Lectures: Tu,Th 11:30-12:50 (EST)

Tutorials: Th 16:30 - 17:20 (EST)

Main textbook

• Operating Systems: Principles and Practice (2nd Edition)

Optional references

• Operating Systems: Three Easy Pieces (freely available online)
• Operating System Concepts (10th Edition)

• Quizzes (35%)
• Lab Projects (65%)

There will be 5 lab projects and 11 quizzes (almost one quiz per week). Only the 6 highest quiz grades will count toward the 35% quiz grad for each student.

We reserve the right to change these weights at any time during the term without prior notice.

Slides are uploaded on github.

Waterloo SE350 W20

• Midterm: exam (PDF), solution (PDF)

Waterloo SE350 W19

• Midterm: exam (PDF), solution (PDF)
• Final: exam (PDF), solution (PDF)

Berkeley CS162

• Archive of past exams

Recordings of lectures from Fall 2020 are uploaded on Youtube and can be found here.

What is (and is not) allowed during and after quizzes?

Quizzes are open book in the sense that students may consult their textbook, course notes, and materials posted on the course webpage. Use of any other resource (including online services such as stackexchange.com) is prohibited. During each quiz, students are allowed to email course instructors if they have any question or need any clarification. While taking quizzes, students may not communicate directly or indirectly with any person except the course instructors. Students may not discuss nor disclose quiz questions with anyone. Any suspected plagiarism or infractions of this honor code will be reported to the appropriate Associate Dean.

What is the group-work policy?

The project is done in groups of four. Five is not allowed and three is not recommended. The workload is fixed regardless of the size of the group. Each group must have a project manager, who is responsible for coordinating the group. This role can rotate between members. Explaining concepts to someone in another group, discussing algorithms/testing strategies with other groups, helping debug someone else's code (in another group), and searching online for generic algorithms (e.g., hash table) are allowed. Sharing code or test cases with another group, open-sourcing code (e.g., on GitHub) even after this term, copying OR reading another group's code or test cases, and copying OR reading online code or test cases from prior years are not allowed. Any suspected plagiarism or infractions of this honor code will be reported to the appropriate Associate Dean.

How is each group member graded for each project?

Each member gets a fraction of the group's grade based on their contributions. To quantify each member's contributions, members rate each other between 0 and 10 after submitting each project. For an average rating of more than 8, the fraction is 1. For an average rating of less than 8 and more than 7, the fraction is 0.8. For an average rating of less than 7 and more than 6, the fraction is 0.6. For an average rating of less than 6 and more than 4, the fraction is 0.4. The fraction becomes 0 for an average rating of less than 4. Students can appeal their average ratings if there is a ground. Instructors will make the final decisions in those cases after hearing from all parties involved.

What is the lateness policy?

There are five grace days (including weekends) that can be used for late submissions without incurring any penalty. A group split-up will consume one grace day. When you use up all your grace days, a 15% per day late penalty will be applied to a late submission. Please be advised that to simplify the book-keeping, late submission is counted in a unit of day rather than hour or minute. A one-hour-late submission is considered a one-day-late submission, so is a fifteen-hour-late submission. Unless notified otherwise, we always take the latest submission from Gitlab. You are required to notify lab TAs (preferably by email) when you have used grace days.

What is the academic integrity policy?

In order to maintain a culture of academic integrity, members of the University of Waterloo community are expected to promote honesty, trust, fairness, respect and responsibility. Check the Office of Academic Integrity for more information.

What is the grievance policy?

A student who believes that a decision affecting some aspect of his/her university life has been unfair or unreasonable may have grounds for initiating a grievance. Read Policy 70, Student Petitions and Grievances, Section 4. When in doubt, please be certain to contact the department's administrative assistant who will provide further assistance.

What is the discipline policy?

A student is expected to know what constitutes academic integrity to avoid committing an academic offense, and to take responsibility for his/her actions. Check the Office of Academic Integrity for more information. A student who is unsure whether an action constitutes an offense, or who needs help in learning how to avoid offenses (e.g., plagiarism, cheating) or about"rules" for group work/collaboration should seek guidance from the course instructor, academic advisor, or the undergraduate associate dean. For information on categories of offenses and types of penalties, students should refer to Policy 71, Student Discipline. For typical penalties, check Guidelines for the Assessment of Penalties.

What is the appeals policy?

A decision made or penalty imposed under Policy 70, Student Petitions and Grievances (other than a petition) or Policy 71, Student Discipline may be appealed if there is a ground. A student who believes he/she has a ground for an appeal should refer to Policy 72, Student Appeals.

Do you use an automatic system to detect plagiarism?

Moss (Measure Of Software Similarity) will be used to screen each project in this course. Students' submissions are stored on a U.S. server, therefore students will be given an alternative if they are concerned about their privacy and/or security. Students will be given due notice about arrangements and alternatives for the use of Moss in this course.