ORIE 3120 Spring 2020


Course Description

Course Description The practical use of software tools and mathematical methods from operations research, machine learning, statistics and data science. Software tools include structured query language (SQL), geographical information systems (GIS), Excel and Visual Basic programming (VBA), and programming in a scripting language (either R or Python). Operations research methods include inventory management, discrete event simulation, and an introduction to the analysis of queuing systems. Machine learning and statistical methods include multiple linear regression, classification, logistic regression, clustering, time-series forecasting, and the design and analysis of A/B tests. These topics will be presented in the context of business applications from transportation, manufacturing, retail, and e-commerce.


Prerequisite: ENGRD 2700

ENGRD 2700 may also be taken concurrently with ORIE 3120 as a corequisite. However, note that you will be responsible for material from ENGRD 2700, even if that material is taught in ENGRD 2700 after it is used in ORIE 3120. Typically topics are taught in 2700 before they are used in 3120; the material from 2700 does not appear until later in this course.


Communication

The course website is http://people.orie.cornell.edu/mru8/orie3120/.

Your primary point of contact in the course are your recitation TAs. Please speak with them about any issues involving technical support, grading, or logistics.

We use Piazza for announcements. You are responsible for reading all announcements and pinned posts made on Piazza.

More generally, Piazza is a forum for students to post and answer questions. Your instructors and TAs will ensure that questions are usually answered within 36 hours, but we expect most questions will be answered by other students. Piazza should be used to ask logistical questions and conceptual questions. Keep your posts (both questions and answers) at a high level, in English. If that isn’t sufficient, then your question is better asked in person of a TA or professor.

Do not post any source code related to homework or project problems on Piazza. Posting of assignment solutions or hints is not permitted and could violate Academic Integrity. For detailed help with installation issues or debugging, please visit TA or instructor office hours instead.

Piazza is best used to ask questions whose answers will be useful to many students. If you have questions that are likely to be specific just to yourself—especially if they fall in the category of technical support or debugging—we ask you to take those questions to office hours. But if you can phrase the questions in a way such that they are of broad interest, you are likely to find other students thanking you for them and answering them quickly.

Grades will be posted on Gradescope. Do not post questions about grading, grades, or regrades on Piazza. Such questions will typically be closed without answer by instructors.

Don’t send that email:

  • The best way to communicate with instructors is in person. We ask that you always try to use this option first. In-person meetings are more efficient, more effective, and more fun.

  • We ask that you refrain from sending direct email to instructors’s NetIDs, except for the purpose of coordinating meetings.

  • If you do send an email to an instructor, assume that it will take about five days to receive a reply. If you need a reply sooner, you always have the opportunity to ask questions in person after lecture and during office hours. Emails about issues that could be handled in person might not receive a response.

  • Neither email nor Piazza is an appropriate channel for discussion of grades—such discussions should occur in person, usually with your section TA.


Course materials

Required readings for the course are posted on the course website. There are no required textbooks.

We will use iClickers to answer questions in lecture.
Please register either an iClicker remote or a mobile phone with the iClicker app before the third lecture. Use of someone else’s iClicker, especially if they cannot be there and asked you to click theirs, is a violation of Academic Integrity.

We suggest that you bring a laptop with you to your recitation section, so that you can work with your classmates and the TAs on lab assignments during that time. You can also use one of the lab computers if you prefer.

If your laptop ever malfunctions, note that there are many computer labs on campus, and the Cornell library even provides laptops that you can check out for short periods of time.


Recitation

The primary way to complete a recitation is to attend your recitation section, work on it collaboratively with your classmates and TAs, and individually submit your own work. As long as you are at the recitation and working on the lab, you will receive full credit, even if you don’t manage to answer all the questions.

You may do the recitation on your own instead of coming to your assigned recitation. To receive credit, you must submit correct answers to all of the questions on the recitation writeup through Gradescope by the end of your assigned recitation section. Of course, if you don’t manage to complete 100% of the questions, you are still welcome to come to recitation and continue working there—in which case you’ll get full credit, regardless.

If you must swap sections for one week (this should happen very rarely) you must make a private piazza post with this request at least 24 hours ahead of time (and receive approval).

You may skip one recitation without grade penalty.


Homework

Homeworks assignments should be completed by yourself, outside of recitation, and submitted through Gradescope. You may discuss the homework problems with other students, but your final submission must be your own work. There will be about eleven homeworks. Your lowest homework score will be dropped.

Homeworks are due on Wednesdays at 2:30pm or on an alternate date announced on the course website. (Homework due dates may be adjusted around prelims and breaks.)

We recognize that students are balancing many priorities, and so we make two accommodations to allow for late or missed homework.

  1. Students have five slip days that may be used through the semester with no grade penalty. For example, you could submit one homework three days late and another two days late; or your friend could submit five homeworks one day late each. To calculate slip days, we round up: a homework submitted 24 hours and one minute after it is due will use two slip days. Homework submitted after all your slip days are used will receive a score of 0.

  2. We will discard your lowest homework score from the semester.

Extensions will be granted only if your college advisor issues a “request for academic consideration” (generally for medical reasons), or in other such exceptional circumstances. Requests due to job interviews, other classes and assignments, and poor planning will not be considered. We suggest you save your slip days and plan to complete all homework assignments to insure against catastrophe.

You can ask for your homework to be regraded up until two days after grades have been posted. Regrades can increase or decrease your grade. (We will regrade the whole assignment, not just a single question.)

Although some assignments are more difficult than others, we weight all assignments equally when dropping your lowest homework grade and when computing your overall homework score.


