COMP9020 Notices

End of course

Posted by Paul Hunter Wednesday 31 August 2022, 01:08:19 PM.

Hi all,

All going well, this should be the final notice you receive from me about COMP9020.

You should be receiving your overall grade for this course tomorrow. I have made your assignment & overall quiz score visible on the course website. Please contact me if you have any questions about the marks, especially if there has been any gross omissions. I am always happy to provide feedback on marks received.

Thank you all for your comments and feedback throughout the course. It was especially great to be back lecturing in person.

All the best with your future endeavours,

Paul

Accessing the final exam (at 13:45)

Posted by Paul Hunter Wednesday 17 August 2022, 12:13:07 PM.

Hi all,

The final exam will be made available at 13:45 (AEST) today.

The link will be available on the course's Moodle site, but you can access the exam directly by logging into https://unsw.inspera.com

IMPORTANT: Please ensure you are logged into inspera using your SSO - if you do not see the exam, try logging out using the menu in the top right and then logging into inspera again.

If you are unable to access the exam from 13:45, please email me immediately.

If you have any questions/issues during the exam, please contact the central exams team immediately - they will relay your question to me and have the ability to contact the whole cohort if necessary.

Your exam will automatically save periodically and will submit automatically when your time is up. You can manually submit earlier. It appears that there may be some contingency if you start a little after 13:45 (i.e. you should still get 3hr 15mins), but please do not rely on this.

Please let me know if you have any further questions,

Paul

Post-course poll

Posted by Paul Hunter Monday 08 August 2022, 10:23:35 AM.

Hi all,

I have added a short (one question) post-course poll which can be accessed here (or on the course website under "Activities → Post-course poll"). It is a follow-on from the pre-course poll and it helps me see what, if any, effect I've had on your way of thinking during the course (and maybe lets you reflect on how the course has impacted you).

The slide with the details of the research project Jake was talking about last week is also now available here , or on the course website (under "Lectures → Research survey").

Paul

Livestream link for today's lecture (updated link)

Posted by Paul Hunter Monday 08 August 2022, 10:02:19 AM, last modified Monday 08 August 2022, 12:04:17 PM.

Hi all,

I can't (yet) see how to move today's lecture feed / recording into the course's recordings, so the following link should let you access the livestream (and possibly the recording post-lecture):

https://moodle.telt.unsw.edu.au/mod/lti/launch.php?id=4931794

Alternatively the stream can be accessed from "Course Review Lecture" in the menu on the course homepage.

Paul

Post-recording continuation of Friday's lecture & Inspera walkthrough for Assignment 3

Posted by Paul Hunter Saturday 06 August 2022, 01:21:22 PM.

Hi all,

I have added to the lecture recordings the content from Friday's lecture that did not get recorded, specifically:

• Linearity of Expectation
• Independence of Events
• Conditional Probability

I have also added (under "Additional Content") a walkthrough of the process for accessing inspera for the third assignment. A reminder that you do not have to submit the assignment via inspera, but you are more than welcome to. Either way, please make use it for practice for the final exam.

Paul

Final quiz now available

Posted by Paul Hunter Saturday 06 August 2022, 12:03:38 PM.

Hi all,

The tenth and final quiz is now available on the course website. It is due at 12 noon on Monday 8 August (AEST).

A quick note on upcoming consultations: Consultations will continue as usual in Week 11 (i.e. there will be consultations on Sundays at 8pm and Wednesday at 8:30pm). If there is any interest in a consultation slot earlier in the day during Week 11, please let me know and if there's enough interest I'll see if I can arrange something.

Paul

Assignment 3 Inspera version

Posted by Paul Hunter Friday 05 August 2022, 07:13:14 PM.

Hi all,

I have activated the inspera version of the third assignment. To access your copy you need to do the following

• Go to https://cgi.cse.unsw.edu.au/~cs9020/cgi-bin/a3_inspera and log in with your zID/zPass (possibly more than once)
• That page will give you a 9-digit username, and a 4 character password
• Go to https://unsw.inspera.com
  • IMPORTANT: If you are logged into inspera with your SSO, then you must log out via the drop-down menu in the top-right
• You should see an option to "Log in with registered user"
• Log in with the details obtained in step 2
• You should now see a splash page with your zID and the link to Assignment 3.

You should be able to make multiple submissions as with the alternative submission process. If you find yourself unable to make additional submissions, let me know.

If you choose to submit your assignment through inspera, please submit a cursory note through give so that I know which version you wish to have marked.

I apologise that the process is so complicated - I will run through the process in tonight's re-recording. I assure you that the process for accessing the exam is much easier (link in Moodle + SSO login).

Paul

Sample Exam

Posted by Paul Hunter Friday 05 August 2022, 06:46:43 PM.

Hi all,

I have activated last year's exam on inspera for your perusal.

To access it:

• Go to https://unsw.inspera.com
• Log in with SSO if required
• "Register" the test code: NSW-120193992

If you "submit" the exam you should still be able to access the exam - but this didn't seem to be the case with my latest experiments. If you want to revisit the exam and have any issues, let me know.

I'll be shortly sending out details about the inspera version of the third assignment (log in arrangements are slightly different because the submissions shouldn't be anonymous)

Paul

Post-lecture re-recording

Posted by Paul Hunter Friday 05 August 2022, 06:13:17 PM.

Hi all,

I'll be re-recording the content from today's lecture that occurred after the recording finished (approximately 30 minutes). I'll be doing the recording on a live zoom stream - so you are welcome to join in and ask any questions.

The recording will be from about 8:30 tonight, and it will take place on the "Consultation" zoom meeting link.

Paul

Quiz 9 now available

Posted by Paul Hunter Saturday 30 July 2022, 12:36:17 PM.

Hi all,

Quiz 9 is now available on the course website. It is due on Monday 1st August at 12:00 (AEST).

Paul

Assignment 3 now available

Posted by Paul Hunter Wednesday 27 July 2022, 05:25:10 AM.

Hi all,

The third and final assignment is now available on the course website. It is due on Monday 8th August at 12:00 (AEST) .

A reminder that this assignment will also be available in inspera, the details of how to access it will be made available shortly.

Paul

Quiz 8 now available

Posted by Paul Hunter Saturday 23 July 2022, 12:18:34 PM.

Hi all,

Quiz 8 is now available on the course websit. It is due Monday 25 July at 12:00 noon (AEST).

Paul

Quiz 7 now available

Posted by Paul Hunter Saturday 16 July 2022, 11:14:52 AM.

Hi all,

Quiz 7 is now available. It is due Monday July 16 at 12:00 (AEST) .

Paul

Quiz 6 Q1 & Q3 clarification

Posted by Paul Hunter Sunday 10 July 2022, 09:12:58 PM, last modified Sunday 10 July 2022, 09:15:08 PM.

Hi all,

Please note that Q1 and Q3 on the quiz have had an additional clarification added (n>0). If you have already submitted your quiz, please review your answer for Q3 especially to see if you need to change your answer.

Paul

Quiz 6 available

Posted by Paul Hunter Saturday 09 July 2022, 10:27:44 PM.

Hi all,

Quiz 6 is now available on the course website. It is due by Monday 12 noon (AEST) .

Also, a reminder about the ongoing challenge, which also finishes on Monday.

Paul

Quiz 6 pushed back

Posted by Paul Hunter Tuesday 05 July 2022, 11:26:20 AM.

Hi all,

Because flex-week is supposed to see a reduction in your academic commitments, and because we did not cover as much of Graph Theory as I wanted to on Monday, I will release Quiz 6 after Friday's lecture (on Saturday) due before next Monday's lecture.

Paul

Challenge Problem 2

Posted by Paul Hunter Monday 04 July 2022, 03:55:02 PM.

Hi all,

The second Challenge Problem is now up on the course website (under "Additional Material -> Challenge Questions").

