Important Information

Time and Location

Lecture: ONLINE 12:40-2:30 Tuesday and Thursday

See canvas or Teams for link.

Instructors

For ECE 272: Professor Venkatesh Akella (akella@ucdavis.edu).

For ECS 201C: Professor Jason Lowe-Power (jlowepower@ucdavis.edu).

I prefer Jason, but will likely respond if you say “professor <something>”. My pronouns are he/him/his.

Please contact me via email if you have a personal request, not canvas messages. I do not check canvas messages.

For class-wide questions (e.g., anything more than one person might be interested to know), please use the online discussion.

Jason’s Office hours

Office Hours: Wednesdays from 9:30-10:30, or by appointment.

These office hours can be used to discuss anything you would like. The discussion topic doesn’t have to be class related or even computer architecture related. If you need to discuss something in private, let me know (e.g., via chat on zoom) and I can create a waiting room for others while we talk privately.

Office Location: I’ll be using Zoom this quarter.

Please suggest a meeting time when you email me for an appointment. You can use my calendar to quickly find a time I am available. It’s not guaranteed to be completely up-to-date, but it gives a good starting point.

Normally my office location is 3049 Kemper Hall, but now it’s home with my cats!

Venkatesh’s Office Hours

Please see the annoucement on Teams about my office hours and the Zoom link.

You can always contact me via email and/or Teams if you have a question or want to discuss something. You don’t have to wait for the office hour.

Lectures

Lecture Etiquette

We’ve now all had some experience with participating in remote meetings. However, just as a quick reminder below are some common etiquette ideas that I’ve found work well when participating in remote meetings.

• Be patient. Remote meetings introduce communication latency and synchronization issues (things we’ll be learning about this this class, BTW). Please be patient with everyone. This often means pausing for longer than you think is necessary when talking, putting up with minor annoyances (e.g., someone interrupting you), and putting up with poor connections.
• Mute your microphone unless you are speaking. All too often there is feedback between microphones and speakers. Often, you can’t tell that it’s your computer that’s causing feedback issues for everyone else. Also, I’ve experienced other people in the local environment causing distractions when they don’t mean (e.g., my cat likes to meow at me while I’m talking sometimes).
• (Try to) Enable video. If your bandwidth supports it and you have a webcam, everyone will be more engaged if you can see each others’ faces. Using the “gallery view” on zoom allows you to see everyone at once. The option is in the upper right (not speaker view). If you’re experiencing lag or poor connection, you can disable video to try to improve your experience.
• Use the chat. If you find that you can’t get a word in edgewise because others are dominating the conversation, then type it! I will be watching the chat whenever we’re in discussions or office hours.
• Stay engaged. Don’t open up other programs/internet/reddit, etc.

Class Resources

Online Material

All of the material for this course is online. We will use this website as the main website and entry point for all course information. You can find the source for this website on GitHub.

Online Discussions

We will use Teams for class discussions outside of the classroom.

It’s best to ask your questions on Teams. That way, all of your classmates can see the answer instead of emailing one-to-one. Additionally, you might get a much faster response from one of your classmates! Through asking and answering questions on Teams, you improve your understanding of the material, and improve other students’ understanding as well.

Accommodations

Per official UC Davis policy, if you have an accommodation request from the Student Disability Center, or have any conflicts with exam times for religious observances, you must notify your professor by the fourth class, April 8, 2021. If you do not notify your professor by this time, we cannot guarantee that we will be able to make the accommodation.

Academic Misconduct

Academic misconduct is a serious issue. You can find the official UC Davis policy on the Office of Student Support and Judicial Affairs website.

You are expected to cite all of the work you reference. Any ideas that are not specifically yours or generally known (e.g., caches hold data) should have a citation. When in doubt, cite.

Any violations of this policy will result in reporting the violating student(s) to the Office of Student Support and Judicial Affairs. This can result in a 0 on the assignment or an F in the class. See the Computer Science Department’s policy for more information.

Student Support

There is a lot of great information on the Coronovirus Update Page with extensive FAQs and specific student support information in this unique circumstance.

If you need access to computing resources, internet, etc. there’s lots of good information on the Keep Teaching webpage.

As a student you may experience a range of issues that can cause barriers to learning, such as strained relationships, increased anxiety, alcohol/drug problems, feeling down, difficulty concentrating and/or lack of motivation. These mental health concerns or stressful events may lead to diminished academic performance or reduce a student’s ability to participate in daily activities. UC Davis is committed to advancing the mental health and well-being of its students. If you or someone you know is feeling overwhelmed, depressed, and/or in need of support, services are available. You can learn more about the broad range of confidential mental health services available on campus via Student Health and Counseling Services.

You can also contact me during office hours, via email, or by making a separate office hour appointment: jlowepower@ucdavis.edu. If you need additional accommodations due to these or other personal issues, don’t hesitate to ask. I cannot guarantee that I will be able to make accommodations. However, reaching out to me earlier will increase the likelihood that I can make accommodations.

Prerequisites

ECS 201A or EEC 270

Although not an official prereq, this course requires experience with many programming tools (e.g., Linux, command line, git, etc.). A good resource is a recent MIT course on “The missing semester” which teaches these important tools that aren’t necessarily covered in a “normal” computer science curriculum.

Assignments, Project, Participation, and Grading

Grading Breakdown

Category	Percentage	How to get points?
Participation	30%	Submitting questions before lecture and submitting answers after the breakout sections
Project	50%	Prior work presentation, Final presentation, and final report. See project page.
Assignments	20%	There will be two assignments. See assignment page.