Participation

Up to 5 points will be assigned to students for participation as follows:

  • Up to 2 points will be given for completing your recitation assignment or attending recitation, as recorded by your TA.
  • 1 point will be given for filling out the course evaluation at the end of the semester.
  • Students can make up lost points on class participation by answering questions from other on piazza.

Late policy and extensions

The five slip days and policy of dropping your lowest homework score and one recitation constitute our extension policy. We will make no exceptions to the policies stated above: late homework (beyond the five slip days) or recitation answers will not be accepted, ever.

Here are a few words of caution about late submissions:

  • The deadline for an assignment is not the time by which you must finish writing a solution; rather, the deadline is the time by which you must successfully submit your solution file on Gradescope. We recommend that you submit your file at least one hour before the deadline.

  • You must submit your work through Gradescope; email submissions, whether late or on time, will be deleted without response.

  • Gradescope enables you to upload as many times as you wish before submissions are closed. Only the most recent version will be graded. Requests to have the course staff grade earlier versions (with or without a penalty) will be denied.

  • It is your responsibility to verify before the deadline that you have submitted the intended versions of your files. Requests to substitute another version (e.g., “I accidentally submitted the wrong files”) will be denied.


Exams

There will be two preliminary exams and a final exam. Exams will cover material from lectures, readings, recitations, and homeworks. The final exam is cumulative.

Exams will occur at the dates and times published by the Registrar: Prelim 1 is scheduled on Tuesday March 3 at 7:30pm. Prelim 2 is scheduled on Tuesday April 7 at 7:30pm. The final exam is scheduled on Saturday May 9 at 9am.
Rooms will be announced closer to the exam dates.

Please make your travel and summer job plans keeping these dates in mind. We will not offer a makeup exam. In the case of exam conflicts (see Cornell exam policy), or if you need extra time due to a disability, please notify the head TA at least one week before the exam.

You may ask for your exam to be regraded up until two days after grades have been assigned. Regrades may increase or decrease your grade.

If you cannot attend an exam because of health or family crises, or similar life events, you may ask the professors for permission to be excused from the exam. Once you enter the examination room you may no longer ask permission to be excused. If you miss a prelim, and we excused you, we modify the grading formula to compute your grade with just the other prelim. It is unlikely anyone would ever be excused from the final. You must ask us for permission in advance: don’t just skip exams and assume you can be excused retroactively. If you miss an exam and we didn’t excuse you, you get a zero for the missing score.



Academic Integrity

Absolute integrity is expected of every Cornell student in all academic undertakings. If you are unsure about what is permissible and what is not, please ask.

We encourage you to discuss your work with your friends and classmates. You will definitely learn more in this class if you work with others than if you do not. Ask questions, answer questions, and share ideas liberally.

Cooperation has limits, however, as set forth in these university, departmental, and course policies:

Integrity includes you being honest about the sources of the work you submit. When you submit work in this course, you are representing it as the work of the stated authors, subject to any exceptions that are clearly stated in the submission itself. To avoid committing plagiarism, simply be sure always to accurately credit your sources. To do otherwise is to commit fraud by claiming credit for the ideas and efforts of others, and that is punishable under the Code of Academic Integrity. Penalties for violation of Academic Integrity may be severe, ranging from a zero grade for an assignment or exam, up to expulsion from the University for a second offense.

Grades, on the other hand, are about the course staff assessing what you have learned. If you turn in someone else’s work for course credit, and forthrightly acknowledge you are doing so, you are not acting dishonestly and are not violating academic integrity. But you also give us no basis for concluding that you have learned the course content. So you are likely to receive a grade penalty, but it will be less severe than if you had failed to cite the other person.

We recommend the following rule of thumb: Never look at any other student’s solutions (including source code), or have their solutions in your possession in any portion or form whatsoever. Once you have seen another solution, it becomes impossible to unsee and is likely to infect your own. Likewise, never share your solutions with other students. That includes not writing code together at a whiteboard: even if you erase it and later write code separately at a computer, you are likely to write similar code that could be flagged as a potential violation.

You are always free to use code presented in this class in lecture, or on this semester’s course website. It does not require citation. Any other code, however, at least requires citation, and it could result in a grade deduction.


Grading

We expect the breakdown for the final course grade to be as follows:

  • Prelim 1: 25%
  • Homework: 30%
  • Participation (recitation + course evaluation): 10%
  • Project: 35%

Recitations, homeworks, and exams are weighted equally within their category unless otherwise specified. These weights are approximate. We reserve the right to change them later.

Students often want to predict their final letter grade. We will not publish details about how scores translate to letter grades. However, we can give a few rules of thumb. Suppose the numerical grades can range from 0 to 100 points. Generally scores in the 90s correspond to grades in the A range, scores in the 80s correspond to grades in the B range, scores in the 70s correspond to grades in the C range, etc. Historically the median grade in this class is around a B+.

Students taking the course with the S/U option should note that a grade of S (passing the class) correspond to a letter grade of C- or above. Generally, to obtain a passing grade, students take all three exams and turn in all but two or three recitations and homeworks.

Students may also audit the course. There are no requirements placed on work that must be done by students who audit. Students auditing the course who wish to turn in work may do so and it will be graded.

Sometimes students ask whether the final grade is curved. The answer is that it depends on what you mean by “curved.” Any mapping from numeric scores to a letter grade implicitly defines some kind of curve. But we will not give out a fixed percentage of A’s, B’s, etc. In fact, we would be delighted to give a high grade to all students who complete all assignments and show mastery of the material on the exams.

We do not offer extra credit, nor will we consider any request to alter the grading scheme based on personal considerations.