As mentioned in today's lecture, this problem is intended to be a group challenge:

• If more than 50 students can find the optimal solution for 10 disks before Friday's lecture then there will be a prize for every student (who comes to the Friday lecture) - whether that is "fancy donuts", or "lecturer-made carrot cake", or something else will be determined shortly with a poll (posted in ed)
• There are currently 113 of you taking this course, so I quite like my chances of not having to part with the prize(s) - especially as the communication graph amongst COMP9020 students is typically quite disconnected [see what I did there?]
• Collaboration/collusion is strongly encouraged. While "sharing" an optimal solution for 10 disks might seem like a big ask (hint: it's more than 1000 moves), there is a very nice way to describe the solution in one or two sentences - and I'm hoping that most of you will be able to do this very soon.

Good luck all, you have 91 hours remaining...

Paul

Assignment 2 now available

Posted by Paul Hunter Friday 01 July 2022, 09:39:57 PM.

Hi all,

Apologies for filling your inboxes - this should be the last message tonight (hopefully).

The second assignment is now available on the course website. It is due at 12:00 noon (AEST) on Monday 18 July .

I will post a walkthrough of the questions (similar to what I did with Assignment 1) in the next few days.

Paul

Quiz 5 (bonus) now available

Posted by Paul Hunter Friday 01 July 2022, 09:09:57 PM.

Hi all,

Because we finished the Functions content today, and we'll be starting Graph Theory on Monday, I have made available an extraordinary Quiz that tests the Functions content. This quiz is due on Monday at 11am . Later quizzes will still continue on the mid-week schedule.

This gives you an additional opportunity to improve your quiz grade - which will now be calculated from the best 6 of 10 quizzes.

To help with the quiz, I recommend viewing the recently uploaded extension to today's lecture (covering big-O notation) [even for those students today's face-to-face lecture] as some of the material in the quiz was covered better in the recording than in the lecture.

Paul

Post-recording continuation of today's lecture

Posted by Paul Hunter Friday 01 July 2022, 08:38:36 PM.

Hi all,

Today's lecture extended beyond the recording to the completion of the slides. In order to minimize the amount of recap needed at the start of Monday's lecture, and so that we can start Monday with the new topic, I have re-recorded the content and uploaded the (48 minute) video to the lecture recordings (called "COMP9020 Lecture Friday 13:00", dated July 1).

I recommend viewing the video, even if you were at today's lecture, as I go through the content at a more measured pace - including working through the examples/exercises.

There are some places in the recording where the mic/video drop out. I don't think too much content was missed, but if there is anything critical missing, let me know and I'll fill in the gaps.

Paul

Quiz 4 now available

Posted by Paul Hunter Wednesday 29 June 2022, 01:46:55 PM.

Hi all,

Quiz 4 is now available. It is due by 11am on Friday .

Paul

Quiz 3 refresh

Posted by Paul Hunter Wednesday 22 June 2022, 03:05:18 PM.

Hi all,

There was a glitch in the setting up of Quiz 3 and I've had to relaunch the quiz. None of the questions have changed, just the ability to make multiple selections for Q7 & 8. If you have already started the quiz, you will need to refresh it - and you may lose any answers you already have (so take a note of them!).

Apologies for any inconvenience,

Paul

Quiz 3 now available

Posted by Paul Hunter Wednesday 22 June 2022, 01:54:03 AM.

Hi all,

Quiz 3 is now available. It is due at 11am on Friday .

Going forward, the quizzes will continue to be released on Wednesdays at (or before) 11am, and due before the Friday lecture.

Paul

Quiz 3 delay

Posted by Paul Hunter Friday 17 June 2022, 10:16:01 PM.

Hi all,

To ensure the quizzes cover all aspects of the course, Quiz 3 will not be released until we have covered the next topic (Relations). There should not be too many interruptions to the schedule going forward, so the quizzes should be able to be released regularly from Quiz 3 onwards. Following the lecture next Monday, I will make an announcement about whether the quizzes will continue to be released mid-week (due before Friday lecture), or whether we will revert to a weekend release (due before Monday lecture).

Paul

Quiz 2, Questions 9 & 10

Posted by Paul Hunter Wednesday 15 June 2022, 05:26:58 AM.

