Kernel Development Learning Pipeline

Submitting assignments

All homework submissions must be submitted in the form of an email patchset generated by git format-patch from commits made in your local copy of this repository with a cover letter describing your work, and sent by git send-email to our mailing list.

As part of the peer review process for coding assignments in this class, each assignment will require you to submit each patchset at least twice.

Start your assignments early. If you run into issues and get stuck it gives you time to ask questions and get help before the due date so you can submit something on time and get credit for the assignment. If you finish early, you can resubmit.

Any submission that violates these guidelines or fails to compile with no warnings or errors will receive a zero.

With the exception of presentations, all work in this course takes place on our mailing list. Students submit assignments and review peer submissions on this list.

Each assignment involves the following three stages:

Step 1: Initial submission

• The student makes their submission to the mailing list using git-send-email

• This submission is due on Tuesday the week the assignment is listed

• If the initial submission is late, the student will get a zero on the entire assignment

• The subject line of the initial submission patchset should be tagged as a "Request for Comments", otherwise known as RFC, explained here

• Each re-submission should increment the version number in the subject line, explained here

Step 2: Peer review

• Each student is assigned two other students' work to review on their submission dashboard

• Follow these review guidelines

• If the student approves of a submission, then the student will reply to the cover letter of the patchset with a single line containing the following:

Acked-by: $FIRSTNAME $LASTNAME <$USERNAME@spring2025-utsa.kdlp.underground.software>

• If the student finds issues with a submission, then the student will reply to the cover letter of the patchset with detailed feedback about their concerns and conclude the email with a single line containing the following:

Nacked-by: $FIRSTNAME $LASTNAME <$USERNAME@spring2025-utsa.kdlp.underground.software>

• In parallel, other students have been assigned the student's submission and the student should receive feedback from two other students

• These reviews are due 24 hours after the initial submission deadline

• A late or missing submission yields a zero for the review section of the assignment

• If a student does not complete peer review their maximum assignment grade is 80%

• Reviews are graded based on how many issues a student missed. The student receives 20% off for each unique issue not spotted with max penalty of 100%

Step 3: Final submission

• The student, if canny, will act on the feedback from the received reviews

• Regardless of whether the student made changes to their initial submission, they must make a final submission

• A late or missing final submission will result in a zero grade for the assignment

• This is due 48 hours after the initial submission deadline, and 24 hours after the peer review deadline

• The overall assignment grade is composed of 80% for the final submission and 10% for each peer review

• While the initial submission is not explicitly graded, failure to submit anything or submissions devoid of any effort whatsoever will result in a zero

Read this for more information about due date policies