MATH 401 SYLLABUS

This course will study topics in linear algebra that lead to applications in geometry and computer graphics, game theory, linear programming, finite-state Markov chains, and image processing.
PREREQUISITES: MATH 240 or MATH 461 or credit for an equivalent course.

Order of Topics (tentative):
 

Homework:    Success in the course is highly correlated with regular attendance and punctual completion of homework. Homework assigned on Friday, Monday, and Wednesday will be collected on Friday. Homework should be written neatly. When explanations are requested, your answers should be written in good English form. Some parts of the course may have an emphasis on proofs and careful arguments.

Blackboard:    This section of MATH 401 is one of many courses that are using the Blackboard course management program at the University of Maryland this semester. It provides a means of communication between instructors and students, and it ties the courses into the Internet and into the University's registration and record systems. You have been assigned an account on the University's Blackboard course page: www.elms.umd.edu. If you have never used Blackboard, follow the instructions on the signin page to test your browser before you sign in. Your Blackboard space has a copy of this syllabus and other material needed for this course.

Quizzes:     At the beginning of the course, Blackboard will provide online open-book quizzes, to help you review the material covered in MATH 240 and 461. Most quiz questions can be answered by reading the text carefully, word by word. Taking these quizzes will help you develop study skills that are essential for success in this and subsequent mathematics courses. By the end of the course, anonymous students evaluations typically give the quiz system high ratings.
    Quiz Organization  The schedule of lectures shows the tentative date each quiz is to be completed and identifies the text section on which the quiz is based. Most quizzes will consist of five questions: true/false questions or multiple choice questions that ask you to decide whether a certain statement is always true, sometimes true, or never true. During the first five days of the course and during the second and third weeks of October, a major portion of your homework time for the course will involve the quizzes.
    Taking a Quiz  You should read the text carefully before starting a quiz, and keep your text open for reference while taking the quiz. Once you start a quiz, you will have twenty minutes in which to complete it. (Typically, students spend between five and ten minutes on a quiz.) If your internet connection fails, sign on again immediately in order to complete the quiz within the 20 minutes. Most quizzes will consist of five questions: true/false questions or multiple choice questions (which ask you to decide whether a certain statement is always true, sometimes true, or never true). After you read each question, select an answer and "save" it. You may change an answer and resave it at any time until you press Finish. Blackboard will grade your quiz and display the results, with comments about each question.
    Honor System  The quizzes are conducted on the honor system. No two students will have exactly the same quiz, but the questions will be similar and cover the same basic material. You should have your book open for reference, but you must not communicate with any other person about the quiz while taking the quiz. Also, you should not look at any other student's quiz before taking your own quiz.
    Getting Started  To get started with Blackboard and the quiz system, you will take a survey and three quizzes in Blackboard before the second class on Aug. 31. The survey has the same format as a quiz, and it counts as a quiz, but it is anonymous. To help you learn the quiz system, you may take each of the first two quizzes two times each, with only the higher scores counted. In Blackboard, click the "Quiz and Survey" button.
    Grading  Each quiz and survey counts 5 points. (The points for a survey will be added manually about one week later to the student quiz grades.) A few quizzes have a bonus question that allows a possible score of 6 points. Makeup quizzes will not be given, but the two lowest quiz grades will be dropped from the final "quiz" total. [In all previous linear algebra courses, the quiz grades have been somewhat higher than the averages of the hour exams, so the quiz scores tend to help most students.]

Online Chapters:     Chapters 8, 9 and 10 are in pdf format and will be posted in your Blackboard course space, along with answers to most odd-numbered exercises. Much of this material has been class tested in five previous courses. Some revisions to the material may be posted as our course progresses.

MATLAB:     MATLAB was used in both MATH 240 and MATH 461, so we expect that you have a familiarity with the most elementary MATLAB commands. We will be using MATLAB routinely at various points throughout the course—in the classroom and for homework. MATLAB is available in all WAM labs and on the GLUE system. You will need either a WAM account, a Glue account, or access to a computer/printer that has at least a student version of MATLAB installed.
     If you studied linear algebra in a course that did not use MATLAB, be sure to get a copy of The Study Guide. This contains all you need to know about using MATLAB. An "Introduction to MATLAB" is in the first appendix in the Guide, followed by an index of useful commands. At appropriate points in the course, the Guide also explains how to use special MATLAB programs that have been designed for this course. The programs themselves, along with data files for all the numerical exercises in the text, are on the WAM and Glue installations of MATLAB and in the OWL lab in the basement of the Math building. If you have your own copy of MATLAB, you can download the special programs and text data from the web, at http://www.laylinalgebra.com.
     When a homework assignment requires MATLAB, your homework paper should include the MATLAB code you used to solve problems, along with additional statements that explain what your calculations mean. You may use the DIARY command, and later edit the diary file when you add your comments and explanations of what your computations mean.

Grading:    The final grade will be based on 600 points, tentatively distributed as follows: hour exams (300), online quizzes (25-40), homework and class participation (100-125), and the final exam (150-160). The tentative cutoff scores are 540 (A), 480 (B), 420 (C), and 360 (D). Hour exam cutoff scores (usually 90, 80, 70, 60) will be announced after each exam is graded. Cutoff scores for the exams, homework and the final exam will be added to produce the total cutoffs for the course.

Communication:   You may write to me at my math email address: lay "at" math dot umd dot edu. Please include the course name (MATH401) in the message header. Because I receive scores of emails each week, I only have time to sort and read messages from students that include this information.

Last Revised: August 25, 2007