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C Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

These are some common administrative questions that crop up. To get you a faster answer, I’ve collated them together in this appendix: please read through and only email if your question is not addressed on this page.

Course FAQ

Practical labs FAQ

Tutorials FAQ

Assignments FAQ

Computer Exam FAQ

C.1 Course FAQ

Q. When are the lectures?

The lectures run throughout Michaelmas term:

  • 12 noon, Wednesdays, TLC033
  • 9am, Thursdays, TLC033

The Wednesday lecture will usually cover the mathematical part of the course, and the Thursday lecture will usually cover the programming part of the course, though there may be the odd occasion where some content crosses over this general rule.

Q. When is the office hour?

The office hour is at 9am-10am on Wednesdays. My office is room MCS3018 in the Mathematical and Computer Sciences Building.

C.2 Practical labs FAQ

Q. I have a clash, how do I permanently change the practical lab group I am in?

You’ll need to request this change from the admin team using the form on the maths undergraduate sharepoint site here:

https://durhamuniversity.sharepoint.com/sites/TaughtStudentsMaths/SitePages/Change-Requests.aspx

As part of that form, you will need to tell them what group numbers you can make. The groups for all practical labs in 2024-25 are:

Please do ensure you officially change groups and do not just routinely start attending other groups ad-hoc, because this creates a lot of needless administrative work for the tutors. Thank you!

Q. I have a one-off clash, can I attend another practical lab group just for one week?

As a one off, this usually fine, particularly for practical labs which tend to have more seats in the room. However, as a courtesy it is best to email the tutor for that lab to ask, in case there is some unusual reason that many students are doing a one-off move.

The list of practical groups and tutor are:

Please do not use this flexibility routinely! If you need to change group regularly, you should see the previous question above.

Q. Can I use my own laptop?

Yes, it’s totally fine to use your own laptop or iPad. You will need to choose what approach to take to running R: for an iPad you will have to use Github Codespaces, on your own laptop you may choose to install R locally.

C.3 Tutorials FAQ

Q. I have a clash, how do I permanently change the tutorial group I am in?

You’ll need to request this change from the admin team using the form on the maths undergraduate sharepoint site here:

https://durhamuniversity.sharepoint.com/sites/TaughtStudentsMaths/SitePages/Change-Requests.aspx

As part of that form, you will need to tell them what group numbers you can make. The groups for all tutorials in 2024-25 (even weeks only!) are:

Please do ensure you officially change groups and do not just routinely start attending other groups ad-hoc, because this creates a lot of needless administrative work for the tutors. Thank you!

Q. I have a one-off clash, can I attend another tutorial group just for one week?

Because tutorials have more limited space than practical labs, it is important to email the tutor for that group you would like to join for one week to ask.

The list of tutorial groups and tutor are:

Please do not do this routinely! If you need to change group regularly, you should see the previous question above.

C.4 Assignments FAQ

Q. Why is there one more question in Gradescope than on the assignment? What should I upload for it?

There is no need to upload anything for this question (or if you have to, just upload a blank page or picture of a happy dog/cat/person 😊 to cheer up your marker!) It is simply there for the marker to give a mark/feedback for the standard of how you explained and presented your answers, so please try to keep your solutions neat and show your working out carefully.

Q. Will the assigments count towards my final mark/what is the assignment weighting in my mark?

All assignments are designed to be formative, meaning they will not contribute to your final grade but will instead help you practice and reinforce your understanding of the course material.

Q. The Gradescope link at the top of the assigment is not working for me, what do I do?

Sadly the direct link to Gradescope does not work for everyone. If you are having this issue, then I’m afraid you will need to venture into Ultra 😱 and use the Gradescope link from the course Ultra page instead: this seems to work universally. My apologies, I do try to minimise the amount any of us have to interact with Ultra!

C.5 Computer Exam FAQ

Q. When is the computer exam?

2pm, Wednesday 19th February 2025.

Q. What are the details of the computer exam?
  • In person invigilated.
  • Open book.
  • 2 hours duration, plus a little time for submission if required.
  • NOTE: please keep at a minimum 2pm-5pm free on the day in case of technical hiccups. Don’t book yourself into something else starting at 4pm even though it is a 2 hour exam.
  • The exam questions will be provided on Ultra at the start time of the exam.
Q. If the computer exam is in-person, where does it take place?

The exact room you are assigned to will be communicated nearer the time, since not everyone can fit in one room. However, all the rooms that are booked for the exam are computer labs on the Science Site.

Q. Can I use my own laptop or do I have to use the lab computer? Can I use Codespaces like we did through the year?

You are free to use any machine you want, but you must be physically present in the lab you are assigned to and must have your screen at an angle that invigilators can see over your shoulder.

Q. Can I discuss the questions (or the weather) with my neighbour/friend/random person online?

No! These would be treated as serious collusion offences. There should be no discussion either in-person or via any messaging systems (email/WhatsApp/iMessage/Messenger/etc). Note that as with a standard exam, this means no communication at all except with an invigilator … one cannot plead that the communication was about things unrelated to the exam. I would recommend putting your phone in airplane mode and closing all email/Facebook/messaging applications on the computer you are using so you don’t accidentally slip up.

Q. What exactly does “open book” mean … why is the exam invigilated if it is open book?

What is allowed: you can use all the lecture notes, slides and labs from the course. You can access any documentation on R and do standard web searches looking for documentation etc. The idea is for the exam to emulate what it would be like to work as a (lone) data scientist for real, where you don’t typically memorise every function and all the arguments etc.

