News (from teachers)

Dear INLP students,

we're happy to welcome you to our course, although this year will be really special.
This message is to explain how our course will take place in this special Fall 2020 semester (Covid-19 restrictions).

First of all: group C, there is no need to come on campus for the first week; everything will be online for the first week.

The course consists of six kind of elements:
1. lectures, which will be pre-recoded and are expected to be watched before in-class activities;
2. in-class review of last (three) weeks lectures;
3. in-class and at-home ''hands-on'' pratice;
4. free exercise pratice, with in-class question answering session every 3 weeks;
5. in-class and at-home pratical sessions;
6. on-line self-evaluation quizzes (each of which will count for 4% of the final grade; 16% alltogether).

Most of the information can be found on our companion website: http://coling.epfl.ch/

A typical week (exceptions explained below) consist of:
1. watching the lecture at home;
2. 2 hours of in-class review of the lectures since the last time we met (last 3 weeks);
3. 1 hour of ''guided exercices/practice'' (so-called ''hands-on'');
4. 1 hour of free practice with the presence of one TA and one teacher so as to ask question (a kind of ''office hours'');
5. 1-3 hours of free practice at home.

Exception weeks may have:
+ either a 45 min. on-line quizz (4 times in the semester: weeks 6, 8, 11 and 14);
+ or a 2+ hours pratical session (on software; 3 times in the semester, weeks 7, 9 and 13).

Practical sessions are designed to be self-contained and could also be done home for the 2/3 of the class who cannot attend them on campus. Even if you come on campus for explainations and discussion, these practical sessions are expected to be done on your own machine. So, please come with your laptop.

Bootstrap weeks: 
the first two weeks are a bit special:
1. nobody is expected to come on week1; both lecture and practical session are done at home;
2. On week 2: nothing before 10:15 (i.e. lecture at home); then from 10:15 to noon: first ''hands-on'', with group B, on ''evaluation''.


Looking forward to meeting you (some day or another),
--
Jean-Cédric and Martin