Rules governing group formation, project selection, and project completion

Group formation

This quarter the instructional staff will assist and partly direct the formation of groups.

We will try to minimize the number of groups, subject to the restriction that no group may have more than 7 nor fewer than 5 members.

Attendance is always important, but it is mandatory during the first week of lectures and at your first discussion section. Otherwise, you cannot be assigned to a group, and will need to drop the course and take it next time it is offered.

All remaining rules apply after the groups are formed.

Type of project to choose

CS 148 is mostly about analyzing problems and designing systems. It is not primarily about programming, at least not programming at the method or even class level. Therefore, what we are looking for in projects are problem domains that are “interesting” - i.e., have

Suppose you have a choice between two projects, A and B.

Project A: Good Choice

Has many concepts with complex relationships between them, but each resulting class is simple to implement.

Project B: Poor Choice

Has fewer concepts, and classes are difficult to implement due to tricky algorithms and/or involvement of complex research topics such as machine learning, computer vision or fancy graphics.

For CS 148, project A is a much better choice. A key goal is for you to learn how to analyze and design, and thus a major portion of your work on the project should be in that area.

Almost any type of project you want

Good news! You may choose almost any type of project you want—subject to some limitations:

The first is that you must create something that someone will actually use.

As an example of something that you could build, but that would NOT be acceptable: supposed you built a better interface for a ride sharing service such as Lyft or Uber. That’s clearly useful to someone. But no-one is actually going to use it, unless you actually have a bunch of willing drivers ready to start driving people around using your app.

Another example: an airline reservations systems. Unless you own planes, and have airport slots, and cleararance from the FAA, etc, you aren’t going to be able to actually have anyone try out your system for real.

Why do we need real users?

We are concentrating on the Agile software design methodology.

You get plenty of practice writing code that no “real” user will ever use in CS8, CS16, CS24, CS32, CS64 CS130A, CS160, CS170, and many more courses. There are very few courses in the curriculum where you have the opportunity to write code for real users: those being CS148, parts of CS156, CS184 for mobile app development, and capstone (CS189A/B) if you take it.

So concentrate on something that people can actually use.

Programming language and other source code considerations

For web apps, code (especially client-side) may be written in JavaScript, but it should be well-structured, well-organized and well-tested JavaScript. The use of Libraries such as React and component frameworks, such as Next.js, is encouraged.

As part of web app development, other computer language choices may make sense if you agree among all 6-7 students in a project group that you’d like to invest in the associated development infrastructure: Python and Ruby (on rails).

As CMPSC 32 is a pre-requisite for this course, every enrolled student is assumed to possess sufficient C++ programming knowlege to be an effective team member if the project is mostly written in that language.

CMPSC 156 is a similar project-oriented course for CS majors, many students have or are gaining experience with the Java programming language and related libraries. If all of your team members are comfortable with Java, that’s an acceptable choice, as is C#.

Another object-oriented language may only be used with explicit permission, and only if there is a compelling justification for using that language in contradistinction to the ones already listed.

Additional Requirements.

C++ specific:

Java Specific

Python Specific

JavaScript Specific

Originality Requirements

About technical expertise

The instructor and TAs will not assume responsibility for teaching you how to accomplish every possible programming task you need to learn - whether or not we are familiar with these tasks ourselves. A large part of a developer’s job is to learn how to do things they have not been trained to do. You must research any techniques that are novel to you: find examples in books or by searching the Internet.

Grading guidelines

The group grade is based on your final system demo and final code review.

All project team members in good standing will receive the same grade for this portion of the project. To remain in good standing, you should have

Good Standing on your Team

The initial determination as to what an acceptable level of participation is will be defined by consensus of each group during the “team norming” activity at the start of the quarter.

For example, a team might define “acceptable attendance/participation at standups meetings” with some combination of norms like the following:

Course staff will take attendance at standups, but it is up to teams themselves to hold each other accountable to their team norms. If a team member is not in good standing, or is in danger of not being in good standing, it is the responsibility of the team to reach out to course staff—mentors, TAs, and instructors—early, and often—for help in resolving the situation. You can’t just “vote someone off the island” on the last day of the course. You have a responsibility to make every effort to resolve the situation early, and successfully, to document your efforts to do so, and to involve staff in those efforts as early as possible.

Ultimately, the decision about whether a team member is in good standing lies with the instructor. However, the instructor will use the norms, and communication processes established by the team, as well as its own documented efforts to resolve the matter, in making a final determination.

A team member that is not in good standing with their team will receive a reduced grade, or a zero for the project portion of their final grade. Note that a zero on the project portion guarantees a failing grade in the course.

A special note about plagiarism:

All work that you submit must be entirely your own, or its origin must be properly credited. In other words, it is okay to borrow an idea from somewhere, but only if you tell us so. (Of course, if you borrow a substantial part of your design, your grade may be affected.)

Plagiarism is a very serious offense, and we are obligated to spend some effort trying to find it. If we detect it, the offending group’s grade will be reduced by at least 40 percent even for minor infractions. For anything other than a minor infraction, the grade will be zero, and the students’ behavior will be reported to the appropriate university authorities. According to university guidelines, “any act of academic dishonesty … is unacceptable and will be met with disciplinary action”.

Credits: