Instructor: S. Arun-Kumar

Important General Notes to students


  1. It is important to read the Important General Notes to Students. Not having read it will not be taken as a valid excuse for any error of commission or omission.

  2. The references listed in the course home page are in addition to those listed in the Course Outline.

  3. There is no guarantee that lecture material will be based only on the references given in the course outline and home page.

  4. The course homepage is where new information regarding the course will be put up. It is absolutely wasteful to send mail to everybody in the course. So all general and particular announcements, notices etc will be put up on the course homepage. So make sure you regularly visit the course homepage and check for updates.

  5. No discussions in lectures or tutorials regarding grading policies. Grading policy is as given on the course homepage.

  6. Of late it has become quite fashionable for students to come at the end of the semester and request for an 'F' grade instead of whatever they have been given. Unfortunately that is not possible, because grades have to be monotonic i.e. a person with higher marks cannot be given a lower grade except as disciplinary action.

  7. All academic matters, doubts etc. should be cleared during the lectures/tutorials or immediately after them (if I am not in a rush for another appointment!), in the presence of the whole class, so that it does not have to be transmitted to others separately by other means.

  8. Attendance in lectures and tutorials is of course compulsory! There might be surprise quizzes on any day, especially when attendance is low! Absence in a quiz results in '0' for that quiz. There is no question of giving make-up quizzes.

  9. In an online semester, when quizzes are announced beforehand, make adequate back-up arrangements for power failures and lack of internet connections, and have enough time for downloading and uploading your answers. No excuses for these will be considered valid.

  10. Peripheral matters relating to the course (e.g. rescheduling of classes, matters relating to submissions, marking etc.) which affect entire groups or the entire class should not be broached privately, but should be raised in the presence of the entire group or class.

  11. Do not send me mail regarding the course. I have already too much mail that I cannot handle.

  12. Quizzes, Minor and Major Exams

    • There will be no "make-up" exams conducted anytime during the semester or after. So please make sure you attend the exams, otherwise you might get a zero for the exam. Even if re-minors or re-majors are conducted, they are going to be considerably harder than the regular exams.

    • If re-minors have to be held, one re-minor may be held before the end of teaching for the semester. In such a case the syllabus will cover everything in the course covered upto the day before the re-minor.

    • In case of Minor Exams, any discrepancy in totalling or marking should be brought to the notice of the instructor or TA within 24 hours of the distribution of the marked answer paper. Please state the nature of the discrepancy clearly on the top page of the answer paper.

    • Major answer papers are not allowed to be taken away. Hence any discrepancy in marking or totalling should be pointed out immediately.

    • Whenever sample answers have been provided on the home-page, first consult the sample answers before returning the paper for revaluation.

    • During marking comments and remarks are usually provided by the examiner pointing out the mistakes committed. Do not submit the papers for revaluation without first understanding what the mistakes are.

    • Regrade/revaluation request penalty: A penalty of 10% of the marks allotted to the question (regardless of the number of parts in the question) will be imposed if there is no positive change in the marks after the regrade.

  13. Academic Dishonesty. Remember that you have signed an honour code before getting admitted to IIT Delhi. Check that out on the inside cover page of your prospectus. Here is a non-exhaustive list based on past experience.

    • Cheating in exams: Copying (in whole or in part) from others is deemed cheating and those who enable this activity either deliberately or through negligence are also deemed to have cheated. In a continuous evaluation system assignments, homeworks, projects and term papers are also deemed to be exams. Hence copying or enabling copying in these cases is also deemed to be academic misconduct.

    • Copying in term papers and project reports from sources in books, journals, internet sites and other archived material is considered cheating unless the sources are properly cited.

    • Editing answers after the exam paper has been returned is definitely cheating!

    • Outsourcing of homework, assignments, project report, term paper or even exams to another person or "service" is a very serious academic offence and could result in disciplinary action. In the case of an exam there is the additional offence of impersonation and it could result in disciplinary action.

    • Copying programming code in whole or in part from another or allowing your own code (in whole or in part) to be used by another in an assignment meant to be done individually is a serious offence.

    • Collaboration where collaboration has been explicitly disallowed by the instructor is academic misconduct.

    • Collaboration between different teams on the same project or assignment is academic misconduct.

    • Sharing of passwords and login ids is explicitly disallowed in this Dept. and in this Institute and any instance of it is academic misconduct. Such sharing only compromises your own privacy and the security of our Dept./Institute network.

    • Sending anonymous mails complaining of various unnamed instances of cheating is blatant academic dishonesty. You need to remember that instructors are not policemen; they are not employed to prevent students from cheating; they are only here to teach, evaluate and perform other academic tasks such as research, project guidance and consultancy.

    • Proxy attendance (sigh!) Marking attendance for somebody who is not present in the class is also dishonest. Depending on the method used for taking attendance, it could be termed forgery, impersonation or plain lying.

  14. Assignments.

    • Depending on the course "assignments" might mean the same thing as "exams".

    • Individual originality: All assignments are individual and no groups are allowed. Discussion between individuals cannot be prohibited at the level of algorithms and methods adopted. However, there should be no obvious indication of these common discussions in programs.

    • Submission: Since all assignments are going to be screened by programs, they have to be submitted only by the designated cgi-bin script for the assignment. Any other method of submission will result in a quick deletion of the submission and a zero will be awarded. Exceptions will be treated on a case-by-case basis strictly on the merit of the case.

    • Executability: All assignments have to be "compilable and executable" from my account. (In particular, check before "submitting" that you have the entire assignment in one file).

    • Similarity: Please ensure that your assignment directories and files are well-protected against copying by others. Deliberate or inadvertent copying of code will result in penalty (to be determined based on the situation) for all parties who have "highly similar" code. Note that all the files of an assignment will be screened manually or by a program for similarity before being evaluated. Since similarity is a symmetric relation one cannot distinguish between the source and the target(s)

    • Graceful Degradation: For every day of delay (as determined by the date of your submission) you will lose 2 marks out of every 10. Beyond 5 days delay you can't get more than a zero. The assignment therefore will not be evaluated.

    • Missing assignments (or even those delayed beyond 5 days) and quizzes result in zeroes. Nothing can be done about them.

  15. Some or all the above is subject to change as and when the situation demands -- whenever loop-holes are discovered or the rules tend to be exploited, or when authorities change rules, or when fresh rules are introduced.


Click here for some unacceptable excuses given to cover either similarity or academic dishonesty.



S. Arun-Kumar
Department of Computer Science and Engineering / IIT Delhi / Hauz Khas/ New Delhi 110016 /
Page created: 25 Dec 1998
Last modified: Tue Mar 7 16:23:08 IST 2023