| COMP 422/534 |
| Parallel Computing |
| Spring 2020 |
| Syllabus |
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COMP 422 is an undergraduate version of this course. COMP 534 is the graduate version of the course. All students will have four programming assignments. As part of their assignments, both COMP 422 and COMP 534 students will analyze the scalability and parallel efficiency of parallel programs they write. COMP 534 students will additionally use tools to qualify the root causes of scaling losses in their programs and document their findings. Mutually Exclusive: Credit cannot be earned for both COMP 422 and COMP 534.
Students are expected to attend lectures and are encouraged to ask questions.
There will be four programming assignments in the semester. Programming assignments are to be done individually. You may discuss assignments with others, but you must code your own solutions and submit them with a write-up in your own words. Indicate clearly the name(s) of student(s) you collaborated with, if any. Although homework assignments will not be pledged, per se, the submitted solutions must be your work and not copied from other students' assignments or other sources. See the section on Misconduct for details about what is prohibited.
COMP 422/534 will use a moderated discussion group on Piazza for day-to-day communication. The class Piazza page can be found here: https://piazza.com/rice/spring2020/comp422534/home If you have a technical question about a programming assignment, parallel systems, or anything else related to the course, please post it to the discussion group rather than sending it directly to the instructor or TA. This will enable everyone in the class to benefit from questions and answers. Inquires of a personal nature should be made directly to the instructor or TA. For instance, don't post code fragments to the class discussion.
Any email sent directly to the instructor or TA should include "COMP 422/534" in the subject line to avoid having it overlooked amidst a torrent of incoming email. Any email to the instructor or TA should be sent from your Rice email account to avoid getting trapped by Rice's SPAM filter.
I recognize that you have other demands on your time besides COMP 422/534 programming assignments. As a result, you will have a total of 7 "slip days" throughout the semester that you can use at your discretion to turn in programming assignments past the posted deadline. Slip days are used in whole day increments. Once your slip days are consumed, late programming assignments will be penalized at 10% per day.
Discussions with classmates about the content of course assignments, how to approach them, problems encountered, and how to debug are permitted. However, you may not transmit or receive code from anyone in the class in any way--visually (by showing someone your code), electronically (by emailing, posting, or otherwise sending someone your code), verbally (by reading your code to someone), or in any other way.
You may not collaborate with people who are not your classmates, the instructor, or TA in any way. For example, you may not post questions to programming forums. Submitting requests for help using Rice computing facilities to the Center for Research Computing (Help Request Page) is allowed.
You may search the web and use any information that you find. However, you cannot take more than two lines of code from an external resource and actually include it in one of your assignments. Changing variable names or rewriting code you find does not void the "two line rule."
Any violations of these rules will be reported to the honor council.
If you have a documented disability that will impact your work in this class, please contact me during the first two weeks of the semester to discuss your needs. All discussions will remain confidential. Additionally, you will need to register with the Disability Resource Center in Room 111 Allen Center http://drc.rice.edu, 713-348-5841.