Grading Policies

Grade

Your grade is composed of the following components:

There are no exams in this course.

Added May 6 11:55pm: 7% of extra credit (above and beyond the 100% sum above, potentially to compensate for points lost earlier in the semester) may be obtained by submitting work on an additional final project topic. A submission bin is now available on the class web page. End Addition

Grading Scale

All your grade components will be added up with the percentage weights indicated and result in a single number. This number will determine your letter grade, according to the following scales:

It is likely that +/- grades will be assigned, with thresholds announced at a later date.

Grade Acceptance and Complaint Period

After grades are released for any homework set, project, or in-class activity, you have three weeks in order to clarify any misgivings you may have about the grade you received. Once three weeks have passed, the assigned grade is considered accepted and no further complaints will be considered.

Registration

Note that being "enrolled" in the course on this site has no administrative significance to the university. What matters as far as your participation appearing on your transcript is enrollment as shown in the UIUC self-service application.

Projects

There will be two moderately open-ended "project assignments" throughout the semester, one due about half-way through the semester, the other due at the end. These will have longer deadlines and require some independent work which you will summarize in a report that you should turn in along with accompanying code.

General homework load will be lighter (but not absent) during project periods.

Participation Grade/In-Class Activities

We will have occasional in-class activities that contribute to your participation grade. These may happen at any time during the class, and their purpose is to encourage attendance and help you verify understanding of material that was covered recently in the class.

These consist of multiple-choice or short-answer questions and will be open-everything, including discussion with neighbors. They will generally consist of about four questions, and you will be allowed 10 minutes to complete them. You will receive credit for attempting the activity, whether or not you get the answers right does not influence your grade.

Homework

There will be generally biweekly longer-form homework sets over the course of the semester. Their due dates are shown in the class calendar and upon starting and reviewing each assignments.

Late homework

Homework submitted after the deadline will count for half of its original worth. This offer is good for up to one week after the original deadline. After that, no late work will be accepted.

Homework will typically come out during the day on Fridays and be due two Fridays after, as indicated in the class calendar. Each homework set will typically consist of a combination of coding and written responses.

• Solutions to the homework sets will be posted after the due date. If you are submitting homework for the half-credit due date, feel free to use the posted solutions in writing up your own solution. You may however not directly copy the sample solution. What you submit must still be written by you, not just copied.

Grading

You get exactly one submission per homework set. In particular, this means that:

• After you click "Submit Assignment" in the top right corner, you will not be able to make changes to your work.

• No resubmissions of work already graded. If, between the posted solution and your graded work, you still have questions, feel free to raise those on Piazza or during the TAs' office hours.

• Homework sets submit themselves automatically at (or soon after) the deadline. If you would like to make use of the half-credit opportunity, you must select "At deadline: Do not submit session for grading". Otherwise, the homework set will automatically be submitted at the deadline. This is particularly true if you have not worked on the homework set at all but wish to work on it during the half-credit period.

• We do not accept partial submissions on the homework. (e.g. we will not let you submit problem 1 and 2 before and 3, 4, 5 after the deadline.) There will also be no resubmissions of work already graded. If, between the posted solution and your graded work, you still have questions, feel free to raise those on Piazza or during the TA's office hours.

Collaboration on Homework

• You may discuss your approach (but not your code or your writeups) with your peers. All parts of each homework set must be your own work. You must have typed/written every part of your homework yourself. In some cases, code/pieces of work from elsewhere may be allowed--if so, this will be stated in the instructions. In that case, you must acknowledge the source.

• Code from demos as well as submissions/answers from previous semesters may not be used in coding problem submissions. Unless otherwise stated, you should submit code you have written from scratch.

• If we notice that your work has considerable overlap with someone else's or with old submissions or solutions (and we do check), you will receive a warning and be asked to resubmit on first violation. On the second violation, a zero will be given for the assignment and a FAIR allegation will be filed. While this policy is intended to avoid any misunderstanding, we reserve the right to file a FAIR allegation for any violation of the UIUC student code.

Student responsibilities

Please read and understand the UIUC student code (link opens PDF).

In particular, make sure to read and understand Paragraph §1‑402. The rules there along with the rules in this tutorial form the foundation for making sure you and everyone else in the class receive a fair, transparent grade. Please see also the Collaboration on Homework Section above.