Grading Policy
Grade Components
Homeworks |
20% (4x5%) |
Project |
40% |
Midterm exam |
20% |
Final exam |
20% |
The course will be graded on a curve, with a mean of B (10% A, 15%
A-, 15% B+, 20% B, 15% B-, 15% C+, 10% C). A+ is reserved for the best
student in the class. The curve can shift up for an especially
excellent class, as indicated but strong classroom interaction and
outstanding project implementations. Graduate students and reentry
students are not included in establishing the curve (to be fairer to
undergraduates), but they will receive grades based on where they would
fall on the curve. This is EECS Department policy.
Regrades
Any requests for grade changes or regrading must be made within one
week of when the work was returned. To ask for a regrade, attach to
your
work a page that specifies:
- The problem(s) you want to be regraded
- For each of these problems specify clearly why do you think the
problem was misgraded.
Without this page, your work will not be regraded. Even if you
ask for only one problem to be regraded, your entire work will
be regraded. Thus, you are not guaranteed that your score will
necessary increase; your score may decrease, as well.
Exams
There will be one midterm and one final. If you have a conflict with
any of the exams, let us know as soon as possible, and we will schedule
a makeup. All exams will
be closed book with a single 8.5" by 11" (both sides) crib
sheet. They will cover material from lecture, sections, the
readings, and the project. In particular, you are likely to do poorly
on
the exams and in the course if you do not do your share of the
homeworks and
projects.
Homework Assignments
T.B.A.
Programming Projects
T.B.A.
Late Policy
The policy is simple: there are no slip dates. If assignments are late,
they are increasingly penalized as follows: within 24 hours, you lose
10%; within 48 hours, you lose 20%; within 72 hours, you lose 40%. More
than three days late, you can no longer hand-in the assignment. Note
that the penalty scheme applies to checkpoint deadlines as well as
project deadlines.
Cheating
It's OK to ask someone about the concepts, algorithms, or approaches
needed to do the project assignments. We encourage you to do so; both
giving and taking advice will help you to learn. However, what you turn
in must be your own, or for projects, your group's own work; copying
other people's code, solution sets, or from any other sources is strictly
prohibited. The project assignments must be the work of the
students turning them
in. We will punish transgressors severely.
The fine print:
We will use an automated system for detecting
cheating: it performs a pairwise comparison of all homework assignments
with all others, and reports any suspicious similarities. The TAs
and/or instructor will check any such similarities. If two assignments
are determined to
be obviously very similar (i.e., we believe that they were done
together
or one was copied from the other), then the course grade for all the
students
involved in the incident will be reduced by one letter grade for the
first
offense, and to an F for the second offense. ("All" means both the
copy-er
and the copy-ee). The letter grade for that assignment will also be
reduced
to 0. The reduction in grade will be taken without discussion or
warning;
the first notice you will receive may be a letter indicating the
penalty.
In addition, for every instance, a letter to the Office of Student
Conduct
will be attached to your permanent record, and a copy will be placed in
the
CS division office. More serious cases of cheating, such as copying
someone
else’s work without their knowledge, cheating on exams, etc. will
probably
result in the person cheating receiving an F, and having a letter
placed
in their permanent file in the Office of Student Conduct and in the CS
division
office. Note that you are responsible for not leaving copies of your
assignments
lying around and for protecting your files. You must set up your files
and
directories so that they are protected from anyone other than members
of
your group reading them.