirm that your code runs on the edlab machine before submission. You should include an example of how to run the code in a file called README.txt
  • In addition to submitting code for your problem via the Edlab please indicate in the Gradescope submission the relative paths of the files and which functions correspond to each part. We prefer that you follow useful naming conventions, use one file per question, and avoid subdirectories. We need to be able to find your code in order to grade it, so the easier you make this the better it is for us all.
  • You may use public implementations of standard algorithms as long as they do not reduce the problem to a triviality. In particular, you may use the code provided by the textbook, and this serves as a useful benchmark for what sort of other public implementations would be considered acceptable. If you think some third-party code answers too much of the question you should check with the TAs well before the assignment is due.
  • Whenever you are using third-party code you must clearly cite your source in the relevant parts of the Gradescope submission and indicate which parts of your code are not your original work.
  • Please reduce the submissions to contain only the code relevant to solving the problem. Submitting an entire Github repo from the above link with each homework assignment would be unnecessary and further complicate locating your code.
  • If you rely on public implementations of the code, be sure that it passes a reasonably sanity check. For example, although most of the code provided by the book is quite good the Python implementation of the backtracking algorithm is not optimal (or perhaps even buggy). It is up to you to verify the correctness of any third-party code you rely on; you may receive points off if the third party code contains errors which negatively impacts your answer.
• What is the late policy?
  Assignments are to be turned in by 11:59 PM on the due date. Gradescope will automaticaly disable turning in homework after the deadline and no parts of a programming assignment should be modified on the EDLAB. No exception will be made. If you cannot meet a deadline, you need to discuss that with the intructor in advance and make alternate arrangements for turning in your work.
• Can I use the AIMA code that came with the textbook?
  This is generally permissible, but you must state clearly which parts of the code were taken from the textbook. You must follow the general guidelines listed above.
• Is it necessary to complete the optional parts of homework assignments?
  Optional parts are exactly that -- entirely optional. You can get an "A" in the class without doing any of the optional work. However, optional work will be graded and recorded separately, and will count as bonus points when the final letter grade is determined.

© 2020 Shlomo Zilberstein.