Syllabus

Instructors:

1. Dale Reed       
   email (remove spaces):  reed @ uic.edu                              
   Web:  bit.ly/dalereed  is a shortcut to sites.google.com/site/dalereed   
   Office: CDRLC 4431  (the new CS building).  See office drop-in times.

2. Baker Franke
   email (remove spaces):  bfranke @ uic.edu                              
   UIC News article     

3. Tomas Malik (Instructor and grad TA)   email (remove spaces):    tmalik6 @ uic.edu

TAs are listed on the CS 218 TA & Drop-in Times page. Grad and undergrad TA hours will be held in CDRLC 2441.  We're also available immediately after class, or by appointment.

Prerequisites:   1. Basic math,   2. At least 30 credit hours into your major,   3. A GPA of at least 2.75

This course is intentionally designed for all UIC students.  You don't need to have a technical background to take this course, though we assume you know the basics of how to use a Mac or Windows computer.
For Finance students, you must also have a major, minor, or concentration in one of the College of Business areas of study.

There is no textbook for this course, though there will be regular assigned readings and activities associated with each class.

You will need:

• 1. A laptop computer, which you should bring to every class. We will use these the first class!

  2. Your UIC Google Account Set up.  We serve almost all documents for the course through Google Suite products (slides, docs, sheets).  Much of your work will be submitted via Google forms.  You may already have an existing google account (that you setup without realizing it).  Please make sure you have at a least a few Gigabytes of storage space free in your Google drive.

  3. Take this pre-class survey.   It consists of 27 multiple choice questions and will take ~7 minutes. While everyone has to do it, you can choose whether or not you want your responses to be part of the study.  Many of the questions ask how familiar you are with some of the things we'll be working on this semester, though we don't assume that you know any of it!  We're doing this survey to see how well this course goes and to report out to Google, who helped fund the development of this course.

  4. You should have gotten an email invitation to join Piazza, the online discussion board we will be using for this class. Rather than emailing questions to course instructors, post your questions on Piazza, which is specifically designed to get you help quickly and efficiently from classmates, the TA, and instructors. 
     We really do want to talk to you and want you to engage in conversation with each other.  We believe each of us has perspectives and insights to share that can help others in the class, regardless of starting point or level of expertise.  Seeking help is normal and expected.  We encourage you to ask any question, but recognize that sometimes this is embarrassing, which is why your posts can be anonymous to other students.  
     To access Piazza (or sign up if you didn't get the invite), follow the link in the navigation bar at https://piazza.com/uic/spring2026/cs294akacs218.  

  5. A subscription to ChatGPT Plus at chatgpt.com/plans/plus, which is $20/month  (price as of Aug '26).

  6. We will be using an online environment called Google Colab.  Try the free version first.  Depending on the performance you get from the free version, you may later need to purchase Pay-as-you-Go Compute Units, which is $10 / 100 compute units (price as of Aug '25).

  7. In the last 6-8 weeks of the semester, we will be using the "Starter" version of an industry agentic AI tool called n8n (pronounced "en-eight-en").  You get two weeks for a free trial, and then it is $24 a month.  We will try to use only one month's worth, but it is possible that we will need two months' worth, as it will be used for the final project.  So, don't sign up for this now and wait until we cover that part of the course. However, do plan on needing to spend $24-$48 for it.  We are also exploring the option of performing our own local installation, although that is not certain.

  8. Microsoft Excel spreadsheet program.  This is available for free to UIC students from the University of Illinois Webstore as part of Microsoft 365.

There is regular homework, regular quizzes, and significant group projects, but there are no exams.

Semester final grades will be credit / no credit for the course.  To receive credit for the class you will need to earn 80% or higher.  The course is designed so that this is readily doable if you always show up to class and do the regularly assigned work.  Grades will be updated regularly and displayed on the course website so you know where you stand in the course.  

