Piazza is a great way to ask questions about your assignments and course material in public. It enables you to learn from questions others have, and avoid asking questions that have already been asked. It also provides a forum for the instructor to make announcements and clarifications about assignments and other course related topics. As a result, students are expected to check Piazza on a regular basis.
Link to Piazza for this term: http://piazza.com/uwaterloo.ca/fall2024/cs251
Please follow the link above to signup. Please make sure when signing up that:
After setting up your account, you will probably want to setup your e-mail notifications. Click on the drop down arrow in the top right-hand corner and click on Account Settings. A dialog box will appear on the screen. Under "Preferences for Email Notifications", select "No Emails". It is important that "Real Time" is NOT selected; otherwise, you will receive an email every time another student posts on Piazza.
To post a question on Piazza, click on "+ New Post" at the top of the page. You will have the option between posting a question and posting a note. Questions should be posted if an answer is expected, whereas notes should be posted if an answer is not expected but the content of the note is believed to be helpful to both the students and the instructors.
On every question posted on Piazza, there is a students' response box where you can answer other students' questions. Furthermore, if a student has already filled out the students' response box but could have included more information, you can edit their response to include the additional information.
If the student response is satisfactory but you still have questions relating to the original question, you can ask these questions in the followup discussions box.
Use the folders located at the top of the page to lookup posts related to specific topics. When you post on Piazza, please choose folders that will allow others to find your post more easily.
Please remember that everything publicly you post on Piazza is public - everyone will be reading it. As a result, do NOT publicly post any partial or full solutions related to an assignment question on Piazza, in either a question or as an answer. Making even partial solutions available is in violation of our academic integrity policy. If you have a question that you cannot separate from your solution, you should post privately or visit during office hours.
Before you post a question, use Piazza's search function to see if your question has already been asked. DUPLICATE QUESTIONS WILL NOT BE ANSWERED!!!
Instructors and TAs will be checking Piazza regularly to answer student questions and to monitor student behaviour on Piazza.
Questions about Quizzes should be private until after 10pm on the day a quiz is due. Any public posts about quizzes during the scheduled quiz time could be considered an academic integrity violation.
Piazza will be "locked down" during Exams (Term Tests) where only private posts will be allowed.