CS 231 Data Structures and Algorithms
Syllabus

The following structure will rarely change.

In order to provide as much help as possible to you as you work on assignments in this course, the CS Department has hired the following upper-level CS students to work as TAs in Davis in the evenings. You are strongly encouraged to take advantage of this resource.

TA Hours: All TA sessions will be in person this semester. We have evening TAs from Sunday to Thursday weekly except during the fall break and Thanksgiving break. Here is the TA schedule and Windows Support.

1. Students understand the advantages and disadvantages of fundamental data structures and can implement them using object- oriented design principles.
2. Students understand, can implement, and can calculate the time and space efficiency of classic search, sort, and traversal algorithms, including the use of big-O notation.
3. Students understand the tradeoffs between different implementations of data structures and algorithms and can make appropriate design decisions based on application data requirements.
4. Students can use fundamental data structures and algorithms appropriately to solve a variety of computational problems.
5. Students can communicate the results of their work and describe an algorithm.

The work in lab will lead into and be part of the week's project. Labs will also count significantly towards participation.

During each lab, the instructor will not be able to answer questions about any projects until you have completed the exercises for that lab.

Programming projects involve completing more significant programs as well as a writeup describing the work completed in the project.

There will be regular opportunities for you to practice what you have learned and to demonstrate your accomplishments.

The course grade will be determined as follows:

• I will distribute short homework assignments in my lecture slides or post the homework separately on Moodle.
• The homeworks themselves may not be worth much of your overall grade, but they prepare you for the quiz! Take them seriously and you should be well-prepared for the quiz.
• Each homework is due by noon on Thursday.. This is a hard deadline.
  Late submissions will not be accepted.
• Homework will be graded in a binary fashion: if you hand in a reasonable attempt, you get a 1, otherwise a 0.

• There is a 15 minute quiz most Fridays in-person or online on Moodle.
• The quizzes let you show me what you have learned. These should be quick and straightforward if you participate in lecture and review lecture notes.
• I understand that everyone has a bad day; the quiz with the lowest grade will be dropped.
• Each quiz may be made up when a prior request is made or there is a documented health issue.
• Please contact me immediately in the event of illness and other unforeseen circumstances, we will work out accommodations.

• You are expected to attend every class and lab. This is important for the overall learning experience and cohesion of the course.
• If you must miss a class for any reason, please email me in advance. I am happy to work with you.
• For this course to be truly successful, your presence and participation is important. When you have a question, ask it. It is highly probable that one of your classmates has the same question.

There will be a final exam at TBD. There are no make-ups.

It should go without saying that you should back up any files related to this course. If the code you submit to us is somehow lost (through your fault or our fault), I must be able to get another copy from you. I suggest keeping your CS231 labs and projects on Google Drive, Dropbox, or Microsoft OneDrive. That way, you have a backup stored in the cloud.

There is no required textbook for this course. All lecture notes and code from class will be posted on Moodle.

• A Practical Introduction to Data Structures and Algorithm Analysis, Java version, by Clifford Shaffer

Labs and Projects: Come to lab ready to focus on the new project. Ask the instructor and TAs for help if you need it.

Quizzes: Study for the quizzes by doing the homeworks. We will drop the lowest quiz grade. If you make a silly mistake one week, it won't affect your grade.

Short homeworks: Try them. You will receive full credit as long as you make an honest attempt to complete every question. Please ask or email questions if something isn't clear. As long as you submit your response by Thursday at noon on Moodle, you will get credit. Review the homework solutions on Thursday afternoon to check your understanding of the material before the quiz. There is no partial credit for late homeworks because we may go over the answers in class on Friday before you take the quiz.

Participation: Speak up in class. Come to office hours. Ask your your instructors or TA for help.

Final Exam: The final exam will be similar to a large set of quizzes (but written from a more wholistic perspective). The best way to study for the final exam is to retake all of the old quizzes. Also, read through your notes and make sure you understand everything in them.

