- Instructor:
- Mahesh Viswanathan (vmahesh AT uiuc DOT edu), 3232 Siebel Center
Office hours: Tuesday and Friday from 10:00-11:00 or by arrangement
- Teaching assistants: Office hours will be held in the alcove outside 3240 Siebel Center.
Final Exam Office Hours- John Fischer Office hours: Thursday 12:15-1:15pm
Viraj Kumar Office hours: Friday 6-10pm. For other days, email me to fix a time.
For conflict exam: Sunday 3-7pm
Announcements:
Tuesday, May 8Monday, May 7
- The final grades are on Compass. Here are the relevant columns. "Homework" is your homework total (out of 100), dropping your worst score. "Total" is your raw total (out of 100). "Grade" is letter grade based on your total and the curve. "Final Grade" is the actual grade you will receive; it takes into account head-banging attendance. For details on how these were calculated see posting in newsgroup.
Wednesday, May 2
- The graded final exams can be seen in Mahesh's office between 11:30 and 12:30 on Tuesday, May 8 (tomorrow). The scores can be seen on Compass by tomorrow morning as well.
Tuesday, May 1
- The conflict final will be in room 3102 Siebel Center, between 8am and 11am on Monday, May 7, 2007.
Monday, April 23
- Solutions to head-banging 9 and head-banging 10 are available.
- Solutions to HW 7 are available on Compass.
- A conflict final will be held on Monday May 7, 2007 between 8 and 11; we will announce the room for the exam soon. If you are planning to take the conflict final, please email Mahesh, so we have an approximate count of the number of students.
- Old final exams can be found here.
Tuesday, April 17
- Solutions to head-banging 8 are available.
Tuesday, April 10
- Homework 8 (PS, PDF) is available.
- Solutions to head-banging 7 are available.
Tuesday, April 3 Thursday, March 29
- Updated "Total" column (out of 55) is available on Compass. Use this chart to see where your total lies in relation to the rest of the class (Y-coord is your total, X-coord is your class rank -- higher is better).
Wednesday, March 28
- Midterm 2 solutions are available.
Monday, March 26
- Head-banging 6 solutions are available. HW6 solutions are available on Compass.
- Solutions to the practice exam are available.
Saturday, March 10
- Midterm 2 is on Thursday 3/29. A Midterm review will be held on Tuesday, 3/27 from 8-9pm in 1404 Siebel.
- A practice exam is available here.
- Viraj will be available at most times from 3pm to 10pm on Wednesday, 3/28.
Thursday, March 8
- Homework 5 solutions are available. Please let us know if you spot any errors.
- Viraj's office hours for next week are: Tuesday and Thursday, 3-5pm
Tuesday, March 6
- Homework 6 (PS, PDF) is available.
- ALL groups will submit written versions of HW 6. There will be no oral presentations next week.
Tuesday, February 27 Thursday, February 22
- Solutions to HB 5 are posted.
- Solutions to HW 4 are posted on Compass
Monday, February 19
- If you are changing your Homework group, please email Viraj immediately along with all netids of your new group only.
Sunday, February 18
- Solutions to head-banging 3 are available.
Saturday, February 17
- Solutions to HW 3 are available. These are "solution sketches", and contain exam tips: they give you an idea of the level of detail we expect in your exam solutions.
Friday, February 16 Thursday, February 15
- The instructions for Tuesday's exam are available (JPG image). Please read them carefully.
- Viraj will have longer office hours on Monday (2/19) from 1pm to 6pm, and no office hours on 2/23 and 2/26.
Tuesday, February 13
- Here are some practice midterms: Fall 2006, Fall 2005
- There will be two review sessions for Midterm 1:
Today, 8pm to 9pm, 1214 Siebel
Saturday, 6pm to 7pm, 1214 SiebelTuesday, February 6
- Class cancelled today.
- Update: No classes tomorrow. You can submit HW 3 to Viraj after class on Thursday, or slide it below the door of 3301 before 12:15pm on Thursday 2/15.
Sunday, February 4
- Please pick up your graded HW 1 from 3301 Siebel. The grading rubric is available.
- Homework 3 (PS, PDF) is available.
