Self-Study Overview#

Reading the book and completing the end-of-chapter exercises is yet another effective way to study and master the course material. As such, we award students that prefer to learn using this method using the course’s self-study component.

The self-study component consists of solving exercises from the course book in teams of up to 6 students. You work on these assignments with your team and produce a professionally-looking¹ report with your calculations and answers for the end-of-chapter exercises for one or several chapters from the book.

The overall approach for participating in the self-study looks as follows:

graph TD
  subgraph Part1[Self-Study Part 1]
    direction LR
    signup1[Sign Up for Part 1] --> dopart1[Work on Part 1]
    dopart1 --> submitPart1[Submit Part 1]
    submitPart1 --> part1Interview[Part 1 Interview]
  end
  subgraph Part2[Self-Study Part 2]
    direction LR
    signup2[Sign up for Part 2] --> dopart2[Work on Part 2]
    dopart2 --> submitPart2[Submit Part 2]
  end

  Part1 --> Part2

1. Sign up for Part 1 on Canvas by forming a team of (up to) 6 people.
2. Work on Part 1 by completing the end-of-chapter exercises from the chapters discussed in the first half of the course.
3. Submit Part 1 on Canvas by handing in your report.
4. Explain your work during the Part 1 Interview. If you can explain your work and discuss about the material at a sufficient level, you gain access to Part 2. You can only participate in Part 2 if you pass this interview.
5. Sign up for Part 2 on Canvas in a new group. You can sign up with the same team you were in for Part 1, or form a new team.
6. Work on Part 2 by completing the end-of-chapter exercises from the chapters discussed in the second half of the course.
7. Submit Part 2 to finish the Self-Study. We grade Part 2 asynchronously, without an interview.

There are several 6th editions of the book. If you want to participate in the self-study, you must use the following version:

Andrew Tanenbaum, David Wetherall, Nick Feamster, Computer Networks, Global Edition, 6th Edition, Pearson Education Limited 2021, ISBN-13: 978-1292374062.

Check the ISBN to make sure you are using the correct version.

Part 1#

Part 2#

FAQ#

When is the Self-Study?#

The Self-Study is a group activity that takes place outside the classroom. We have not scheduled any sessions for the Self-Study, so you must organize yourselves. We expect you to work from home and be able to organize periodic meetings with your group. You can try, for example, to meet just before or just after the Tutorial.

How do I know my team for the Self-Study?#

You are not assigned to a team for the Self-Study. Teams are self-formed, so you should contact fellow classmates by yourself, either by attending the physical sessions or via the Discussions page. Teams can consist of up to 6 students. Please show initiative in trying to find a team.

Important:

Leaving a Self-Study group also hurts your colleagues!
If a team member does not help enough (free-riding) or even quits, inform the teaching team as soon as you observe this. Complaining only at the end of the course will not help.
You may participate in the Self-Study activity alone or with a reduced team size, however, this will result in an increased workload. We do not make exceptions for teams of a reduced size.

What are the requirements for the Self-Study?#

Main requirements:

Complete all exercises indicated in the table below.
Complete the assignments with your team, each team on its own (independently), without help from other teams, from the course instructors, or from others outside the course. Copying or “taking inspiration from” solutions provided on the internet or by students who took this course previously is considered fraud.
Each member of a Self-Study team must contribute their fair share and must contribute to every chapter completed by the group to receive points. For example, it is not allowed to have one-half of your team solve one chapter while the other half solves another chapter.

Which exercises do I have to solve for the Self-Study?#

You must complete the following exercises from the book Andrew Tanenbaum, David Wetherall, Nick Feamster, Computer Networks, Global Edition, 6th Edition, Pearson Education Limited 2021, ISBN-13: 978-1292374062.

Part 1 Part 2

Chapter 2 Physical Layer Chapter 3 Link Layer Chapter 4 MAC Layer Chapter 5 Network Layer Chapter 6 Transport Layer Chapter 7 Application Layer

1 - 8, 10 - 21, 23 - 53. 1 - 40.

1 - 8, 11 - 14, 16 - 36, 38 - 50. 1 - 15, 19 - 28, 30, 32 - 52.

1 - 24, 26, 27, 30 - 38, 40 - 43, 46, 48 - 51.

1 - 48, 50, 51, 52, 54.

How do I sign up for the Self-Study?#

To sign up, go to the People page, click on the Groups tab, and look for the groups dedicated to Self-Study. Find a group with enough empty slots for you and possibly other students you would like to team up with, and join the group. If you join a group that has existing members, kindly message them and ask if they are okay with you joining. Please respect their preferences if they prefer to team up with others, or prefer to work in a smaller group.

