The floggings will continue until morale improves.
-- Management
Our goal is to return grades in a week or less, at least for the programming exercises. The more significant projects may take a little longer. We believe that quicker feedback is better.
See below.
Multiple submissions are allowed (even encouraged), but cause trouble. Main problem in 2011 was later blank hand-ins "masking" TA attention from earlier attempts.
All 160 grades are based on programming, laboratory projects, and possible exams, including Success Facilitation Surveys.
Usually projects are individual (not a team). The data acquisition projects need teams of two.
Projects in the second half of the course include project writeups, which can represent a significant fraction of the grade. Projects will be weighted more than programming exercises when computing final course points, though the 0-3 mark system still applies (see below).
For the relative grading weight of project writeup and "everything else" (like code), see The Universal Hand-in Guide, which also states what to submit and and how to submit it for each project.
For the non-laboratory projects (Pi, Gauss, Model-Fitting, ODE), the assignment contains a list of functions to be written, along with their function prototypes and purpose.
We will check for:
You might want to check out The Writeup Lecture, which has many useful pointers, including previous 160 Project Writeup samples. Also see the Universal Hand-in Page for expectations about particular projects.
When grading project writups, we'll check for the following: each should be given a separate section of the paper, with appropriate section heading.
Programming Exercises get one mark, Projects get two, one for code
and one for writeup. The relative weighting of these marks is given
in the
Universal Hand-in page.
Marks are one of 4, 3, 2, 1, or 0, as described below.
Marks mean:
0 nothing handed in
1 only signature is right
2 fair to good: better than wrong, worse than very good
3 very good, excellent, perfect
Given the total possible points for projects, code, and programming, SFS performance will be weighted a significant fraction (in fact, 10%) of that. The effect will be that blowing off the SFSs costs about a letter grade.
The translation of course points to letter grades is done when all grades are in. We use a spreadsheet that combines all available marks and appropriate weightings (as advertised in the universal hand-in page or consistent with this section). The number from that (total course points out of 100) is interpreted by the professors and translated into letter grades.
The writeup is a good chance to get partial credit: In case you have not completed the project, you should mention in significant detail:
Give a clear description of any extensions or special features of your project. This will be used for assigning extra credit. Some extra credit ideas are mentioned in the Scheme, C, and possibly Matlab projects. Extra credit will be considered after making the first cut at letter grades for the course. If you're near the top of your bracket, or the amount of extra work you've done is particularly large, you can expect it to push you up a grade.
Late assignments will have one mark deducted for each day or part of a day (that is, "rounded up") after the due date that the assignment is late, with a limit of 2 days, after which the assignment will disappear from Blackboard. After that, late homeworks will not be accepted.
So submitting more work after the deadline could be a win but only if the new work adds at least 2 marks to the pre-deadline mark.
If you need an extension due to personal problems, please obtain the permission of the instructor and then email the TAs and cc the instructor with the new arrangements you've agreed to.
Repeating previous suggestion: if you are not going to have the project completed on time, take the time to work on your writeup (as described above). It is possible that you will get significant (up to 50%, or possibly more) credit even if your program does not work.
Procrastination is a common time-management tool. However I suggest you don't wait until the last minute to start or complete your assignments. First and most likely, the assignment may be flawed due to typos, system incompatibilities, whatever: the quicker you do sanity checks the earlier we can deal with such problems. Second, it may take some time for the ideas to sink in. Third, if you start early you can ask questions of the TA or your buddies. Fourth, there could be machine failures or unforeseen personal circumstances. Fifth, do you really think an extension is a good idea? Now you've twice as much to do this week -- remember: "Any fool can drown." You really don't want to get behind in this course.
Student conduct is governed by the College Academic Honesty Policy, the Undergraduate Laboratory Policies of the Computer Science Department, and the Acceptable Use Policy of University Information Technology services.
The following are additional details specific to CSC 160.
Unless otherwise stated, all assignments, exams, and SFSs in CSC 160 must be strictly individual work.
Collaboration on homework and programming assignments is encouraged at the level of ideas. Feel free to ask each other questions, brainstorm on algorithms, or work together at a blackboard. Be careful, however, about copying the actual code for programming assignments, or copying the wording for written assignments.
Copying code or written text is generally NOT acceptable. This sort of collaboration at the level of artifacts is technically permitted if explicitly acknowledged, but usually self-defeating. Specifically, you will get zero points for any portion of an artifact that you did not transform from concept into substance by yourself. If you neglect to label, clearly and prominently, any code or writing that isn't your own, that's academic dishonesty, which is worse.