Lectures and readings

Lecture attendance and required reading are mandatory. The lecture/reading schedule are on the course website. In-class quizzes will be given over the reading.

Grading

60% of the grade is determined from problem sets and quizzes over the reading.

40% of the grade is determined from the final project (see below).

Honor Code

Unless otherwise noted on a particular problem set, you may discuss assignments and your final project with other students. The work, however, should be substantially your own. It is a violation of the Honor Code to copy solutions from classmates or to refer to course materials from previous years.

Homework

Homework and final project due dates are listed on the course website. All assignments are due at 1pm on the stated dates (before class starts). Work can be turned in to the appropriate TA up to three days late, with a 10% deduction taken per day (e.g., for a problem set that is two days late, the maximum score will be 80%).

Final project

For your final project, you will write an NIH-style proposal for original research inspired by the material presented in the course. Half-way through the course, you will submit a pre-proposal for review by the course instructors and TAs.

The pre-proposal must be two pages total, including figures and references. This contains a sketch of your research proposal. The research proposal cannot exceed five pages, figures and references included. It must contain the sections asked for by the NIH: Specific Aims, Significance, Innovation, Approach, and References. You can find descriptions of these sections in this handout. The descriptions are taken from the NIH document SF424, which is the application guide for NIH grants.

Both the pre-proposal and proposal need to be in the format requested by the NIH: half-inch margins and 11 point Helvetica font. For those of you who use LaTeX, this template may be useful.