CSC442: Artificial Intelligence – Fall 2021


Course Information

Introduces fundamental principles and key applications of artificial intelligence, including heuristic search, automated reasoning, probability, and machine learning. Programming projects will be assigned. This course provides a foundation for advanced AI courses.

Credit hours: 4.0

Prerequisites: None, but students are expected to have taken an undergraduate level course on data structures and algorithms.

Class: TR 11:05am-12:20pm in Gavett Hall 206


Teaching Staff

Instructor:


Course Goals

This course introduces fundamental principles and techniques from Artificial Intelligence, including:


Course Mechanics

Textbook and Materials:

Course schedule: Linked Here

Projects: This course will involve programming projects. These are designed to deepen your understanding of the material and to give you opportunties to overcome the kinds of challenges you would encounter as a software engineer or researcher working in the field of artificial intelligence. The projects are intended to require creativity, careful program design, and thoughtful experiementation. You will be allowed to work either alone or as teams. Each project will require you (or your team) to submit a written report and a well-documented archive of your source code. Further details will be provided. Deadlines will be communicated at least two weeks in advance. Late work will not be accepted.

Quizzes: We will have four quizzes throughout this course. They will be administered online via blackboard. You may complete them on your own time, and I expect them to require between 45 to 90 minutes each. Quizzes will be available for approximately 72 hours. The quizzes will involve multiple choice, true false, and short answer/free response questions. I will be grading all short answer and free response questions myself. You may be asked to submit a scan or photo of work completed by hand (i.e., on paper) for some topics.

Participation: This semester we will be experimenting with some new ways to engage with the material. I am hoping to have at least four class-wide discussions on selected topics. Your participation in these discussions will be reflected in the participation component of your grade. Additionally, you may be asked to complete a few very brief reading surveys. This will be similar to quizzes in format (i.e., online, through blackboard); however, I will be using them to gauge overall interest/comfort of students and will be less focused on technical questions.

Your Overall Grade: Your scores on the individual components of this course will weighted to obtain your course score. All appeals of grades on individual scores must be made within one week of the grade being available. The following table represents this weighting of components.


CategoryWeight
Projects 50%
Quizzes 30%
Participation 20%
Total100%


Letter Grades: Letter grades will follow the Official University of Rochester Grading Scheme. Note that the University scheme puts “average” somewhere between C and B. The following table is an estimate of how the numeric grades will map onto the letter grades (subject to change):

A/A-: Excellent >=90%
B-/B/B+: Above Average >=80%
C-/C/C+: Minimum Satisfactory Grade >=70%
D-/D/D+: Minimum Passing Grade >=60%
E: Fail <60%

All appeals of grades must be made within ONE WEEK of the grade being posted.


Policies

Inclusivity

It is my hope that all participants in my courses feel welcome, respected, and supported. If anyone feels unfairly excluded, please let me know and I will do my best to fix it.

Academic Honesty

All assignments and activities associated with this course must be performed in accordance with the University of Rochester’s Academic Honesty Policy. More information is available at: www.rochester.edu/college/honesty

Avoid sites like GitHub and StackExchange for the duration of this course -- especially while working on projects. Note also that posting homework and project solutions to public repositories on sites like GitHub is a violation of the College’s Academic Honesty Policy, Section V.B.2 “Giving Unauthorized Aid.”

All incidents of academic dishonesty will be reported. Penalties may include a zero on the respective assignment and an additional complete letter grade deduction from your overall grade. (I.e., B+ to C+). Penalties for repeat offenders include expulsion from their major and from the university.

Disability Resources

The University of Rochester respects and welcomes students of all backgrounds and abilities. In the event you encounter any barrier(s) to full participation in this course due to the impact of disability, please contact the Office of Disability Resources. The access coordinators in the Office of Disability Resources can meet with you to discuss the barriers you are experiencing and explain the eligibility process for establishing academic accommodations. You can reach the Office of Disability Resources at: disability@rochester.edu; (585) 276-5075; Taylor Hall.

Students with an accommodation for any aspect of the course must make arrangements in advance through the Disability Resources office. Then, as instructed by the office, contact the instructor to confirm your arrangements.

Credit Hours

This course follows the College credit hour policy for four-credit courses. Students are expected to do significant work outside of class time. This supplementary work on reading, projects, and quiz preparation may require up to twice again as many hours of effort per week.

Incompletes

This course follows the University policy regarding incompletes: “Incompletes may be given only when there are circumstances beyond the student’s control, such as illness or personal emergency, that prevented the student from finishing the course work on time.”