Course Information
Lecture: Mondays and Wednesdays, 2:30–4:20 PM, in 420-040
Tutorial: 50 minutes once a week in a small group with a course assistant; times and groups are set during the first week. See tutorials.
Enrolling: choose “None” for the discussion section when you enroll. We assign tutorial times ourselves, so the other section times will look full; ignore that.
Recommended Background
This is a 4-unit course. We recommend CS 147 or prior exposure to human-centered design, but there is no formal prerequisite, and students from every department are welcome. Graduate students with a unit cap may enroll for 3 units; the workload is the same.
Attendance
We expect attendance and active participation in lecture and in your weekly tutorial. Discussion is how we probe and deepen our understanding of this material. Lectures are not recorded. A tutorial you miss is a zero for that week, but we drop your lowest tutorial grade, so you can miss one tutorial for any reason (illness, interviews, conflicts) without penalty. If you have already used your drop and are facing extenuating circumstances, email your course assistant and we will work out a plan.
Grading
40% tutorials
Each weekly tutorial is graded on a 0 / check-minus / check / check-plus scale, based on your knowledge of the readings and your participation in the discussion. We drop your lowest tutorial grade.
Reading commentaries are a completion requirement rather than a graded assignment: you must submit one for every reading by its deadline. They feed the tutorial discussion. If you have not submitted the commentaries for a tutorial’s readings, that tutorial’s grade drops one step, for example from a check to a check-minus. Because we drop your lowest tutorial grade, you can skip one tutorial and its commentaries without penalty.
40% four quizzes
There will be four in-class quizzes, one every other week, worth 10% each. Each takes about 30 minutes at the end of class, after that day’s lecture. The exception is Quiz 3 on Wednesday, November 4: there is no lecture that day, only the quiz. All quizzes will be closed-note. They will ask you to recognize and apply concepts from lecture. Each quiz will cover content spanning from the lecture day of the previous quiz up until, but not including, the current quiz’s day. For example, Quiz 1, on the Monday of Week 3, covers the start of the course through the last lecture of Week 2; Quiz 2, on the Monday of Week 5, covers the lectures from the day of Quiz 1 through the last lecture of Week 4.
20% final exam
The final exam is held at the end of class on the last day of the quarter, Wednesday, December 2, after that day’s lecture, and covers the entire course, including the final two weeks. It runs about 45 minutes, half again the length of a quiz, and is closed-note.
Late Policy
Commentaries are due at noon on the day of the lecture, so they are never due on a weekend and your course assistant can read them before tutorial. A commentary submitted after the deadline is recorded as late, and one that arrives after the tutorial counts as missing, so that tutorial’s grade drops one step. There are no extensions on quizzes or the final exam beyond accommodations arranged in advance.
Regrades
It is very important to us that all assignments are properly graded. The teaching staff works extremely hard to grade fairly and to turn around assignments quickly. We know that you work hard, and we respect that. Occasionally, mistakes happen, and it’s important to us to correct them. If you believe there is an error in your assignment grading, please submit an explanation in writing to the staff within seven days of receiving the grade. We will regrade the entire assignment to ensure quality.
No regrade requests will be accepted orally, and no regrade requests will be accepted more than seven days after receipt of the assignment. Regrade requests must be respectful; we will not consider any regrade requests containing disrespectful language.
Academic Accommodations
Stanford is committed to providing equal educational opportunities for disabled students. Disabled students are a valued and essential part of the Stanford community. We welcome you to our class.
If you experience disability, please register with the Office of Accessible Education (OAE). Professional staff will evaluate your needs, support appropriate and reasonable accommodations, and prepare an Academic Accommodation Letter for faculty. To get started, or to re-initiate services, please visit oae.stanford.edu.
If you already have an Academic Accommodation Letter, we invite you to share your letter with us. Academic Accommodation Letters should be shared at the earliest possible opportunity so we may partner with you and OAE to identify any barriers to access and inclusion that might be encountered in your experience of this course.
Students who are immunocompromised should register with the OAE as soon as possible.
Student athletes who anticipate challenges in being able to participate in class or submit assignments on time should speak to a course instructor or teaching assistant as soon as possible about available alternatives or allowances.
Please send accommodation letters to the teaching team at cs347@cs.stanford.edu by Monday, September 28, the first lecture of week 2, so that arrangements are in place before the first quiz. If your letter provides for extensions, request each one before the deadline it applies to; extensions cannot be applied after the fact.
Stanford University Honor Code
It is expected that you accurately represent your own work and the work of others in this class. Ideas should be your own. You may only use AI tools like ChatGPT to improve the clarity of your writing, not generate content. If you use AI, you must credit it in your submission.
The Honor Code is a part of this course. The Honor Code is the university’s statement on academic integrity written by students in 1921. It articulates university expectations of students and faculty in establishing and maintaining the highest standards in academic work. The Honor Code is an undertaking of the students, individually and collectively: that they will not give or receive aid in examinations; that they will not give or receive unpermitted aid in class work, in the preparation of reports, or in any other work that is to be used by the instructor as the basis of grading; that they will do their share and take an active part in seeing to it that others as well as themselves uphold the spirit and letter of the Honor Code. The faculty on its part manifests its confidence in the honor of its students by refraining from proctoring examinations and from taking unusual and unreasonable precautions to prevent the forms of dishonesty mentioned above. The faculty will also avoid, as far as practicable, academic procedures that create temptations to violate the Honor Code. While the faculty alone has the right and obligation to set academic requirements, the students and faculty will work together to establish optimal conditions for honorable academic work.
Names and Pronouns
Use the names and pronouns (e.g., they/them, she/her, he/him, just a name, or something else) indicated by your classmates for themselves. If you don’t want to share a set of pronouns for yourself, that is perfectly acceptable, too. If your name or pronouns change during the course, we invite you to share this with us and/or other students, so we may talk with you and refer to your ideas in discussion as you would wish.
Harassment
It’s possible for even well-intentioned students to accidentally alienate your peers. Comments can make unwelcome assumptions that don’t fit some lives, and it’s also possible for critiques and conversations to constitute what’s called harassment. Harassment means unwelcome or even hostile behavior, including speech, that intimidates, creates discomfort, or interferes with a person’s participation or opportunity for participation. That behavior will shut the person down in class, and that is simply not fair and not something we want. Harassment can involve nationality, age, color, creed, disability, gender, sexual orientation or any other protected status. It also extends to unwelcome sexual advances. A response that the participant was “just joking,” or “teasing,” or being “playful,” is not acceptable. If you have witnessed or experienced any harassment that you wish to report, please let an instructor know privately and promptly.
University employees – including professors and TAs – are obligated by Stanford to report what they know about incidents of sexual or relationship violence, stalking and sexual harassment to the Sexual Harassment Policy Office. If you would like to talk with a confidential resource you can contact the Confidential Support Team at their 24/7 hotline: 650-725-9955. You can read more at http://vaden.stanford.edu/sexual-assault. If you have any questions about responsible employee requirements or campus resources on sexual violence, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us.