Course syllabus

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About the course

The course is mainly intended to strengthen your mathematical thinking, and your ability to apply such thinking in applications, and in your continued studies. It does not require any previous university mathematics, and the focus in not on mathematical knowledge in the traditional sense, but on the often implied abilities needed to effectively be able to apply any mathematics you already know, and efficiently be able to learn new mathematics. The most important parts are mathematical reasoning, problem solving and mathematical modelling. Important aspects such as using the computer as a part of your mathematical thinking, and to be able to communicate with and about mathematics are also integrated in the course.

The core of the course is a number of carefully selected problems, where you by working in an investigative way develop your abilities. We also have lectures which provide a broader understanding, follow-up and perspective. The problems will engage you in mathematical thinking both within mathematics itself and in different realistic applications, and in this way the gap between mathematical theory and relevant applications is bridged.

The overall structure of the course is given by the weekly modules:

1. Introduction
2. Functions, equations and geometry I 
3. Functions, equations and geometry II 
4. Mostly optimization 
5. Mostly dynamic systems
6. Mostly probability and statistics
7. Mostly discrete mathematics
8. Conclusion and final report

The learning objectives are found in the official course plan. The course plans for the different course codes are similar.

For detailed information about the modules see the Modules page.

Contact details

Dag Wedelin (examiner and course responsible) dag at chalmers.se
Alexey Pavolotskiy (teacher modules 3 and 4)
Birgit Grohe (teacher and TA) birgit.grohe at cse.gu.se
Jean-Baptiste Jolly (TA and organizer) jean.jolly at chalmers.se
Kolbjörn Tunström (TA) kolbjorn.tunstrom at chalmers.se
Lovisa Hagström (TA) lovhag at chalmers.se
Denitsa Saynova (TA) saynova at chalmers.se
Sarah Alkhateeb (TA) gusalksab@student.gu.se

For the specific task of matching group partners, contact Kolbjörn Tunström (first see the general instructions).
Otherwise contact Jean-Baptiste Jolly for administrative questions about assignments, groups etc.

Course representatives:

Schedule

This is an online course, and all lectures and supervision will be in Zoom. Some lectures will be live and some will consist of a combination of prerecorded clips and a live Q&A session. The schedule varies slightly from week to week, see the TimeEdit schedule and the specific information for each module. The lectures are the same for all course codes, however supervision times can differ depending on your course code.

You can find the zoom link to the lectures at the top of the home page. For supervision you will need to create your own zoom link and book a time slot, see the separate module instructions.

Examination and grading

The course is examined continuously module by module through submissions and by attending compulsory activities.

Each module is graded based on a qualitative assessment. Within the course we use the informal scale (Sufficient/Good/Very Good) and intermediate combinations. This is also how each group are asked to assess themselves for each module. For DAT435 and DIT025 the grade "Sufficient" is the passing grade. For DIT856 we require the grade "Good" for all modules since this is a course on the advanced level. There will also be some other differences in the modules along the way.

For a description on what we expect for these grades, please take a look at the end of the page about Reflection and self-assessment.

The qualitiative grades Sufficient, Good and Very Good are related to the Chalmers grades, GU grades and Canvas numbers in the way described below:

- Sufficient (3/G/50 in Canvas)
- between Sufficient and Good (60 in Canvas)
- Good (4/G/70 in Canvas)
- between Good and Very Good (80 in Canvas)
- Very Good (5/VG/90 in Canvas)

The Canvas numbers are a way to numerically encode the qualitative grade in the Canvas grade field, and have no direct relationship to the proportion of correctly answered questions. (We could in principle have used the numbers 81,82,83,84,85.) Additionally, we may write the code 9 (previously 7) to indicate that the main submission passed, and 8 when your submission is not yet passed.

The final grade is based on a weighted sum, where the final report is given a slightly higher weight than the other modules. If you are close to a grade boundary, you can discuss with the main teacher at the end of the course, and you will be given an opportunity to improve. At GU, only final grades G and VG are available. Please note that before all assignments have passed, the final Canvas score may be misleading.

If you should not complete the course in time, and need to come back next year, it is in your best interest to keep copies of your solutions to enable future assessment.

Course literature

There is no compulsory course literature. Reading instructions will be provided in connection to the modules.

Changes made since the last occasion

The main changes 2020 are that the course is given online, and that it is much larger because of the new Global systems programme. It has also been moved to Canvas.

 

 

Course summary:

Date Details Due