Class Interaction: Piazza

We will be using Piazza in this course. Signup here.

Piazza Purpose

Piazza is the best way to discuss and ask questions about the course materials, including assignments, in a public forum. It enables you to learn from the questions of others, and to avoid asking questions that have already been asked and answered. It also provides a forum for course personnel to make announcements and clarifications about assignments and other course-related topics. Students in the course are expected to read this Piazza forum on a regular basis.

Piazza Guidelines

Here are some guidelines that you should keep in mind when posting items to Piazza:

• Remember that everything you post is public: everyone enrolled in the course will be reading it. As a result, in any posts you make, do not provide or request any details on how to do any of the assignment questions. This could be construed as cheating, and you will be responsible as the poster.
• If you have questions about an assignment that require you give specific details of your solution, you may still post to Piazza, but check This is a private post, making it only visible to the instructor and TAs. If the instructors/TAs feels that posting it to everyone is appropriate, he or she will do so.
• Keep posts related to the course, concise, and topical. As students are all expected to read Piazza on a regular basis, try not to waste the time of readers.
• Be diligent about attempting to find the answer before you post a question. Piazza includes excellent search facilities – use them! Scan all of the questions that have already been asked. Better yet, read them along with the answers. This avoids duplicate questions, which are frustrating to everyone.
• Make it easy for other students to find your question, in case they have the same question and want to see the answer.
  • Use a meaningful subject heading. "Help" and even "Help for A3P3" is not very meaningful. "Clarify parameter order for A3P3" is much better.
  • Tag your post with all the applicable tags. Start a tag by typing the hash character (#). A drop-down list of tags that are currently in use will appear. Use one of them, if applicable. If not, create a new one. However, any tag you create should be applicable to many posts not just yours.
  • Please don't post things to the group that provide no useful information to readers. Posts like "I have the same question as this one just posted", or "I agree with this comment" serve no useful purpose, and waste people's time.
  • Keep complaints about the course out of Piazza or mark them with the This is a private post – only visible to class instructors – checkbox. 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 talk to the professor or TAs. Piazza is not a complaint forum.
    

Reading Piazza

After you've finished the sign-up process, simply go to http://piazza.com/class. You'll probably want to bookmark this in your browser.