Piazza is a great way to ask questions about your assignments and course material in public. It enables you to learn from questions others have, and avoid asking questions that have already been asked. It also provides a forum for the instructor to make announcements and clarifications about assignments and other course related topics. As a result, students are expected to read the CS 137 Piazza on a regular basis. Piazza can be found here.

Click on the link above. Select "Sign Up" at the top of the screen. Search for University of Waterloo. Search for CS 137, click "Student" then click "Join Classes". Register yourself by your uwaterloo.ca email address, choose your own password.

To post a question on Piazza, click on "+ New Post" at the top of the page. You will have the option between posting a question and posting a note. Questions should be posted if an answer is expected, whereas notes should be posted if an answer is not expected but the content of the note is believed to be helpful to both the students and the instructors.

On every question posted on Piazza, there is a students' response box where you can answer other students' questions. Furthermore, if a student has already filled out the students' response box but could have included more information, you can edit their response to include the additional information.

If the student response is satisfactory but you still have questions relating to the original question, you can ask these questions in the followup discussions box.

Instructors and TAs will be checking Piazza regularly to answer student questions and to monitor student behaviour on Piazza. Please read the Newsgroup Guidelines below to avoid committing any offence while using Piazza.

Here are some guidelines that you should keep in mind when posting messages.

1. Please remember that everything you post is public -- everyone will be reading it. As a result, in any posts you make to Piazza, do not give away any details in doing any of the assignments -- this could be construed as cheating. If you have questions about an assignment that require you to give specific details of your solution, visit office hours or send an email to cs137@uwaterloo.ca . We have disabled the "anonymous" posting capability (although you will have the option of appearing anonymous to your fellow classmates).
2. Keep posts on Piazza course-related. As you are all expected to read the forum on a regular basis, and many of you are quite busy, people don't have time to read stuff they shouldn't have to. In relation to this, Piazza is not for posting "test" posts.
3. Please read all questions and responses that are on Piazza before asking a question. If you ask a question that has already been answered, you are wasting everyone's time. We realize that there is a bit of a lag between the time something is posted and when it actually appears in the group, so this is somethings unavoidable. However, please try to avoid it as best as possible.
4. Please don't post things to the group that give no useful information to people. Posts like "I have the same question as this one posted" or "I agree with this comment" serve no useful purpose, and waste people's time.
5. Please keep complaints about the course out of the newsgroup. If you have a concern about anything to do with the course, the best way to deal with it, and to get results, is to take it to the instructor. Piazza is not a complaint forum.
6. Please be respectful of your peers and others in your posts.