Coursework and grading

Homework (60%)

There will be eleven homework assignments. These will be either short programming assignments (in Python) or short essay questions. In figuring this part of your final grade, I'll drop your lowest homework grade, so each of these assignments will count 6% of your final grade. Assignments will be linked from this page and from the Calendar page. You will submit them in the Oncourse Dropbox.

You may discuss the homework assignments with other members of the class, but whatever you write must be your own.

Project (35%)

You will submit a programming project at the end of the semester, both as an oral and as a written report. Ideally you will collaborate with one other student in the class on the project. Two progress reports on projects will be due, in the ninth and twelfth weeks of the semester.

Topics

Your project should include a Python program that implements some aspect of natural language that we will have discussed during the semester, including at least the following ("*" means you'd be crazy to try this, though it would probably be fun):
- Meaning representation
- Learning meaning
- Iconicity and/or arbitrariness
- Analogy in semantic extension
- Metonymy in semantic extension
- Learning a bias
- Parsing or generating simple sentences
- Parsing or generating morphology
- Learning a grammatical rule
- Learning to parse probabilistically
- Translation of words
- Translation of grammar
- *Evolving some basic feature of language
You will probably start with some of the code that we will be developing as the course progresses. You can deal with either artificial language or real language data or both.
Project topics are due at the end of the sixth week of class. Talk to me if you have questions about what's appropriate.
Although you will only be turning in a short report on your project, you will be encouraged to expand it into a paper after the class that you could submit to the Indiana Undergraduate Journal of Cognitive Science. I'll be glad to help.

Participation (5%)

Most classes are (or should be) collaborative efforts between instructors and students. It is well-known that active involvement by students promotes learning. I will expect you to come to class; in any case what we discuss and do in class is something you cannot get elsewhere. If you can't for some reason on particular days, I appreciate your letting me know. I will also expect you to participate in the various activities we'll do in class.

Grading procedures

Late submission

I will not accept late assignments. This means that if you can't submit an assignment on time, you don't have to explain, unless you are asking for, and believe you qualify for, an Incomplete in the class. Excuses end up being discriminatory because some students are more likely to use them than others, who have equally good reasons, so, in the interest of fairness, I prefer to ignore them altogether. Remember that one of your homework assignments will be dropped, so even if you miss one entirely, you can get an "A" in the course.

Incompletes

The policy towards Incomplete grades in this course is the university's own policy. The following is from the IU Academic Handbook.

CIRCUMSTANCES PERMITTING INCOMPLETES
The grade of Incomplete used on the final grade reports indicates that the work is satisfactory as of the end of the semester but has not been completed. The grade of Incomplete may be given only when the completed portion of a student's work in the course is of passing quality. Instructors may award the grade of Incomplete upon a showing of such hardship to a student as would render it unjust to hold the student to the time limits previously fixed for the completion of his/her work.

Probable grading breakdown

97-100	A+
91-96	A
89-90	A-
87-88	B+
81-86	B
79-80	B-
77-78	C+
71-76	C
69-70	C-
67-68	D+
61-66	D
59-60	D-
<59	F

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