Computer science, both academically and professionally, is a collaborative discipline. In any collaboration, however, all parties are expected to make their own contributions and to generously credit the contributions of others. In our class, therefore, collaboration on assignments is encouraged, but you as an individual are responsible for understanding all the material in the assignment and doing your own work. Always strive to do your best, give generous credit to others, start early, and seek help early from both your professors and classmates.

The following rules are intended to help you get the most out of your education and to clarify the line between honest and dishonest work. We reserve the right to ask you to verbally explain the reasoning behind any answer or code that you turn in and to modify your project grade based on your answers. It is vitally important that you turn in work that is your own. We do use automated plagiarism detection software, so please be sure to abide by these, rather minimal, rules. Reports of academic dishonesty are handled by an academic review board and a finding of academic dishonesty may result in significant sanctions. For more details on Colby's Academic Integrity policies and procedures, see https://www.colby.edu/academics/academic-integrity/.

• If you have had a substantive discussion of any homework or programming solution with a classmate, then be sure to cite them in your write-up. If you are unsure of what constitutes "substantive", then ask me or err on the side of caution. As one rule of thumb, you may discuss your approach to solving a problem, but you must not share or look at another classmate's code or written answers to project questions.
• You must not copy answers or code from another student either by hand or electronically. Another way to think about it is that you should communicate with one another in natural human sentences, not in lines of code from a programming language.

Understanding and using AI are important skills that you will master as part of your CS education at Colby, and the following policy will provide a controlled way for you to use AI to your learning advantage in this course:

• Students may use AI tools (e.g., ChatGPT) solely for understanding concepts, reviewing examples, or receiving feedback on their code. These tools can be valuable for clarifying ideas and enhancing comprehension.
• Using AI to generate any code, solutions, or answers is strictly prohibited and considered academic misconduct. All submitted work must be entirely the student’s own effort.
• Students must be able to demonstrate their understanding of solutions through verbal explanations, either in class discussions, office hours, or during assessments.
• When AI tools are used for understanding concepts, reviewing examples, or receiving feedback related to a specific assignment or project, students must:
  • Clearly indicate the extent and nature of the AI’s contribution.,
  • be prepared to discuss and explain the submitted work during office hours or in class.
• The use of AI code completion tools, such as GitHub Copilot or other similar platforms, is completely prohibited. Students must write and develop their code independently to ensure they are practicing and reinforcing the skills taught in the course.


• Here are some examples of prompts that do not violate the AI policy:
  • “What is the difference between a stack and a queue?”
  • “How does a binary search tree work?”
  • “I'm encountering this error message 'IndexError: list index out of range' when running my code. What does it mean, and how can I fix it?”
  • “Can you explain how Dijkstra's algorithm works? I'm trying to understand its steps and how it’s applied in practice.”
  • “Can you help me debug my code? Don't generate any code, just help me understand why my code is not working.”


• Here are some examples of prompts that violate the AI policy:
  • “Can you provide me with a solution to this problem?”
  • “Can you write a function that ...?”
  • “Can you generate a code snippet that ....?”
  • “Can you fix my code so that ...?”


• Violations of this policy, including the use of AI for generating code or failure to properly document AI interactions, may result in penalties ranging from a warning to a failing grade for the assignment or course, in accordance with the institution's academic integrity policy.

Colby College is a community dedicated to learning and committed to the growth and well-being of all its members.

As a community devoted to intellectual growth, we value academic integrity. We agree to take ownership of our academic work, to submit only work that is our own, to fully acknowledge the research and ideas of others in our work, and to abide by the instructions and regulations governing academic work established by the faculty.

As a community built on respect for ourselves, each other, and our physical environment, we recognize the diversity of people who have gathered here and that genuine inclusivity requires active, honest, and compassionate engagement with one another. We agree to respect each other, to honor community expectations, and to comply with College policies.

As a member of this community, I pledge to hold myself and others accountable to these values. More ...

