Course Outline

Staff Name	Role	Email
Johannes Åman Pohjola	Lecturer, convenor	j.amanpohjola at unsw.edu.au
Zoey Chen	Tutor	zhuo.chen5 at unsw.edu.au
Raphael Douglas Giles	Tutor	r.douglas-giles at student.unsw.edu.au

Course Code	COMP2111
Course Title	System Modelling And Design
Classes	Mondays 4-6PM, Tyree Energy Technology LG03 (K-H6-LG03)
	Wednesdays 4-6PM, Ainsworth 202 (K-J17-202)
Tutorials	Tue 9-10:30AM, Quadrangle G048 (K-E15-G048), Raphael Douglas Giles
	Tue 10:30AM-12PM, Quadrangle G048 (K-E15-G048), Raphael Douglas Giles
	Thu 6-7:30PM, Quadrangle 1049 (K-E15-1049), Zhuo Chen
Units of Credit	6
Course Website	https://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~cs2111
Handbook Entry	COMP2111

The course builds on the MATH1081 Discrete Mathematics course, examining the role of Mathematics in Computer Science. The main focus will be on introducing students to formal modelling and specification and how they are used in Software Development. The twin aims are to improve logical literacy skills, and to provide students with a solid grounding in mathematical models of computation.

Proofs, set theory, propositional logic, predicate logic (all from from MATH1081); general mathematical concepts from MATH1131/MATH1231; programming concepts from COMP1511/COMP2521 courses (or the higher versions of these courses where available); requirements concepts from COMP1531.

At the conclusion of this course, you should be able to:

• Formally specify software systems using propositional and predicate logic, as well as program logics.
• Formally model computation and software systems using automata, semantics, and other logical models.
• Apply rigorous proof techniques to computation and software systems.
• Understand and make effective use of discrete mathematical structures and techniques common to other theoretical aspects of computer science.

According to UNSW policy, graduate attributes are important because the disciplinary knowledge that students develop at university is not adequate in itself as the basis for their future lives. Instead, graduates need qualities and skills that equip them for lifelong learning. These include critical thinking and problem-solving skills as well as communication skills and information literacy skills.

This course also contributes to the development of the following graduate capabilities:

This course contributes to the development of the following graduate capabilities:

Graduate Capability	Acquired in
scholarship: understanding of their discipline in its interdisciplinary context	lectures
scholarship: capable of independent and collaborative enquiry	tutorials, assignments
scholarship: rigorous in their analysis, critique, and reflection	tutorials, assignments
scholarship: able to apply their knowledge and skills to solving problems	assignments
scholarship: capable of effective communication	forum
scholarship: information literate	lectures, tutorials, assignments
scholarship: digitally literate	lectures
professionalism: capable of independent, self-directed practice	assignments
professionalism: capable of operating within an agreed Code of Practice	all course-work, by doing it yourself
global citizens: culturally aware and capable of respecting diversity and acting in socially just/responsible ways	interaction with your fellow students

Lectures will include exercises where we examine the practice of formulating and proving mathematical properties of relevance to Computer Science. Weekly tutorials aim to cement understanding and provide immediate and ongoing feedback for students to assess their understanding of the course material. Assignments aim to deepen analysis and understanding via additional examples and problems. There are no laboratory classes for this subject.

Assignments are tentatively due at the end of weeks 4, 7, and 10.

If you wish to submit an assignment late, you may do so, but a late penalty reducing the mark applies to every late assignment. You can be up to five days late. Each day incurs a 5% penalty to the awarded mark. For example, an assignment that would ordinarily be worth 8.5/10 will be worth 7.5/10, if submitted 2 days late. Late submission of the quizzes will not be accepted.

If you have special circumstances that warrant an assignment extension (e.g. illness), you need to apply for special consideration through the standard UNSW process. Teaching staff cannot grant such extensions. Please be aware of the fit to sit/submit rule: by submitting an assessment or sitting an exam, you implicitly declare yourself fit to do so, and cannot later apply for special consideration.

