Course Work and Grading Policy for CAAM 551
-------------------------------------------

Course work  will consist of written exercises or small  matlab
codes.  These will be assigned roughly every two weeks.  

Occasionally, these will be pledged assignments.   This will happen
roughly 3 times during the semester.   There will no examinations.

I will also ask you to do one major computing project.  This will 
be assigned during the middle third of the semester and based upon
the material covered on iterative methods for large linear systems
of equations.  

The project will involve a significant computational experiment 
and a thorough presentation of results through a written report.
Equal weight will be given to the writing and to the quality of
the mathematics and computational work.


The written project will be reviewed.  Suggestions for improvement
will be made and then you will be required to turn in a final
re-written version.  Dr. Janice Hewitt from the Cain project
will participate in the evaluation and critiquing of the written work.
This assignment will have due dates specified for first and
second versions.  NO LATE PAPERS WILL BE ACCEPTED.



All other assignments will also have due dates specified.  You will 
be expected to turn assignments in on the due dates.   Late
assignments will be accepted up to the next lecture following
the due date and will not be accepted after that.  There will 
be a 10% penalty for a late paper.

Regular attendance and class participation is essential.  A
considerable portion of the course content will be conveyed
through the lectures.


Honor Code Policy:  You are welcome to discuss the standard
           exercises with other members of the class.  However
           the final solution, computer codes and writeup must 
           be your own work.   No collaboration will be allowed
           on pledged assignments.  The major computer/writing
           project will have specific instructions given.
            
           


Grading:  The standard written exercises will be worth 30 %, 
          pledged exercises will be  30 %, class participation 
          will be 5%, and the computing/writing project will 
          be 35% of the final grade.   

          I realize that some of you are taking this course to obtain some
          grasp of the material to use elsewhere.  Others will be doing
          research on developing and analyzing numerical methods.  I want to 
          try to accommodate both goals.  I think you need to do some exercises 
          and get some experience with proof techniques to grasp the material.  
          However, basic understanding of the methods, how and why they work, 
          and how to implement and use them is the main goal of the course.