Hi all,

Questions 9 & 10 of the quiz have not yet been covered in the lectures - although the answers can be found in the slides. Consequently, they will not count toward your final quiz grade. After the conclusion of the quiz, I will adjust the mark so that your grade will be based on the first 8 questions only.

Paul

Assignment 1 now available

Posted by Paul Hunter Sunday 12 June 2022, 04:05:04 PM.

Hi all,

The first assignment is now available on the course website (under "Activities" and "Course Work → Assignments"). It is due on Thursday, June 30 at 12:00 (AEST) . Submission can be made through the course website.

Some comments:

• You may submit as often as you like until the deadline - it is your last submission before the deadline that will be marked.
• Starred questions are (in my opinion) more difficult - I have identified these so that you can use this information to best manage your time allocation
• The "Proof Assistant" linked to in the assignment is not currently available. It will be made available following Friday's lecture when we have covered the content.
• Not all material in the assignment has been covered yet. It should all be covered by the Friday prior to the assignment deadline.

Paul

Online stream attempt #3

Posted by Paul Hunter Friday 10 June 2022, 08:57:17 AM.

Hi all,

I've just heard from IT and they told me they've now enabled the livestream feed. This should be available if you click on today's lecture in "Lecture recordings" from 11:05.

I will still fire up the Teams meeting for chat-based questions, and if the live feed still isn't working then I'll revert to the teams streaming option that seemed to work best (i.e. I keep my phone near me at all times)

Fingers crossed!

Paul

Quiz 1 available

Posted by Paul Hunter Tuesday 07 June 2022, 07:57:54 PM.

Hi all,

The first quiz is available on the course website (it can be found under "Activities" in the left-hand menu). It is due at 11:00 am on Friday 10 June (Sydney time) .

A reminder that you can work on the quiz for the duration of its availability, and you may make multiple submissions - it is the final submission before the deadline that counts.

Paul

Example proofs & Overleaf/LaTeX usage

Posted by Paul Hunter Sunday 05 June 2022, 06:06:59 PM, last modified Sunday 05 June 2022, 06:07:32 PM.

Hi all,

Students often want to see a fully fleshed-out proof before undertaking them in assignments. Because we went through them pretty quickly in the lectures, I've uploaded a video of me working through a couple of proofs - highlighting some of the strategies we covered in the lecture. I've also added a video of me writing these proofs up in LaTeX (using Overleaf) so you can see how that works [disclaimer: there are better introductory videos for LaTeX around - I've even linked one on the course website]. Apologies for the size of the feed of my notepad in that video: the contents of the notepad can be seen in the other video.

These videos (about 30 mins each) can be found under "Additional content" at the end of the "Lecture Recordings".

Enjoy,

Paul

Quiz 1 delay

Posted by Paul Hunter Friday 03 June 2022, 01:22:42 PM.

Hi all,

Because of technical issues at the start of today's lecture, and various slowness on my part, I won't release the first quiz until after the lecture on Monday . It will be due before the lecture on Friday, so you'll have slightly longer than usual to attempt the quiz (and it will overlap the consultation on Wednesday). There will still be a consultation on Sunday as scheduled.

Although the webstream recorded the full lecture, Monday's lecture will start from where today's official recording finished.

Thank you for your patience,

Paul

Online stream attempt #2

Posted by Paul Hunter Friday 03 June 2022, 09:43:02 AM.

Hi all,

I'm going to persist with trying to get the online live stream going - it seems that students should be able to access the feed that is recorded, I just don't yet know how (possibly where the lecture recordings are stored ). At the very least, I plan to use the Teams link for chat questions, so please start by going here . I have removed the waiting room (for UNSW logins), and allowed you to activate your cameras and microphones so you can chat to each other (the lecture room volume will be muted, so you don't need to worry about disrupting the room).

It would be handy to have a few people join the teams meeting a few minutes early - if there is no-one in the lecture room before the lecture starts, I'd like to experiment with a few alternatives.

Paul

Monday lecture post-mortem

Posted by Paul Hunter Monday 30 May 2022, 10:30:59 PM.

Hi all,

Don't worry, I won't be filling your inboxes after every lecture! There were just a couple of unresolved issues following today's lecture that I wanted to clear up sooner rather than later.

