Every week, you will be eligible for 2 participation credits. You will receive:

  • 1 credit for attending one lecture,
  • 0.75 credits for attending discussion, and
  • 0.5 credits for making one well thought-out comment on the lecture slides posted on the website.

You cannot receive more than 2 credits for a given week.
For example, you may attend both lectures for full credit. Another way to receive full credit would be to attend one lecture, one discussion, and make one well thought-out comment posted on the website.

Taking attendance in lecture

We will distribute a Google form at a random time during lecture to take attendance. Please fill out the form only if you are present in the lecture hall. At some point during the semester we will audit to check the authenticity of your response. Any sign of dishonesty will be regarded as a student misconduct and result in 0 participation credit throughout the semester.

The gory, yet mathematically intriguing, details of the credit system

Each week you will earn a maximum of 2 credits toward your participation. Extra credits you earn from one week can be carried (partially) to the previous or next week.

  • Each lecture attendance gives you 1 credit. If it’s a holiday, everyone gets a credit.
  • Each discussion attendance gives you 0.75 credit.
  • Every meaningful contribution to the online lecture slides will give you 0.5 credits.
  • Inspired by our understanding of aliasing, we will apply this procedure to calculate weekly credits:
    • You earn credits on a particular day
    • We blur your credits over two weeks (if you must know, using a triangle-function convolution kernel with a width of 15 days and unity integral).
    • We sum up your credits within a week (Monday to Sunday) and clamp to the maximum 2 credits per week.
    • Test your understanding of antialiasing: why might it be more stressful for you as a student if we did not do this?
  • We will try to maintain a regularly updated public record of your participation; this is meant for visibility, not to stress you out!

A Reminder on “Meaningful Comments” Online

  • Our overarching goal is to build an intellectual community conversation around lecture slides to ask questions, clarify, debate and expand on the material, to enrich the material for collective learning. Think of it as an annotated online textbook, where the slide comments can help you in learning concepts, implementing assignments, and studying for exams.
  • Please remember this is an academic platform! Be respectful, thoughtful, and intellectually engaged.
  • We encourage comments such as thoughtful questions about something you didn’t understand, clarifications or alternative derivations that you think may help your classmates, or sharing relevant outside resources that enrich what what is presented in the lecture.
  • Instead of: “Whoa, this is cool!”, Try: “Whoa, this fur rendering model is cool! It was actually used in “War for Planet of the Apes” for the first time. Here’s a write-up from the developers that explains...”
  • Instead of: “Can someone explain this?”, Try: “I’m not sure how we got the final result here. I understand that blah blah blah, but I thought that blah blah blah.”
  • Staff will ask questions on lecture slides that are meant to spark discussion and answer questions that go unaddressed, but we are hoping most discussion happens between students! We may occasionally make constructive requests to expand on your comment if we feel that is appropriate.

Markdown syntax & LaTeX

Markdown is simple language for formatting text. Comments on lecture slides can use Markdown features to enhance the comment with emphasis and links. You can learn more about Markdown on Wikipedia or this syntax introduction page.

Additionally, it is possible to add LaTeX style math formulas into your comments. To insert an inline formula (where the formula flows with the surrounding sentence, such as thisthis), wrap the formula in the dollar sign ($) symbol: $ your_formula_here $.

For a bigger formula on a newline and horizontally centered, use two dollar sign symbols around your formula: $$ your_formula_here $$.