Grades
- Formal Mechanized Proofs: 50%
- Informal Prose Proofs: 50%
Success
Assignments
This is a hands-on course, and your grade will be determined by your choice of exercises from the textbook, which involes both code and english writing. Class meetings will include a "lab" portion, where you can work on exercises in the same room as your fellow students, and ask for live feedback from the professor. I highly suggest you make full use of this time to work through the most difficult parts of your chosen exercises. Outside of class, you can contact the professor via email or visit during office hours.
Because each student is at a different level of previous experience with functional programming, mathematical proofs, and proof assistants, there is a lot of flexibility in which exercises you choose to complete. The exercises and schedule page includes lists of pre-approved exercises that you can do from chapters we cover in class. If you want to do some exercises from outside this list, explicit permission from the professor is required.
If you are new to the area, and this is the first time you are working on any one of these topics, I suggest to focus on the Standard exercise lists from the chapters we cover in class. If you have previous experience in the area, and are comfortable with all of the topics above, feel free to try your hand at the Advanced exercises instead, which may give you a more appropriate challenge. For the truly daring, there are some Challenges that are far more difficult than any of the other exercises.
All your completed exercises will be turned in together in the form of a single repository. This can be done via email or by sharing a PRIVATE github repository with the professor. It is important to not put your solutions publically online, as they can be copied by other students and will count as plagiarism (see below). If you share an online repository, then the only thing to do on check-in day is to make sure all your work is pushed online and properly documented. If you want to instead submit via email, the subject must be Midterm Check-in for Logic for the mid-semester or Final Check-in for Logic at the end of the semester.
Deadlines
The midterm check-in is intended for you to get feedback on how to improve your solutions, especially in the informal prose proofs. As such, the midterm check-in will not be given a grade, but instead feedback either confirming which exercises are satisfactorily completed, and which need to be improved. The final checking will involve assigning final grades to each portion of exercises. It is up to you how much you want to complete for the midterm checkin, and how much to leave for the final.
Due to the flexible nature of exercises, the deadlines will be firm. If you do not turn in anything for the midterm check-in by the posted date, then you will receive no feedback until final grades are calculated at the end of the semester. Students who do miss the deadline for the midterm check-in consent to accepting their final grade as-is.
Attendance
Students are required to attend class regularly, as regular attendance is one of the most important contributors to student success. However, students may occasionally need to miss class due to illness, emergency, or caring for a sick family member. In such cases, you are responsible for notifying me of your absences and working with me to arrange to make up any missed work.
A note on Zoom Participation: Classroom lectures will be recorded, and available for (re)viewing afterward. Occasionally, certain lectures may be moved online instead of the regular in-person meeting. These special online lectures will be announced by email in advance.
With that being said, this is an in-person class, where the professor and students meet together in the same physical location, and the online videos serve as only a backup method for special circumstances and studying purposes. In the event that no students are present physically in the classroom at the scheduled time and place, and no special arrangements have been made in advance, then the professor may consider that the lecture has zero attendance and elect to skip lecturing in an empty room. If you are able to attend a lecture in-person, it is in your best interest to do so, both for the significantly improved learning experience as well as ensuring that the class has non-zero attendance.
Student Mental Health and Wellbeing
We are a campus that cares about the mental health and well-being of all individuals in our campus community. Your personal health and well-being can impact your success in this course. Students sometimes experience mental health concerns or stressful experiences that interfere with academics and have a negative impact on everyday life. If you or someone you know are experiencing mental health challenges at UMass Lowell, please contact Counseling Services. Their services are free and confidential, and same day appointments are available.
I am available to talk with you about stresses related to your work in my class.
Furthermore, I can assist you in reaching out to any one of a wide range of campus resources, including:
Consider also reaching out to a friend, faculty or family member you trust for help getting connected to the support that can help.
Rules and Information
Academic Integrity and Plagiarism
All students are advised that there is a University policy regarding academic integrity. Students are responsible for the honest completion and representation of their work. Students who are caught plagiarizing the work of others and claiming it as their own, especially copying code online from public repositories or other sources, will fail the course.
For the benefit of future students here and elsewhere, do not post your own solutions publically online. If you are found to do so (for example, if you share a public github repository for turning in your answers), you will first be given a warning. After the warning, failing to hide your answers in a timely manner (for example, by making the repository private), is the same as allowing other students to copy your work, and will be considered as plagiarism.
With that out of the way, students are welcome discuss the exercises with one another, especially during the hands-on lab portion of class. However, each student is responsible for their own work and completing all exercises independently on their own system for the formal coding portions. For the informal prose portions, each student is expected to write their own proofs themselves, in their own words, even when discussing with one another. Directly copying another students solutions (either by sending files directly or), or from some other source (e.g. the internet), and turning them in as their own work constitutes plagiarism, and will result in a failing grade. What specific actions constitute plagiarism is left to the discression of the instructor, and will not be fully enumerated here. If in doubt, please ask before doing something that seems fishy.
Credit Hour Policy
Federal definition of a credit hour requires that for every course credit awarded, a course must offer 15 hours of instructor-led course activities and 30 hours of out-of-class student work. This means that a standard 3 credit hour course requires 45 hours of instructor-led course activities and 90 hours of out-of-class student work.
University Privacy Statement
UMass Lowell recognizes the importance of mutual trust between students and faculty. Massachusetts is a two-party consent state, which means it is illegal to record someone without their permission. Recordings of classroom lectures are the intellectual property of the instructor. Instructors have the right to prohibit audio and video recording of their lectures, unless the requesting student is registered with Disabilities Services and recording of class sessions is an approved accommodation. In addition, sharing or selling recordings of classroom activities, discussions or lectures with any other person or medium without permission of the instructor is prohibited.