E-Homework Guide

Contents

• Formatting Standards
• How to Turn In Your Homework
• Getting Your Homework Back

You must prepare your homework using a word processor, editor, or other software that can produce typeset results, including math. Scans or photographs of handwritten solutions are not acceptable. Also, please do not use plain text with "ASCII math" (i.e. simulated displayed formulas produced using creative spacing and underline/dash characters) or "ASCII art" in place of figures. We strongly recommend the use of LaTeX to prepare your solutions. LaTeX is the de facto standard method of typesetting published work in compter science, and it is especially well suited to typesetting mathematics. If you are unfamiliar with LaTeX, you can obtain the necessary software, including an editor here. You can use this example document to help you get started. The LaTeX Wikibook may also help as a reference that explains the various features of LaTeX in much more detail.

Please prepare each problem's solution as a separate document, since you will be uploading each solution separately to Gradescope for grading (via Canvas). You may put all the parts of one problem's solution (e.g. 1(a), 1(b), ...) in a single document. Each solution must have a header appearing at the top of each of its pages that includes your name and WUSTL Key ID (e.g. "jbuhler"), the homework number, and the problem number. Page numbers at the bottom of each page are optional but recommended.

Your homework should use a page size of 8.5x11 inches ("letter" size; A4 is also OK). Most text should be in a proportionally-spaced font with a size of at least 11 points. (However, you might find that a fixed-width font such as Courier is better for writing pseudocode with consistent indenting.) You should use black text on a white background everywhere except possibly in figures. Your figures may be in color if desired, but your TAs might be red-green colorblind, so choose your palette appropriately.

Figures may be drawn using the tool of your choice, or even hand-drawn and scanned as images, so long as they are legible in your final submission. Vector graphics (i.e. those stored as a set of shapes and lines) are preferred to bitmapped images such as GIF, PNG, or JPEG, but either is acceptable. The LaTeX Wikibook includes instructions on how to include these images in your document, including how to crop them. You may find the TikZ package convenient for drawing figures of graphs, as in this example. Place your figures, scaled appropriately, inline at the point where they are first referenced in your document, or use your editor's "float" facility (if any) to have them appear at the top or bottom of a page with suitable captions and corresponding references in the text. Please do not just put all figures at the end of the document.

Homework Templates

To help you follow these formatting standards, we have created a LaTeX template as a starting point for each solution.

Two Important Facts about Homework Submission

1. You must upload and submit homeworks to Gradescope yourself. The instructor and TAs cannot do this for you. Do not send us your homework by email or bring it in on a USB stick for us to upload on your behalf.
2. Homework is due at 11:59 PM on the due date. If you submit your documents after the displayed due date and time, Gradescope will mark them late. The policy for late homework submission is described on the course homepage; if any of your files are submitted after the deadline, the entire assignment will be considered "late." Please leave yourself sufficient time to upload, check, and submit all your solutions!

Submission Procedure

• Step 1: Save your documents in final form. The preferred format for turning in your homework documents is PDF, which you should be able to create directly from your word processor or editor. TeXstudio and TeXShop compile to PDFs by default. Alternatively, you can use pdflatex or dvipdf to generate PDFs from LaTeX documents. No other format is acceptable for turning in homework.

  You can name your documents whatever you want, but I recommend that you limit the characters in your names (other than the file extension, if any) to English letters, numbers, spaces, dashes, and underscores to avoid tickling any unexpected bugs in Gradescope.

• Step 2: Go to the turn-in folder. Log into Canvas (https://wustl.instructure.com/) and select the correct course and semester from the Dashboard (CSE.347.01, Spring 2019).

  From the navigation bar on the left-hand side of the screen, select Gradescope (second from top, just below "Home"). You will see a screen like the following:

  

  Click the homework assignment you want to submit. Although Gradescope gives you the option to upload a single file and mark which pages correspond to which problem, we recommend selecting to submit "Individual images, one per question." You'll then see an icon and link for submitting a solution to each individual problem:

  

• Step 3: Upload your first document. Click on "Select Image(s)" for the first problem whose solution you wish to submit, and pick the file you wish to submit. Repeat this for each problem, until you have submitted all of the problems.

• Step 4: Submit your document. Your solution is not turned in and will not be visible to the instructor or TAs until you click the "Submit Assignment" button. This will not be done automatically, even if you've uploaded drafts -- you must hit "Submit Assignment" for each solution to turn it in.
• Step 5: Review your submitted document (optional, but recommended). If you click on the assignment from the course dashboard again, you will be able to review your submission. Check carefully to make sure the document appears as you expect. Note that you can resubmit from this page by clicking the "Resubmit" buttion in the bottom-right.

  

  You can resubmit from this page any number of times until the submission deadline. After the submission deadline and until grading is finished, you will see this same page.

The TAs will grade each of your homework solutions in Gradescope. As each problem's solution is graded, a grade will be posted to the corresponding column in the course grade book.

To see your graded solutions, again log in to Gradescope via Canvas (repeating Step 2 above): select CSE.347.01 from the Canvas dashboard and select Gradescope from the left-hand menu bar. Once grades are released, the status for the assignment on the Gradescope dashboard will change from "Ungraded" to "Graded," and you will be able to see the total score for the assignment.

For each solution, you'll see the points awarded and the graders' comments. You will also see all of the rubric items, with the rubric items applied to your assignment highlighted.

You can then examine the notes and comments on the document. You can download the marked-up version of the document for your records as a PDF by selecting the Download button on the bottom menu bar. If you wish to dispute the grading of a particular problem, the TAs and the instructor can see your marked-up homework in Gradescope; you don't need to print it out or send us a PDF.

We will retain your marked-up homework documents in Gradescope until the end of the semester.