The course will feature the following assessment items:

• A final exam, worth 50 marks.
• Three assignments, worth 11, 12 and 12 marks respectively.
• Weekly quizzes, worth 15 marks in total.

The overall course mark will be the sum of the above.

The Student Code of Conduct (Information, Policy) sets out what the University expects from students as members of the UNSW community. As well as the learning, teaching and research environment, the University aims to provide an environment that enables students to achieve their full potential and to provide an experience consistent with the University's values and guiding principles. A condition of enrolment is that students inform themselves of the University's rules and policies affecting them, and conduct themselves accordingly.

In particular, students have the responsibility to observe standards of equity and respect in dealing with every member of the University community. This applies to all activities on UNSW premises and all external activities related to study and research. This includes behaviour in person as well as behaviour on social media, for example Facebook groups set up for the purpose of discussing UNSW courses or course work. Behaviour that is considered in breach of the Student Code Policy as discriminatory, sexually inappropriate, bullying, harassing, invading another's privacy or causing any person to fear for their personal safety is serious misconduct and can lead to severe penalties, including suspension or exclusion from UNSW.

If you have any concerns, you may raise them with your lecturer, or approach the School Ethics Officer, Grievance Officer, or one of the student representatives.

Plagiarism is defined as using the words or ideas of others and presenting them as your own. UNSW and CSE treat plagiarism as academic misconduct, which means that it carries penalties as severe as being excluded from further study at UNSW. There are several on-line sources to help you understand what plagiarism is and how it is dealt with at UNSW:

• Plagiarism and Academic Integrity
• UNSW Plagiarism Procedure

Make sure that you read and understand these. Ignorance is not accepted as an excuse for plagiarism. In particular, you are also responsible that your assignment files are not accessible by anyone but you by setting the correct permissions in your CSE directory and code repository, if using. Note also that plagiarism includes paying or asking another person to do a piece of work for you and then submitting it as your own work.

UNSW has an ongoing commitment to fostering a culture of learning informed by academic integrity. All UNSW staff and students have a responsibility to adhere to this principle of academic integrity. Plagiarism undermines academic integrity and is not tolerated at UNSW. Plagiarism at UNSW is defined as using the words or ideas of others and passing them off as your own.

If you haven't done so yet, please take the time to read the full text of

• UNSW's policy regarding academic honesty and plagiarism

The pages below describe the policies and procedures in more detail:

• Student Code Policy
• Student Misconduct Procedure
• Plagiarism Policy Statement
• Plagiarism Procedure

You should also read the following page which describes some of your rights and responsibilities:

• Student responsibilities and conduct

Note that in order for something to count as plagiarism, the document being plagiarised does not need to have a human author. Hence, unauthorised and unacknowledged use of output from generative AI tools such as ChatGPT in submissions may be prosecuted as plagiarism.

Available on its own dedicated page (see sidebar).

There is no set textbook, although the following resources provide useful background reading:

• Eric Lehman, F. Thomson Leighton, and Albert R. Meyer, Discrete Mathematics for Computer Science. 1042 pages, online textbook, January 2018 edition.
• Carroll Morgan, (In-)Formal Methods: How to write programs that work, draft February 2021. (Appendices D.4-D.14, then D.1-D.3, then E.)
• John C. Reynolds , The Craft of Programming (download), Prentice-Hall, 1981.

This course is being continuously improved and we will conduct a survey at the end of session to obtain feedback on the quality of the various course components. Your participation in the survey will be greatly appreciated.

Feedback from the last two years' offerings was generally positive, with the following actionable feedback:

• Some questions in assignments don't have immediately apparent ways to tell if an answer is correct. For questions involving deductive reasoning, this ideally shouldn't be the case and we will keep it in mind. However, note that certain questions, particularly those involving modelling, have no one correct answer.
• There is no textbook for the course. I do not intend to use a textbook for the course, but I appreciate that having learning material in writing beyond the slides would be valuable. I wrote lecture notes for some of the course last year, but didn't finish them. This year I hope to finish more.