ANLP: What to do if you have questions

Questions about course content

Here are your options:

Other students: We try to structure the class so that you will meet other students early on. We encourage you to discuss course material and questions amongst yourselves, provided you are not sharing solutions to assessed work (homework assignments).

Piazza discussion forum: If you still have questions after talking to your classmates, please use the Piazza discussion forum. This is typically the quickest way to get an answer to your question because other students may be able to answer right away, and course staff will try to answer within a day or two if not. Your post can be anonymous to other students. You can also post a private question (visible to instructors only) if your question is of a personal nature or would give away solutions to assessed work.

Tutors and lab demonstrators: Tutors and lab demonstrators are available during scheduled tutorial group meetings and lab sessions to answer questions about the material for that session. Please keep your questions to that material and recognize that these staff are paid for that session only, so please don't hang around afterward to ask lots of additional questions. This is what TA hours are for (see below).

Help hours with TAs: We have at least one help hour per week with a TA. This is a drop-in session where you can go if you have questions, and it is completely optional. It may be useful if you have more detailed questions than what we can address in other venues, or if you are still confused after that. In some weeks we will schedule additional TA hours to help with assignment-related questions.

  • Regular weekly help hours: Tue 12-1pm, Appleton Tower 5.07
  • Additional help hours for assignments: TBA

Questions about course administration

  • For registration issues, please contact your Student Advisor.
  • For other questions about course administration, such as switching lab or tutorial groups, please contact the Informatics Teaching Organization: ito@inf.ed.ac.uk.

Questions about extensions or issues affecting your work

For extension requests, or to request special circumstances, you need to use the University's central Extensions and Special Circumstances system. It is recommended that you first contact your Student Advisor or the Student Support team in your School. 

Questions about technical or computer problems

For help on access, email, wireless, VPN, teaching tools (such as Learn, Gradescope, and Piazza), and Microsoft tools (such as Teams and Office 365), contact the central University’s IT support helpline. For issues related to the Informatics local computing environment (DICE), including DICE accounts and remote access to DICE, contact the Informatics Computing Helpdesk.

Questions for individual course staff

Please email individual course staff if and only if: 

  1. your question is of a personal nature, and 
  2. your question can only be handled by the specific person you are contacting. 

Otherwise, please post to Piazza (using a private message if appropriate) or use one of the other methods described above.

Questions about anything not covered on this page

Please consult Course Information > Help and Support on the course's learn page.

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