10% Surveys.   We will have a  brief survey each week.  We will also have a  survey before the first week, and  at the end of the course.
20% Quizzes.   We will usually have a  brief quiz every day based on the homework or other assigned activity.  The lowest quiz grade will be dropped.
10% In-class work.   We will often collaboratively edit google slides together in class, and sometimes give presentations
20%    Homework.  You will submit homework using a google form.  Homework will typically be graded on a 0..3 scale as follows: 0 - Did not do, 1- Significant components missing, 2 - Complete, 3 - Far exceeds expectations (extra credit). The lowest homework grade will be dropped. 

40%  Projects.  Each project will have an individual component (50%) followed by a  combined group  component  (50%)
      8%    Project 1 
      8%    Project 2
      8%    Project 3
    16%    Final Project (#4). Instructors will determine near the end of the semester whether this will be group or individual work. 

Using Generative AI (e.g. ChatGPT)

We will be using Generative AI (e.g. ChatGPT) extensively for just about everything in this course.  (Usually we will abbreviate Generative AI to just be GenAI.)  To receive credit you will be often be asked to reflect upon and capture your process of using GenAI.   Not using Generative AI will likely result in you do poorly in this class!  You will also be asked to post insights and advice to your classmates on how to get the most out of Generative AI.  

Late Penalties

No late work is accepted because this class is oriented around in-person discussion, group work, and timely feedback that informs class discussion.

If you feel that you deserve more points than you have been given on a quiz, assignment, or test, you must see the instructor about this within one week of the time the grades for the work in question are first posted for the class.

Here are the class norms, suggested by the class, that we are adopting for this semester.  This google doc has all the original suggestions, with our comments on them.

1. Make space / take space, with everyone participating.

2. Be respectful and patient in speaking and listening.

3. Keep an open mind to new people and ideas

4. Don't be afraid to ask questions. 

5. Make course materials as easy to use as possible

Note that the CS Department also has a Code of Conduct of reasonable behavior we will all expect of each other.

Missing Class, Religious Holidays

We make an effort to avoid having group presentations on religious holidays, but if we neglect to take one into account, please let us know.  If you miss class because of a religious holiday, jury duty, UIC sports team event or verified sickness (we may contact your doctor) then please send the instructors a private post on Piazza and be sure to select the missing_class folder for your post.  Doctor's notes must include their contact information.  If such an emergency occurs, post a private message into the Piazza instructor's group as soon as possible. In the case of a medical emergency, if your doctor is unable to verify your visit without a signed HIPAA authorization form, you will need to complete a HIPAA authorization for release of health information form in order for me to verify that you were seen by the doctor on the date in question.   We will consider the extent of excused absences when assigning grades at the end of the semester.

Disability Services, Letters of Accommodation (LOA)

Refer as needed to the UIC campus disability services policy which applies to students in this class. If you have special circumstances described in a letter of accommodation (LOA) from the UIC Disability office, post a private message to the Instructors on Piazza, selecting the Letter_of_Accommodation folder, and we can confer with you about how to proceed. 

Announcements, Sensitive matters, Incompletes, Regrade requests

1. All critical announcements, changes to assignments, etc. will be announced through Piazza.  We're assuming you will check your UIC email regularly.

2. For highly sensitive matters, the student or someone who is supporting the student should contact the Office of the Dean of Students via the Student Care & Assistance Request or at 312 996-4857. The Dean’s staff will then contact me on your behalf.  This approach has the added benefit of the Dean's staff contacting all your instructors for you, instead of you having to do it one-by-one.

3. A grade of "Incomplete" can only be given if there are extenuating circumstances and you currently have a passing grade in the course. It cannot be given for poor performance in the course.

The vast majority of students do their own work, as we expect you to do.  We encourage conversation and collaboration, as detailed below indicating what you may and may not do in collaboration with others.  Academic dishonesty is anything that gives you an unfair academic advantage.

