FAQ for 18-849

Updated for Fall 2008

18-849 Dependable Embedded Systems is an advanced graduate course. As such, it is primarily designed for students who are currently enrolled in a thesis-option graduate degree program. In some cases, exceptional students with graduate standing who are applying to a thesis-option degree program at CMU or elsewhere can also benefit from this course. The course concentrates on the following skills:

• Ability to understand and interpret archival-quality scholarly publications
• Ability to summarize and explain the key ideas in a scholarly paper
• Ability to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of a paper and its underlying data
• Exposure to seminal and famous papers in a variety of areas relevant to dependability (in general terms, this is the must-read list for researchers in this area)
• Ability to talk about deep concepts and defend your opinions in front of an audience of your peers

The course is sized for approximately 12 hours of effort per week for a typical graduate student with some previous exposure to reading scholarly papers. These are crucial skills and the papers cover crucial required knowledge for graduate students in the area of dependable systems. You are expected to put in the time required to do all assignments regardless of how long that might take. If this is your first year in the US as a non-native speaker, expect to spend substantially more time until your reading skills get up to speed -- these papers are not easy to read in many cases even for native speakers.

Course requirements:

• Required reading: is posted on the course web site, and will typically be 3 to 4 papers totaling 20 to 50 pages per class meeting (approximately 50 to 100 pages per week) of conference and journal papers. Some papers will require two or three readings to understand. After you get used to this type of reading, most papers can be read in 2-3 hours each.
• Homework: summarize papers you have read and hand in before class.
• Class: stand up and talk about papers when randomly called upon. Chalkboard and/or projector use will be required (instructor will provide laptop if projection is used). You will be expected to critically comment upon both the paper and the ideas in the paper.

You Must Read And Understand The Papers:

We expect you to really read and understand all the papers. Not just skim them. Read them. Understand them. Discuss them intelligently. If this is your goal, you will find this course engaging, rewarding, and extremely useful in your career. Don't waste your time and ours if you are just trying to slide through for an "easy" grade -- it won't happen here.

Undergraduate students:

This course is primarily intended for students with graduate standing. It is a PhD-level course, not an entry-level MS course. Students with undergraduate standing will only be considered if they have an "A" in 18-649 or 18-749, and will be admitted space-available in the Fall, after graduate students have been accommodated. If you are an undergraduate please sign up for the wait list, and we will sort your situation the first week of classes. Please note that department policy is that pre-requisites are never waived for students with undergraduate standing. We expect to follow that policy in this course.

Entrace Exam for Fall 2008:

If you aren't up to speed on the pre-req material, you'll be lost from the very first week in this course. In most cases the way I give permission is by having you pass an entrance examination based on material from the last third of 18-649. If you have taken 18-649 and earned a B or better, you are exempt from the pre-test. If you took 18-749 and earned a B or better, I urge you to take a look at this material for background, but will not require a pre-test. If you have previously published a paper at DSN or a related dependability conference, or taken a dependability course elsewhere, we can discuss your background before deciding if the test is required. All other students, including those entering from other universities, must take the pre-test and get an 80% or better for admission to this course. The point of this pre-test is not to exclude potential students; the point is to make sure everyone has exposure to the pre-req knowledge for the course.

• The entrance examwill be administered during class hours on the second class meeting. All material for 18-649 is available on-line. Material covered on the entrance exam will be from the lecture notes and required reading from lectures 17-23 in 18-649 as follows:
  • Distributed time (lecture 20 & required reading)
  • Critical communication protocols (lecture 21 on FlexRay and required reading)
  • Safety critical systems (lectures 17, 18, 19, 22 and required reading)
  • Humans as a system component (lecture 23 and required reading)
  • Students are assumed to be generally familiar with all the lectures of 18-649 as context for embedded systems, but other lectures will not be included in specific pre-test. "Digging deeper" reading is not included on the pre-test -- just the required reading and the lecture notes.
  • You are permitted to bring a single 8.5"x11" sheet of paper (writing on both sides) with your own hand-written notes on it to the test. No miniature printouts of lecture notes, unless they are in your own handwriting.
  • You are required to bring a calculator that can compute e^x. No PDAs, cell phones, or laptops permitted. No loaners available, and no sharing.
  • You are required bring a pen or pencil.

The test will be short answer and multiple choice. The emphasis will be on main concepts. Hint: look for "red ink" on the on-line lecture notes for 18-649.

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