Intelligent Autonomous Agents

ICS 606 / EE 606 -- Fall 2011

Course Grading Criteria

Exam

There will be one written midterm examination comprising 30% of your grade. The exam is open book and open notes.

Class Participation

Presentation of research papers in class and participation in discussions comprises 20% of your grade. This includes attendance, your presentations, good questions for the audience and answering questions/asking questions of other speakers. Improvement during the term is considered important.

Paper presentations during lecture should be 10 minutes long with an additional 5 minutes for the speaker to ask questions of the audience and answer their questions. Presentation length is very important when you give talks at conferences. Plan your talk to be the exact length specified - and be able to moderate your pace during the talk so that you end on time.

As a paper presenter - you should have 4-5 questions for the class after your presentation. They should be good questions that demonstrate your understanding of the research.

As a listener - read the papers before class. Think of 1-2 questions - e.g. what was not clear? How reasonable are the conclusions? While listening to the presentation, do you have more questions? Fill out the speaker evaluation form.

Term Projects

Completion of a term project comprises 50% of your grade. Projects include written proposal, progress report and final report and two presentations. The breakdown is as follows:

Problem Selection: Interestingness and complexity of your problem (20%)
Experimental Design (10%)
Presentation: In-class presentations - mini and final (20% of project score)
- Organization (2%)
- Technical content (12%)
- Production (2%)
- Preparation (2%)
- Length (2%)
Written report: total (50% of project score)
- Writing/Content/Clarity (20%)
- Form/Professionalism (5%)
- Grammar/Spelling - must be free of errors detectable with spell/grammar checkers (5%)
- Experimental Analysis (10%)
- Literature search coverage (10%)

Programming Assignments

Extra credit programming assignments are available.

Grading

Grading is done on an absolute scale in this course. If you have

90% or more, you are guaranteed at least an A-
80%-90%, you are guaranteed at least an B-
70%-80%, you are guaranteed at least an C-
60%-70%, you are guaranteed at least an D-
Less than 60% - will most likely not pass the course.

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