We believe you are capable of learning the concepts in the course and doing the work, and are committed to helping you get there.  If you are struggling in the course please ask us for help.  

As already mentioned, for this class it is assumed you will use Generative AI (e.g. ChatGPT) extensively for just about everything.  Give attribution when using someone else's work and do not represent it as your own.  For this course likely most of your work should include a statement such as "Generative AI was used to help in the creation of this work."

Class

Do

1. Talk to people around you during pair-share discussion

2. Use Generative AI to get your questions answered and to generate content.

Don't
1.  Enter content for someone else to give them quiz points or collaborative google slide entries
2.  Communicate with someone else in class during quizzes

Projects

Do
1.  Discuss conceptual solutions to projects, both in-person and online
2.  Show people your code in-person, and describe it (but no electronic copies!)
3.   Suggest prompts to help others  generate the content they need
5.  Post and discuss your solutions
        6.   Use Generative AI to generate code,  suggest ideas, and create content.

Don't

1. 1. 1. 1. Send or post an electronic copy of a draft or finished version of your project or assignment to students outside your group before the deadline

         2. Represent someone else's work as your own.  

         3. Have someone else do your work, either in person or online

         4. Turn in the GenAI product as your own without giving attribution

Any student who fails to follow the academic honesty policy on any course work will get a grade of 0 on that work and will be dropped 10% from their final course average, for each offense.  This penalty applies to all prohibited behavior listed above in the Don't categories, unless specifically allowed by the instructor.  Academic dishonesty will result in an Academic Integrity Incident Report go.uic.edu/academicIR  going to the UIC Office of the Dean of Students.  Details are given on the Academic Integrity page, which includes a link to the Student Disciplinary Policy.

We have received help from so many people. We are thankful to the financial support from  Google.org's  and particularly to Jess Holberg and Sarah Hendo. Thanks to Bob Sloan and the UIC CS Department, and to the partnership at UIC's Finance department with Joan Farre-Mensa and Justin Shea.   We trace our idealogical DNA to Purdue's The Data Mine, with thanks to the generosity of director Mark Daniel Ward and senior manager Jessica Jud, who arranged for a trial run of UIC students through their curriculum and for a practicum experience for them.  Thanks to Risa Myers and Lorenzo Luzzi at Rice for giving us perspective and inspiring us with their Intro to Python course.  We borrowed heavily from UIC's Gonzalo Bello-Lander's one day Data Science workshop for the Chicago dataset, use of Google Colab, and ideas on using Decision trees and descriptive statistics.

We have been inspired by the UIUC Data Science Discovery and Data Science Exploration courses, and Berkeley's data8.org undergrad data science course, and Stanford/Google's Youcubed high school data science curriculum.

The set of topics and areas of emphasis in the course arose out of conversations with the following, though the final choice of topics (in case you don't like them) are the responsibility of UIC's Chicago Tech Circle team.  In no particular order they are George Forge (Quad Data Scientist), Mhahesh Madhavan (Adams Street), Daniel Rutledge (UT Austin), Sruti Bhagavatula (Northwestern), Lydia Tse (Google), Yuchen Xie (Audible), Meghan Smith (ex-CTO of the USA), Sandy Estrada (Cervello), Michael Choe (Duly Health), Ash Chaudhari (Golub Capital), Abhishek Singh (Salesforce), Anaf Durrani (Grainger), Kyle Cheek (Center for Applied Analytics), Clay Marquardt (GDIT), Saurabh Kumar (Kraft-Heinz), Vijay Rajandram (NTRS), Johnnalee Kutzke (Responsible AI).

The curriculum was developed at UIC by Baker Franke, Dale Reed, and Tomas Malik, under the direction and with the advice of Amita Shetty and Elena Lathos, all part of the Chicago Tech Circle (CTC).  We are grateful to previous TAs who have helped from this course:
Fall 2025: Maria Guallpa, Shivansh Amba, Krisha Patel, Yamaan Nandolia.