COSC 3260 Distributed Systems
Spring 2024
Lectures: Wednesday-Friday 8:00-9:15 am
Car Barn 205
Instructor: Nitin Vaidya
Office hours: Thursdays 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm (Room 337 St. Mary's Hall) or by appointment
nitin.vaidya@georgetown.edu
Course materials
We will use selected material from several sources, including:
- Distributed Systems: Concepts and Design 5th Edition by George Coulouris, Jean Dollimore, Tim Kindberg, Gordon Blair.
- Distributed Systems: An Algorithmic Approach, Sukumar Ghosh, CRC Press -- This book is available online free to Georgetown students via O'Reilley for Higher Education:
- The instructor will provide some notes and pointers to other resources, as needed.
Canvas: Assignments and Lecture summaries will be posted on the Canvas page.
Grading Policy
The weights assigned to the different components are as follows:
- Assignments 42%: Approximately 9 assignments will be assigned during the semester. The relative weight for each assignment will be proportional to the points assigned to the assignment.
- Mid-term exams 36%: Two mid-term exams will be scheduled during the semester. Each mid-term exam is weighted 18%. The mid-term exams will be held in class on February 28 (Wednesday) and April 10 (Wednesday)
- Final exam 22%
The grade cutoffs below may be lowered based on class performance. The table shows the minimum grade that will be earned for a given total score on the course. Range of [a,b) includes all values x such that a <= x < b.
| grade |
total points |
| A |
[94, 100] |
| A- |
[90, 94) |
| B+ |
[87, 90) |
| B |
[83, 87) |
| B- |
[80, 83) |
| C+ |
[77, 80) |
| C |
[73, 77) |
| C- |
[70, 73) |
| D+ |
[67, 70) |
| D |
[60,67) |
| F |
[0, 60) |
Late submission penalty for assignments
For the purpose of computing late submission penalty below, 6:00 pm is considered to be the due time for each assignment on its due date. Late submission penalty for each assignment will be defined as a percentage of the maximum possible points for that assignment, as follows:
- Submission delay past due time <= 48 hours: no penalty (i.e., two day extension is granted to everyone without requiring the instructor's approval)
- 48 hours < Submission delay past due time <= 72 hours: penalty of 30% of maximum possible points.
- Submissions late by more than 72 hours past the due time will not receive credit without approval of the instructor. Approval may be granted only under exceptional circumstances.
Instructional Continuity
In the event that the university transitions to "Instructional Continuity" for any lecture or
office hours for this course this semester, we will use Zoom -- the Zoom meeting information is available on Canvas (see the Announcements).
Please monitor any announcements from the university about the operating status
-- the operating status can also be found on the University Operating Status page.
Academic Integrity
The only materials you may reference when working on the assignments are your notes, assigned reference material such as the textbooks or course notes, the lecture slides and lecture videos (if any provided on Canvas). In particular, you may not reference other online sources. You must submit your own work, and you must not collaborate with others in preparing your answers.
You may not reference solutions from prior teachings of this course or solutions provided elsewhere.
The Georgetown University Standards of Conduct apply.
Violating academic integrity policy will lead to a zero on the relevant assignment and potential reporting to the honor council.
When in doubt, ask the instructor what is allowed.
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