Project FAQ
General questions:
1. How do I get started? Please read the instructions and attempt to understand the mathematical background behind the project before writing any code. It will be very difficult to write code if you don't know what the code is supposed to be doing.
2. How do I convert project.ipynb to pdf? First of all, why would you want to do this? You will need to fill this in on a computer anyway. Secondly, it might be easier to share the pdf, which is something you are not allowed to do, especially once you have added your own work to it. Finally, Jupyter Notebook opens in a browser window (yes, even on appsanywhere) and you can simply "print" to pdf.
3. How should I include references in my report? Do I need a bibliography? Do I need to reference code that I find on the internet? If you need to cite references then you can include a bibliography if you like, or simply cite your references when you use them (in your answers to the individual questions). We don't really mind, as long as you make it absolutely clear what sources you have used. If you use code (including functions) that you didn't write yourself, you must cite your sources. If you happen to find a question that looks like it has been posted by anyone working on this project, it would be really dangerous to use any material related to that. Whoever posted that is liable to face an assessment offence charge, and if you used that material, you’d become complicit.
4. Can you read my report and give me feedback before I submit it? No, sorry. This would be like giving feedback on a written exam before you hand it in. (Of course, you are free to ask us specific questions.)
5. Can you tell us more about the use of Turnitin? Is there a threshold percentage? Please refer to the hyperlinked information in the plagiarism paragraph in the project. We cannot say more.
6. How do you approach marking the Project? When we open the Notebook, we first run it from scratch ("restart the kernel, then re-run the whole notebook"). Any output will therefore be overwritten by what is generated from scratch, and WE EXPECT TO SEE NO ERRORS when we run the notebook. Don't submit buggy code, or, if you absolutely must, comment it out with # and explain why you didn't just delete it.
7. How long do you expect the work on the project to take? We expect you to finish the project within the equivalent of one working week, so about five whole days or 35-40h. This is in line with what you would need to revise for a written final exam.
8. My code takes X seconds to run, will I lose marks if it is inefficient? We first and foremost mark for correctness, not speed. Our sample solutions take a few seconds to run, so if your code takes more than a few minutes it is grossly inefficient and maybe you should worry, otherwise you’re likely fine.
9. What does the red X in the turnitin report mean? If your turnitin report has a red "X" you may want to scrutinise your submission. It may be just fine, but it is worth a check. Most likely you have printed out thousands of lines (do you really expect us to read these?). There is a 2MB limit on the size .ipynb files, anything larger does not get checked.
Specific questions for this year's project:
1. Should I submit the project.py file along with my completed Jupyter Notebook document? No, the submission page will only allow you to submit a single document, and it will only accept .ipynb files (that is, Jupyter Notebook files). There is no need to upload the project.py file, since we already have a copy, and are not expecting you to modify it in any way.
2. My code takes a long time to run, will I lose marks? It is hard to give estimates about how long a particular code should take, as this depends on the machine you are running it on. If a code box takes more than 2 minutes to run, you should perhaps look more closely.
3. I get an error when I use sets. What do I do? The mathematical notation of sets (used to indicate that order does not matter) is not necessarily the right data structure in Python. We did not even cover Python sets in the module, so you may have to find the right data structure to avoid errors. Remember item 6 above if you wish to avoid getting zero marks for a code box with an error.
