How To Clock Your Computer

• Please check out the instructions for assignments file in the Materials section.
• Please note that the deadline for HISPOS registration for SIC students is 28 Jan 2021
• Having considered multiple options, we have chosen to use Zoom as the platform for this course. Please read the notes about zoom and data privacy at the bottom of this page.
• Register for the course via the mailing list : https://lists.mpi-inf.mpg.de/listinfo/how_to_clock_your_computer. Registration to the mailing list helps us know who is taking the course, communicate important announcements, discuss the course contents, etc. It does not automatically imply registration for the exams and grades. For this, please check the registration requirements of your respective programmes.

This course follows a flipped classroom model. This means the lecturers act as facilitators who will help you, through a short introductory lecture, and a guided group discussion, towards framing good questions and finding answers to them. Hence there will be two "discussion sessions" every week. Anywhere between one and three sessions will be devoted to a topic, according to the schedule.

Your goal throughout this course, is to prepare for these discussions. To do this, you must read the recommended material, understand it, analyse it, question it, and then reconstruct in your own way. You will then hand in a summary of the material for each major topic, where, in addition to the contents, you will describe your thoughts and questions on it. These submissions contribute a total of 25% for your final grade. Another 25% will be determined by the discussions and your presentation.

To make discussions productive and engaging, you will be split into teams, each guided by a senior lecturer and a PhD student or a Postdoc working in this research area, who will double up as a scribe for your discussion. Each session will consist of a short lecture by one of the senior lecturers which will set the theme for the discussions of the session. Following this, each team will be assigned some questions which they have to discuss over the next 30-40 minutes and present solutions/possible solutions/solution templates together. How you present the solutions is upto you, as a team. You are more than welcome to take your own notes or use the script that the PhD student/Postdoc prepares.

At the end of the semester, you will be tasked with writing a summary of one of the major topics. Details about this summary will be informed via the mailing list at a later date. This will contribute 50% of your grade. 

Grades for he course will computed as follows:

• Topic Summaries (25%). The schedule for this will be announced shortly. Not more than 8 summaries will be expected throughout the semester. Summaries are individual pieces of work. We encourage you to discuss the material with your fellow classmates. But the final work must be your own and reflect your understanding and insights into the topic. 
• Participation (25%). Attending the sessions is highly recommended, since the class discussions will be graded. 
• Final Submission (50%). Final evaluation will be based on a written submission that presents a summary (larger and more detailed than the topic summaries for homework).

• Instructions for your assignments
• Reading Material 1 - Summary due at 23:59 11 Nov
• Reading Material 2 - Summary due at 23:59 25 Nov
• Optional Reference for Circuit Design
• Reading Material 3 - Summary due at 23:59 6 Dec
• Reading Material 4 - Summary due at 23:59 13 Dec
• Reading Material 5 (Part I) - Summary due at 23:59 4 Jan 2021
• Reading Material 5 (Updated and Detailed Version)
• Reading Material 6 - Network Synchronisation - Summary due at 23:59 10 Jan 2021
• Reading Material 7-I - Gradient Clock Synchronisation (Part I) - Summary due at 23:59 24 Jan 2021
• Reading Material 7-II - Gradient Clock Synchronisation (Part II) - Summary due at 23:59 31 Jan 2021

We have decided to use Zoom as a videoconferencing service. Note that
this provider (Zoom Video Communications, Inc., 55 Almaden Blvd, Suite
600, San Jose, CA 95113, USA) can access all data that you provide when
registering for the video conference. If you do not provide personal
data during the registration, there is still a possibility that Zoom
identifies you using your IP address. We would not have decided to use
Zoom if we considered this as a significant risk. As an additional
precaution, we have opted to use European computing centers. Should you
still have privacy concerns (and are not using an Internet Service
Provider that cannot map IP addresses to your name), we suggest using an
anonymization service such as Tor (https://www.torproject.org/)

You can find Zoom's complete privacy policy at:
https://zoom.us/de-de/privacy.html

We would be happy if we could create a pleasant lecture environment
despite the current situation. Personal interactions, with your
microphone and camera switched on, may contribute to this environment.
We also encourage you to ask questions verbally.
Note that this is voluntary. You may switch off both your camera and
your microphone, and register under a pseudonym. Questions are still
possible, in particular using the chat function.