• Online stream : There were a few hiccups with getting the online stream going, but I think it shows promise. Now that I have a better idea of the capabilities of the lecture room, I will look into clearing up some of the issues. I hope not too many of you were put off by the problems and will give it another try on Friday. I welcome feedback from anyone on the online stream if there were issues that I might not be aware of (I've just set up a thread on the forum about it). A big shout-out to Ryan and Jae-Hoon for volunteering to add an additional pair of eyes towards monitoring the stream.
• Lecture recording : Apologies for those catching up on the lectures via the recording - I've forgotten what it is like to be beholden to an external recording timetable, and as a result the last few minutes of the lecture were not recorded. I will see where the recording ended and pick up from there on Friday. This will also hopefully answer some of the unresolved questions posted on the stream at the end of the lecture today.
• Consultation on Wednesday : Although I don't expect too many questions this early on, I will be online from 8:30pm on Wednesday for anyone that has any general course-related concerns.
• Mini-challenge for the first week : Occasionally, at the end of a lecture I'll set a completely optional, light-hearted mini-challenge for you to have a go at before the next lecture. This is different to the weekly Challenge Problems (which are intended to be challenging). This week, your task is to find someone with an opinion on the 6×4 vs 4×6 question (the stronger the better!) and convince them of the validity of the other viewpoint (even better - change their mind).
• Forums : Please post loads of questions/comments/random thoughts to the forum - I love seeing lots of discussion chatter, I think it really helps people feel welcome and creates a really good atmosphere. You can post anonymously if you're feeling shy (note: you are not anonymous to me, and I will moderate the forum to ensure a friendly environment).

See you all again on Friday,

Paul

Online stream attempt #1

Posted by Paul Hunter Monday 30 May 2022, 09:48:17 AM, last modified Monday 30 May 2022, 10:59:15 AM.

I have set up a Teams Webinar for today's lecture. If you are able to virtually attend today's lecture at 12 noon, please register for this event and we will see if we can get a live stream working.

Welcome to COMP9020

Posted by Paul Hunter Saturday 28 May 2022, 10:33:57 PM.

Hi all,

Welcome to COMP9020 Foundations of Computer Science. This is just a brief announcement to introduce you to various aspects of the course: the website, the learning interfaces, and the staff (me!).

I encourage you to familiarise yourself with the course website:

http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~cs9020

as it provides the starting point for all aspects of the course.

This term sees the return of COMP9020 to face-to-face lectures! I am very excited to be lecturing in front of people again, it has been over two years since I last set foot in a lecture theatre. Lectures begin on Monday (May 30) at 12:00. For those who will be on campus it will be in the New South Global Theatre (K-G14-127). For those of you who are unable to make the lectures in person, I have been exploring the option of offering a live-stream as several students have expressed an interest in this. Unfortunately, it is not possible to have a video feed (yet), but I am looking into having a live audio feed together with a live chat so that you have the opportunity to participate. I will post further details about how to access this by Monday morning.

Regardless, lectures will be recorded, and the recording will be available shortly after the lecture finishes. No assurance is made about the quality/completeness of the recording - so the only way to ensure you have best lecture experience is to attend the lectures!

There are no tutorials or classes for this course.

The course will be using the ed platform for course discussion. You should shortly be receiving an email inviting you to join the ed forum for this course. Alternatively, you can register for the forum here .

In lieu of office hours, I have set up online consultation hours twice a week (Sunday and Wednesday evenings, 8pm). These are intended to be student-driven and generally group-based. The course forums also provide a platform to ask questions and discuss the course material.

There is currently a pre-course, one-question poll available here . It is meant to be light-hearted, and is by no means compulsory. There is no right/wrong answer - I am primarily interested to see how (if at all) your perspective changes after taking this course.

There is also a short questionnaire available here - a little more serious than the poll, but again it is not compulsory. Its purpose is to help me best tailor the course to the current cohort, and to identify/address some of the main concerns that often arise at the start of the course.

Looking forward to meeting you on Monday,

Paul Hunter
(Lecturer in Charge)