Bayesian Data Analysis course - Assignments

Published

January 28, 2025

A big change 2024 in the course is the reduced use of peergrading as the previously used system was shut down, which means also substantial changes in the assignments.

You are free to use these assignments in self study and other courses (CC-BY-NC 4.0), but please do not publish complete answers online.

Weekly assignments

There are 9 weekly assignments (two of them have two weeks to submit). Assignments are linked from the schedule and can also be found from git repo assignments folder. The deadline days for the assignments are given in the course schedule.

  • The assignments are weighted as 5%, 5%, 10%, 10%, 15%, 20%, 15%, 10%, 10% (total 100%)
  • The assignments are introduced on Mondays.
  • Most of the assignments are submitted via MyCourses Quiz questions with links in MyCourses.
  • Each assignment has also a Quarto template with some R code, but in early assignment rounds, you don’t need to submit any report. Just answer the questions in MyCourses Quiz.
  • There are chat streams #assignment1 etc. you can ask questions about the assignments. Other students and TAs can answer these. There is no guaranteed response time. These streams are best for questions that are likely to have relatively simple answer.
  • There are TA sessions for getting help. These sessions are not obligatory. These sessions are useful if you think you need help that requires a bit more discussion. The questions are answered during the TA session time (if there are too many questions, they may be answered in the chat or next TA session).
  • We highly recommend to submit all assignments Friday before 3pm so that you can get TA help before submission. As the course has students who work weekdays (e.g. FiTech students), the late submission until Sunday night is allowed, but we can’t provide support during the weekends. Sisu and MyCourses list Firday TA sessions, which are not organized unless otherwise announced.
  • Your Quiz answers are autosubmitted by MyCourses at the deadline time, also if you have answered only some of the questions.

NOTE: The assignment instructions will be updated during the course, and individual assignments are not guaranteed to be up to date until Monday 8am of the hand-in period of the corresponding assignment week (See the deadlines below, e.g. the first assignment is not guaranteed to be up to date until 2024-09-02 at 8am).

The assignments are mostly solved using computer (R and Stan). Related demos for each assignment are available in the course web pages (links in Materials section). See TA sessions for getting help.

Bonus points

In addition to the assignment score, one can get bonus points from course chat activity (e.g. helping other students and reporting typos in the material) and by answering a time usage questionnaire on the course page in MyCourses. Course chat activity and the questionnaire are not included in the maximum assignment score and thus are not required to receive a full 100% score.

Other students’ course chat activity will not affect one’s resulting grade, i.e. there is no need to try to perform in the course chat or to take any part in it at all.

TA sessions

You can get help for the assignments by asking in the course chat from other students or in weekly TA sessions by asking TAs. The sessions are voluntary.

  • There are chat streams #assignment1 etc. you can ask questions about the assignments. Other students and TAs can answer these. There is no guaranteed response time. These streams are best for questions that are likely to have relatively simple answer and thus are likely to be answered before the next TA session.
  • There are TA sessions for getting one-on-one help. These sessions are not obligatory. These sessions are useful if you think you need help that requires a bit more discussion. The questions are answered during the TA session time (if there are two many questions, they may be answered in the chat or next TA session).

There are two TA sessions each week; please see the course schedule for more details on the meeting times and rooms. In the TA sessions, you can get one-to-one help with your assignments and project work.

During the TA session you can get help in the following forms:

  • Written communication on the course chat: you will chat with a TA using the “direct messages” feature on the course chat. You can also, for example, share code snippets and equations through chat direct messages if it helps.
  • Oral communication on Zoom: you will chat with a TA using a video conference on Zoom. You can also use, for example, screen sharing on Zoom if it helps.
  • Oral communication on campus: you will chat with a TA live in computer class room

We will use the stream #queue in the course chat to coordinate everything. We announce there when the TA session starts. Then you can write your help request there, describing in sufficient detail exactly what is the problem with which you would need help (see below).

Once a TA is free and your question is the first request in the queue, a TA will mark it with a check mark reaction. Then the TA will contact you and help with your problem. Finally, once the problem is solved, the TA who helped you will delete your request from the queue.

Getting help on campus

  • Login with Aalto account to Zulip course chat (link in MyCourses)
  • Go to the chat stream #queue.
  • Write a help request (see below), starting with the keyword “Live”.
  • When it’s your turn in queue, TA will send you a direct message on Chat, and you will coninue the discussion live.

If you have follow-up questions later, please put a new request to the queue.

Getting help via the course chat

  • Login with Aalto account to Zulip course chat (link in MyCourses)
  • Go to the chat stream #queue.
  • Write a help request (see below), starting with the keyword “Chat”.
  • A TA will send you a direct message on Chat.
  • You will discuss through direct messages until your problem is solved, and then the TA will close the discussion and delete your help request.

Please do not send direct messages to TAs without going through the above protocol. If you have follow-up questions later, please put a new request to the queue.

Getting help via Zoom

  • Follow these instructions to install Zoom and to sign in to Zoom.
  • Open Zoom, and make sure your video and audio are configured correctly. Create a new Zoom conference call, and copy the meeting URL.
  • Go to the Chat stream #queue.
  • Write a help request (see below), starting with the keyword “Zoom”, and end it with the Zoom meeting URL.
  • A TA will click on the meeting URL to join the Zoom conference that you created.
  • You will get help until your problem is solved, and then the TA will close the call and delete your help request.

What to write in the help request?

Your help request should preferably contain a concise summary of exactly what kind of help you would need. Ideally, after reading the help request, a TA should be able to already have an answer for you, or point to FAQ.

Try to describe what is the problem, what you have tried, what you already know, and exactly what is the relevant part of the code. Please highlight the important parts. Here are some fictional examples of good help requests:

Zoom: I am trying to install the R package … on my personal laptop and I am getting the following error:

EXAMPLE ERROR

My operating system is …, I have version … of R installed and I am using RStudio. I tried googling the error but was not able to solve the issue. Zoom meeting link: https://aalto.zoom.us/j/XXX

Acknowledgements

TA session instructions above have been copied from Programming Parallel Computers by Jukka Suomela with CC-BY-4.0 license.