Tuesday, January 30 Sunday, January 28
- Solutions to head-banging 1 and head-banging 2 are available.
- Solutions to HW 1 are also available as password-protected files on Compass (password = birds).
Friday, January 26
- Students presenting Homework 1 solutions orally this week have been sent an email and must sign up for a 30-minute slot.
- Everyone else must submit written solutions. ONE solution per group. Please see the FAQ for details.
Thursday, January 25
- Homework 0 solutions have been released. Please let us know if you spot any errors. Carefully read the solutions to problems 1 and 2, in particular. These will help you understand what is expected of your solutions, and how to earn partial credit.
- Viraj's office hours on Friday have been modified due to the head-banging schedule.
Tuesday, January 23
- Head-banging sessions will take place on Wednesdays from 10am to 11am and from 8pm to 9pm, and from Friday 4pm to 5pm in 0224 Siebel.
Thursday, January 18
- Homework 1 (PS, PDF) is available.
- Head-banging sessions will take place on Wednesdays from 10am to 11am and from 8pm to 9pm in 0224 Siebel.
- If you cannot make either of these times, answer the new survey on Compass to select a time on Friday.
Wednesday, January 17
- Tutorials for recurrences will be held in 1214 Siebel Center from 5pm to 6pm on Friday (1/19) and Monday (1/22). Attend one of these, especially if you took the old CS 173 and the new CS 273.
- Welcome to CS473ug!
- HW0 (PDF, PS) is now available (due at 10pm on Tuesday, 1/23).
- Notes on recurrences are also posted.
- Homeworks can be done in groups of upto 3. Please form groups as soon as possible and email a list of group members (netids) to Viraj (kumar AT uiuc DOT edu).
- Please complete the Head-Banging Survey on Compass to help us schedule head-banging sessions.
Course materials:
- Homework instructions and FAQ
- Schedule, including links to lecture notes, homeworks, exams, and solutions.
- Jeff Erickson's general π73 webpage
Administrivia:
- Prerequisites:
- Students are assumed to have mastered the material taught in CS 225 (basic algorithms and data structures) and CS 273 (discrete mathematics). Please note that "mastery" is not the same as "exposure" or even "a good grade". Hence, Homework Zero.
- Required textbook:
- Jon Kleinberg and Éva Tardos. Algorithm Design. Addison-Wesley, 2005.
- Newsgroup: class.cs473ug on the news server news.cs.uiuc.edu
- You must sign up for access if you have not already done so.
- Exams:
- There will be two midterms scheduled during regular class times (in the regular classroom) on Tuesday February 20, and Thursday March 29. The Final exam for this course is on Saturday May 5, between 1:30pm and 4:30pm
- Coursework and Grading:
- Ignoring bonus points, and allocating 20% to each midterm, 35% for the final exam, and 25% for oral group presentations and written homeworks, the following ranges correspond to the indicated "unadjusted" grades. Class Percentile is computed after first eliminating "bottom dwellers" from the pool. This group, up to a maximum of 5% of class, comprises those students who in the opinion of the professor appear to have given up, or are not trying, or do not realize they are actually enrolled.
Use whichever criterion (class percentile, coursework percentage) gives the most favorable grade
Class Percentile Grade Coursework Percentage Earned 95 A+ 95 85 A 93 80 A- 90 70 B+ 87 60 B 83 50 B- 80 40 C+ 77 30 C 73 20 C- 70 15 D+ 67 10 D 63 5 D- 60 <5 F < 60 The Class Percentile above (left column) is meant as the main grading criterion. The Coursework Percentage (right column) may result in a higher grade in the event that there is little spread on the course distribution, rendering percentile less informative. Typically this happens when exams and homeworks are too easy (which is another way of saying that typically this doesn't happen). The instructor reserves the right to make the cutpoints in the Coursework Percentage column more generous, except for the A+ grade cut-off.
After base grades are calculated, extra credit from head-banging session and from typing homework will be factored in. Extra credit will modify your base grade by at most half a letter grade. So if you are failing, it will probably not help you, but if you have a B+, it might help you raise your grade to an A-.
- Why are there two algorithms classes?
