Get help for the unit

Table of contents

FAQ
Contact details
The unit team

FAQ

Before contacting anyone, it’s worth skimming through this FAQ (or using the full-text search above) to see if your question is answered there.

I need help understanding a concept from the unit. What should I do?

You have several good options:

Check to see whether the video has errata linked on the main unit page.
Ask a question in the unit team, and either I or a TA will answer as soon as we can. Try to make your question specific, though - “I don’t understand the link between the definition of O-notation and growth in video 1-3” will get you a more helpful response than “I don’t understand O-notation”.
Ask a question in the weekly Q&A, which you can do anonymously or in advance via Padlet. I’ll prioritise questions about the current week’s material, but you can ask questions about earlier weeks as well and I’ll probably have time to get to them.
Ask me or a TA during the weekly problem class.
Take a look at the recommended readings for the week here to get a different view on the topic from the lecture notes.
If all else fails, try Google! Nothing in this unit is so obscure you can’t find good sources online.

There are two things I’d ask you not to do. The first thing not to do is to email me directly. This is a hard unit, and it’s very unlikely you’re the only one who’s having trouble with the concept, so it’s much better to ask in the unit team - that way, everyone gets to benefit from the answer. Even from a selfish point of view, if you ask in the unit team, there’s a good chance you’ll get a faster response, since TAs and other students can answer as well. The second thing not to do is to ask ChatGPT - not because it’s morally wrong, which it isn’t, but because it’s a bad idea to rely on anything it says that you can’t independently verify. Taking a real example I saw this summer: it’s capable of simultaneously a) giving a highly-polished explanation of Dijkstra’s algorithm in the style of a cat looking for the shortest path to a treat, and b) getting a key detail of that algorithm (how it chooses the next edge to follow) subtly wrong.

I think I’ve found an error in the notes or a Blackboard quiz. What should I do?

Get in contact with me, ideally via the unit team - if you’re right, then other people get to hear about the error, and if you’re wrong, then other people get to hear the explanation. Even if it turns out you’re wrong, I will never, ever be angry or annoyed at you for bringing it up! Nobody’s perfect, including me, and wanting to make the unit better is something we can all get behind. If the error is in a Blackboard quiz, then I’ll remark the quiz accordingly.

How do I see the answers and feedback for a Blackboard quiz I’ve already taken?

Go to “My Grades and Feedback” under the “Assessment, submission and feedback” section of the unit page.
Choose your quiz from the list.
Do not click the OK button - unlike on the original results screen, this will take you back to the quizzes section without showing you the feedback. Instead, click your mark, as shown in this picture.
Swear that if you end up designing a user interface one day, you will do a better job than this. (We teach the Interaction and Society unit for a reason…)

What are the late penalties on Blackboard quizzes?

Late penalties are set by 17.4 of the university regulations here (the first bullet point) and by school policy - I don’t get to set them myself. Basically, you have a one-hour grace period after the noon deadline. After that, you’ll get a 10% penalty for submitting 1-24 hours late, a 20% penalty for submitting 24-48 hours late, and so on up to 96 hours late, from which point you get no marks at all. This applies after the “rounding up” calculation - if you get 51% and you submit six hours late, then your final mark will be 90% rather than 41%. Public holidays and university closure days after the deadline don’t count towards the penalty, but weekends do. I don’t have any discretion over this, but if you have something serious going on then you can contact the school office to apply for extensions and/or exceptional circumstances. At the end of the day though, a single day of late penalties will only reduce your unit mark by 0.1%, so it’s not worth worrying about too much.

Can I get an extension on the deadline for a Blackboard quiz?

This actually isn’t my decision - you’ll need to get in contact with the school office and make a formal extension request.

Why is my quiz mark is showing up as zero, even though I only submitted one day late?

This is an artifact of the way Blackboard works - if you’re past the deadline, you’re flagged as late until your mark is manually reviewed, and until that happens it will show up as zero. I apply all the late penalties at once at the end of term, once all the dust has settled with extension requests, so your mark will show as zero until then.

Which problem class group am I in?

This should appear in your Outlook calendar.

Can I change my problem class group?

Yes, if you have a good reason - just email me to let me know.

Wait, the Q&A is completely anonymous? And I can submit images via Padlet? Grins malevolently

It’s still moderated - all Padlet posts need to be approved before they’ll show up. ;-)

What’s with the cats?

Honestly, I started with them during 2020-21 when everything was on fire with COVID and we all needed something to raise our spirits, and people enjoyed them a lot more than I expected. People still enjoy them, so I keep the tradition going!

Contact details

The unit director is John Lapinskas, email address john.lapinskas@bristol.ac.uk.

The lead TA for the unit is Cezar Alexandru-Mihail, email address ca17021@bristol.ac.uk.

As set out on the main page, please don’t contact us for general questions about the unit - you’ll get much faster answers if you ask on the unit Team or the weekly Q&A instead.

The unit team

Everyone taking this unit should have been added to a Microsoft Team called “COMS20010: Algorithms II 2023/24 (TB-1, A)”. The Q&A sessions will be run as meetings in this team, and access to recordings of Q&A sessions and problem classes will be restricted to members of this team. If you’ve joined the unit late, you might not have been added - in that case, please email me and I’ll add you myself.

FAQ