MTH 810-001: Error Correcting Codes
| Instructor: | Mark Iwen |
| Time and Place: | MWF 10:20 AM - 11:10 AM in C514 WH |
| E-mail: | markiwen@math.msu.edu |
| Physical Office: | D220 WH |
| Office Hours: | TBD, and by appointment |
Topics covered will include general Error Correcting Code (ECC) basics (rate, distance, etc.), Hamming codes and bounds, algebraic linear codes (including Reed-Solomon codes, BCH codes, and Reed-Muller codes), random linear codes, the Gilbert-Varshamov bound, and several related modern applications (e.g., group testing and compressive sensing).
Course website for MTH810-001:
http://math.msu.edu/~markiwen/Teaching/MTH810/MTH810_S26.html
The course website has the syllabus and required reading. Any other papers or notes covered in class will also be posted there and/or on the course D2L page.
Textbook:
Essential Coding Theory, by Venkatesan Guruswami, Atri Rudra, and Madhu Sudan (August 26, 2025 draft) Available here.
Though this book is not accessible, an accessible copy will be provided upon request -- please let me know as far in advance as possible if one is needed so that I can work with RCPD to obtain/create one.
Homework:
Exercises will be assigned in class periodically. Though they will be collected and graded for effort/completeness, they might not be checked for correctness. Turning in meaningful HW attempts will count for 90% of your grade.
Students are encouraged to work with their peers on homework assignments. Math is a collaborative discipline and two or three minds are often better than one. However, your final homework solutions must be written up individually in your own words and then kept to help you during the exams. The solutions will be useless to you if you don't understand how they work! The use of A.I. is strongly discouraged beyond, perhaps, as a way to help you find reference materials.
Attendance and Participation:
The instructor will take attendance at least 8 times throughout the semester toward the beginning of class. Students will loose 2% of their course grade for every absence after the first three, up to a maximum of 10%.
Asynchronous Lecture:
There will be no class on Friday March 13. Instead the instructor will e-mail a link to an online lecture to watch in place of attending class that day.
Grading:
Your final course percentage will be determined by averaging your attendance and homework completeness with the following weights: Attendance (10%), Homework Completeness Checks (90%).
Your final grade (e.g., 3.5, 4.0, etc.) will be assigned according to a class ranking. That is, the weighted averages calculated as above for all the students in the class will be rank ordered. Finally, threshold scores (e.g., a score above which a 4.0 is earned) will be determined, thereby establishing each student's final grade in the class. The threshold scores for each grade will never be higher than those indicated in following table.
| 90% -- 100% | A | 4.0 |
| 85% -- 89% | A-/B+ | 3.5 |
| 80% -- 84% | B | 3.0 |
| 75% -- 79% | B-/C+ | 2.5 |
| 70% -- 74% | C | 2.0 |
| 65% -- 69% | C-/D+ | 1.5 |
| 60% -- 64% | D | 1.0 |
| 0% -- 59% | F | 0.0 |
Incomplete grades will be given only in unusual cases of illness or other personal emergency, which causes the student to miss a significant amount of the course. This grade cannot be given for any other reason.
Academic Integrity:
You are encouraged to work with your peers on solving homework assignments. However, all submitted homework solutions must be written up individually in your own words. Submitting another student's written work (or AI generated solutions) as your own work will be considered plagiarism.