We are available to discuss academic accommodations that any student with a documented disability may require. Please note that you’ll need to provide a letter from the Dean of Studies Office documenting your approved accommodations. Please meet with your instructor to make a request for accommodations at the beginning of the semester--and at a minimum two weeks before any key due dates--so that we can work together with the College to make the appropriate arrangements for you. For more information about the Dean of Students Office: https://www.colby.edu/studentadvising/student-access-and-disability-services/.

We are invested in the mental and emotional health of our students. Even as we establish and maintain the academic standards of our course, we value each of you as individuals with complex lives, identities, and challenges.

Throughout the semester, the responsibilities of your Colby education may interact with situational as well as ongoing mental and emotional challenges in foreseeable and unforeseeable ways. If you are in need of reasonable flexibility due to an emotional situation or an ongoing mental health issue, please communicate as openly as possible with your Class Dean, and/or members of the office of Access and Disability Services, preferably in advance of the need, so that we can discuss how your circumstances interface with course requirements. Together, we will consider what is needed and what is possible. If we can discuss the situation, we can manage the situation together.

Please do not allow academic responsibilities to prevent you from getting help you need. Our Colby Counseling Services staff (207-859-4490) and the staff in the Dean of Studies office (207-859-4560) are available to connect with you. The safety of our students and every member of this community is paramount. If you or someone you know is struggling with thoughts of suicide or may be a danger to themselves or others, please call the on-call counselor immediately (207-859-4490, press ‘0’).”

It is our intent that students from diverse backgrounds and perspectives be well-served by this course, that students' learning needs be addressed both in and out of class, and that the diversity that students bring to this class be viewed as a resource, strength and benefit. We expect you to feel challenged and sometimes outside of your comfort zone in this course, but it is our intent to present materials and activities that are inclusive and respectful of all persons, no matter their gender, sexual orientation, disability, age, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, race, culture, perspective, and other background characteristics.

Class rosters are provided to each instructor with the student's legal name. We will gladly honor your request to address you by an alternate name and/or gender pronoun. Please advise your instructor of this early in the semester so that we may make appropriate changes to our records.

While Colby College is supportive of athletic participation by its students, academics take priority over athletics. Both NCAA and Colby rules prohibit missing class for practices. In the case of overlapping commitments between class and athletic competitions, the student must meet with the instructor as soon as possible to discuss these overlaps. The student may request permission to miss class and make up the missed work; the instructor has final authority either to grant or to withhold permission.

If we have inadvertently scheduled an exam or major deadline that creates a conflict with your religious observances, please let us know within two weeks of the start of classes so that we can make other arrangements. Colby College is supportive of the religious practices of its students, faculty, and staff. The College is committed to ensuring that all students are able to observe their religious beliefs without academic penalty.

Colby College prohibits and will not tolerate sexual misconduct or gender-based discrimination of any kind. Colby is legally obligated to investigate sexual misconduct (including, but not limited to, sexual assault and sexual harassment) and other specific forms of behavior that violate federal and state laws (Title IX and Title VII, and the Maine Human Rights Act). Such behavior also requires the College to fulfill certain obligations under two other federal laws, the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) and the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Statistics Act (Clery Act). To learn more about what constitutes sexual misconduct or to report an incident, see: https://www.colby.edu/studentlife/handbook-section/f-sexualmisconduct/.

We are committed to all Colby students feeling safe, accepted, and included in all aspects of their college experiences, including this course. Colby prohibits and will not tolerate sexual misconduct or gender based discrimination of any kind and is obligated, by federal and state laws, to respond to reports and provide resources to students. Your instructors are considered "responsible employees"; we are required to report any incidence of sexual assault, sexual harassment, dating violence, or stalking to the Title IX Coordinator.

If you wish to access confidential support services, you may contact:

• The Counseling Center: 207-859-4490
• The Title IX Confidential Advocate, Emily Schusterbauer: 207-859-4093
• The Office of Religious and Spiritual Life: 207-859-4272
• Maines's 24/7 Sexual Assault Helpline: 1-800-871-7741