If someone has joined your group and ignores/refuses your request to leave, send us an email with [SELF] in the message topic. We can help you lock your group and remove that person. Canvas does not allow students to lock their own groups.

What is the reward for completing the Self-Study?#

Each of the fully completed and correctly solved chapters is worth 200 points, with 50 additional points being awarded for good document quality. We may reward 100 points for complete chapters with some mistakes in the provided solutions. You may choose to solve a subset of the available chapters for each Self-Study part, but no other partial credit is possible. We value completeness, correctness, and style.

To get the first 500 points, you can only submit chapters 2 and 3 for the first Self-Study part, without being awarded any points for submitting other chapters. Similarly, for the second Self-Study part, you may only submit chapters 4 to 7, for 1000 points in total. Out of the points available for the Self-Study, 20% are awarded for document style; be sure to treat your document with care and format your solutions properly. We have included guidelines in the Practices for Good Document Quality page of what we expect in a nicely formatted document.

Additionally, your group can be (extra) awarded up to 25% of points for the submission if your document is of exceptional quality (both in solution correctness and style), which is expected at this academic level. That can provide up to 100 additional points for Self-Study Part 1 and 200 points for Part 2, making the maximum scores of 600 and 1200 points for Parts 1 and 2, respectively. How should my team format and submit the Self-Study plan?

A Self-Study plan should include at least the following elements:

Group number
Team members and VUNET-IDs
Chapter distribution
Timeline of your plan
Answers to the following questions:
    How does your team plan to collaborate? Are there any collaborative tools you will use to communicate (WhatsApp, Discord, ...) and to share work (Google Drive, OneDrive, ...)?
    How will you hold each other accountable for meeting weekly deadlines? What are the consequences of missing weekly deadlines?
    How have you decided to distribute your exercises? Is the distribution fair and even among team members? Provide reasoning for your method of distribution.
Signatures of all group members

Please have a look at the Self-Study Plan Template (LaTeX / Google Docs) provided on Canvas. You can use the given format for submission.

Keep in mind that even though each team member is responsible for solving their own set of exercises, this is a team effort. If anyone in the team struggles with a particular exercise, discuss it with the team so you can all learn from it.

Important: If you submit a Self-Study plan and inform us early when a team member quits or is not meeting deadlines, we will be more lenient in grading. For example, the contributing members of your team can still get points by solving the exercises that they are responsible for.

How should my team format and submit the Self-Study?#

Before submitting your solutions to the Self-Study, make sure you follow these rules and guidelines:

Your solutions must be typed and your diagrams must be digitally drawn. We encourage using draw.io Links to an external site. for creating visuals. Scans of hand-drawn figures or exercises solved on paper are not allowed.
Your solutions must be complete. Do not omit exercises or leave exercises blank. Instead, you should discuss exercises with your team to try to come up with a solution. If you cannot solve an exercise, write down what you think the approach should be and where you got stuck. You can still get full credit for a chapter if you fail to solve a few exercises but show what you tried. You can also get full credit if some of your solutions are incorrect but you made a good attempt.
Your submission must be one PDF file and must include the following components:

    Front page(s) which have at least the following elements: your Self-Study group number, a list of all group members who have contributed to the submission,  and the chapters you completed in the submission.
    For each chapter, a table listing the exercises you solved and who solved them, similar to (or a copy of) the division of labour in your Self-Study plan.
    Your solutions to all exercises, are presented in the same order as the book. Do not copy the questions in your submission. Just indicate the question number and chapter (ex: Chapter 3 Exercise 22)

Note: Submissions that fail to adhere to the above rules will given an automatic 0 for the document quality, and might not be considered for grading.

I am a resit student. Can I resubmit my solutions from last year?

Yes, this is possible, with certain conditions:

Note that you should pair up only with other resit students.
Note that you cannot submit answers from your teammates, as this counts as plagiarism. The checks will be performed based on the Self-Study plan included in the final submission of the previous year.
The Self-Study submission must mention the exercise numbers which were taken from the previous year submission (e.g., Chapter 3 Exercises 22 - 25).

What are the zero-tolerance policies?#

We have two zero-tolerance policies: (1) We are anti-fraud, so we want to prevent all academic fraud that may happen in this course, see Regels en Richtlijnen (Rules and Guidelines), Art 19 & 20, and (2) We are anti-discrimination, so we want to prevent all situations when a student or a staff member, or groups thereof, are discriminated against or are subjected to inappropriate conduct.

We do not like having zero-tolerance policies. However, history teaches us we have to agree that some situations require clear, automated actions to either prevent or correct. In plain English, we will take action if you break these rules.