What is not allowed: of course in industry you could talk to colleagues/post questions, but for obvious reasons, not here! So to be clear, you will not be allowed to talk to neighbours, collude via email or any other messaging platform, post questions online to Stack Overflow or any other website. This is what the invigilators are there to check.

If in doubt: ask an invigilator whether what you want to do is allowed, if it is not something explicitly mentioned above … “I thought it’d be ok” after the fact is not acceptable.

Q. So I cannot post questions to Stack Overflow (or similar), but can I read those sites?

Yes, you can read Stack Overflow (or similar), just not post to it during the exam.

Q. What does “web searches” include … can I use ChatGPT/GitHub Copilot/Microsoft Copilot/Perplexity/Llama/Mistral/……… ?

I’m afraid not, no. For the purposes of this open book exam, using ChatGPT or any other large language model (LLM) is equivalent to asking “someone” for help, rather than simply searching for available resources on the web. In other words, this would be in the same category as sending a WhatsApp to a friend to ask them the solution, which is clearly not ok. This is similar to the distinction with sites like StackOverflow: fine to search and find resources there that you use, but not fine to pose a new question yourself asking for help.

I will add that if you thought of this question, then it is nice that you’re abreast of developments in machine learning and AI! I imagine such tools will become part of curricula in future but they are not quite sufficiently reliable to teach at the time of writing. In addition, when these tools are added to the curriculum the exam will necessarily be made much harder, so maybe you might be glad they are not yet allowed!

Q. Do the “open book” materials have to be on the computer I’m using for the exam, or can I bring a separate tablet/written notes?

Yes, you can bring written notes on paper or on a tablet device that you prepared in advance. However, they must be clearly visible to the invigilators on your desk and the same rules about not using it for collusion or posting questions etc applies.

Q. What if there are technical problems? What if I complete in 2 hours and 1 minute?

I (Louis) will be on hand hovering between the different exam labs. In the event of a major technical problem outside my control (eg in a previous year the University network failed 10 minutes into the exam!), I will extend the end time of the exam as necessary to compensate. Hence the request to keep at least 2pm-5pm free even though it is a 2 hour exam.

Additionally, there will be a short grace window for submission of solutions beyond the 2 hours, but the invigilators will be looking to see you are not continuing to work on the exam in that window, just going through the submission.

Q. What about technical problems that affect only me (eg my computer breaks etc)?

You are free to call me (Louis) over and describe your technical problem. Invigilators will have my phone number if I am in a different lab at the time, so you can ask them to call me to attend. If I can see that it is not related to the exam content I will assist in fixing it, or arrange a new computer for you (you might eg have to switch to a lab computer from a laptop).

However, if I can see that the issue is not a technical problem, but some error in answering a question then I will politely explain this is the case and be unable to help … so if you are in any doubt, do ask and I will make that decision.

Q. How will the Ultra setup work? What is the exam format like?

There will be two sections a bit like a summer exam (A & B). Section A will be short questions where you just provide a result from your code, whilst Section B will involve writing more lengthy sections of code and the code itself is the solution (eg a script, markdown document, etc etc).

So for Section A, you will provide answers inline in Ultra (eg multiple choice, numerical answer, single line of text, etc), where you will have written a snippet of code to figure out the solution. For Section B, you will need to upload the whole script/markdown/etc file that you used to create your solutions.

Q. What will the questions be like? Will there be mathematical content or only the coding content?

Last year’s summative computer exam will be available to view nearer the time of the exam so you can see the style. NOTE: just because a topic appeared last year does not mean it will appear this year, and just because a topic did not appear last year does not mean it will not appear this year!! As with any exam, not every single thing from the course is covered in every exam.

You will not be asked to do any mathematical proofs or derivations of the kind you did in tutorials. The labs are a better guide to the type of content. However, questions asking you to purely code eg a bootstrap estimate of uncertainty, or perform a Monte Carlo hypothesis test, run a rejection sampler, etc etc are fair game. In other words, anything in the black code boxes from the maths part of course could be involved in solving a problem, but you would not need to do any mathematical derivations, just the coding.

This is a very common question, so to make this really concrete with a few examples:

  • if you were asked to produce some rejection sampled simulations, you would be told what f, f tilde and C are and just have to produce/run the code (this is unlike a maths exam for example which could expect you to figure out C yourself).
  • if you were asked to do a Monte Carlo hypothesis test, you would be given the test statistic, null and alternative hypotheses and just produce/run the code (this is unlike a maths exam for example which might expect you to justify the test statistic or come up with it yourself).
  • if you were asked to do inverse transform sampling, you would be given the inverse cdf and just produce/run the code (this is unlike a maths exam which would expect you to derive it yourself).
Q. Can I have the solutions for last year?

Sorry, it is departmental policy that past paper solutions are not provided.

Q. I have special requirements or extra time in exams, does this apply to the computer exam too?

As long as the requirements/concession are registered with the department so that they apply to your usual summer exams, then they will apply here too. If you are in any doubt, please contact maths.teaching@durham.ac.uk to check if your concessions/extra time are registered (please do not contact me, I cannot update special requirements/concession information and I’m afraid would just direct you to the Maths Office for those queries).

If your question does not appear here, please email the lecturer, Dr Louis Aslett.