My policy about the Projects submitted for grading:

1. Originality of  submitted work
    You may work alone or with one other student. In either case, for the purposes of this policy, you will be considered as part of a "group", consisting either of one person (yourself) or two people (yourself and a partner). Groups do not have to be permanent; they may change from one project to another.

   To formally acknowledge a greater effort of those individuals who end up working alone, I will slightly increase their scores: their work will be graded out of 102%. However, I strongly recommend that anyone who anticipates difficulty completing the projects seek a partner to work with. The extra 2% of the project grade falls far short of offsetting the extra effort that a single person will have to spend compared to that of two people working on the project. Thus, you should consider that 2% just as token of acknowledgement of the extra effort, but by no means as an incentive to work alone.

   Absolutely no collaboration between groups is allowed. That is, again: no discussions, no asking questions, nothing. Period. If you are lost about how to do an exercise and cannot successfully brainstorm it with your group partner (if any), it suggests that you do not understand something in the material of the course, or have not read the project's instructions carefully enough. In this case, you should come to the instructor (me). It is very likely that during our discussion of your problem, some gaps in your understanding of the material may be uncovered, and  I will try to help you to mend them.

   If you cannot meet with me in person, you may still send me your questions via e-mail. In such a case, please attach your draft of the project (preferrably as one black-and-white pdf file and a Matlab code, if applicable), so that I could see your work. Please make an effort to state your questions to me clearly.

    Violations of the no-collaboration rule will be considered violations of academic integrity.
Every instance of a violation, starting with the very first, will be referred by me to the Center for Student Conduct (CSC). I will follow the rules described below in recommending to the CSC a penalty to be imposed to the parties involved. The CSC ultimately decides whether to follow my recommendation or not.
  - The first time that I detect collaboration on (even part of) an assignment range from 0 (very unlikely) to 100% (more likely) of your project grade; this decision is left entirely up to me.
   - The second violation will result in an appropriate (at my discretion) reduction of your final grade. Typically, I will recommend a reduction that equals the weight of the assignment in question. However, variations of this are possible.
   - In case of the third violation, I will recommend that the student(s) be given an F for the course.
    Both (or all) groups involved in a collaboration will be given the same penalty. This rule will not be changed under any circumstances. 
    Also, if one of the groups at fault has two members, then I will recommend to the CSC that both members be given the same penalty. If you disagree with this part of my recommendation, you must petition the CSC to overrule it and thereby assign different penalties to the two members of the group. Example: Suppose group 1 involves students A and B, and group 2 involves students C and D. Suppose student D declares to the CSC that student C had no knowledge of student D being involved in the violation. Then the sanctions imposed on students A, B, and D will be the same, and those imposed on student C (if any) will be decided in a consultation of the CSC with me.


2. Planning ahead your work on the Projects

    Projects are not designed to be done in one sitting. Rather, each project may take as long as 10-12 hours of work. To digest the material presented in the Projects, as well as to relate it to the material covered in class, if you need to start working on the assigned Project well in advance of its due date.
    To encourage this practice, I will enforce the following policy on helping you with questions that you might have about Projects:
1) On the day the Project is due, I will answer only minor questions about  its content, but will not provide any substantial help.
2) One academic (i.e., working) day before the due date, I will provide help only on the last exercise of the Project. (Please note: In some of the Projects, Exercises may be called "Parts" or "Steps". These terms all mean the same thing. Ask me if you have any doubts.)
3) 2 academic days before the due date, I will provide help only on the last 2 exercises.
4) 3 academic days before the due date, I will provide help only on the last 3 exercises.; etc.
5) Also, suppose that the last exercise is substantially based on the first one, and you ask me about it one day before the Project is due, but have not done exercise 1. I will help you with those issues in the last exercise that are related to exercise 1 only under the condition that you will agree to receive a score of zero for exercise 1. (Or, if you have already done some meaningful work for exercise 1 but still have gaps in it that prevent you from doing later exercises, the "score of zero" in the previous sentence will be replaced by the current score at the moment that I agree to help you.) However, under no circumstances will I "bridge a gap" consisting of more than one exercise... I know this much explanation may sound confusing :-). Ask me if you need a clarification.

    To summarize: Plan ahead, plan ahead, plan ahead ... Lack of planning by you will not constitute an emergency for me.