ICS 311 Spring 2020 Assessment/Grading

This semester you will be required to take notes while studying the material before each lecture. Your notes will be graded at every lecture as follows:

• 0 points for having no notes for that lecture (including forgetting the notebook)

• 1 point for having minimal set of notes

• 2 points for having adequate set of notes

• 3 points for having exceptional set of notes

You are expected to keep a dedicated journal/notebook with fixed pages (i.e., that don't tear away easily) in which you will be taking notes using the Cornell Note-taking System. Here is a nice video that describes the system and a nice variation of it.

IMPORTANT: You will not receive a passing grade in the course if you don't have an average of 2 points in note-taking. Such grading scheme emphasizes the importance to study for every lecture, because with so much material in the course, it is very easy to fall behind; and once behind, catching up is almost impossible. In addition to helping you keep up with the pace of the course, note-taking has been shown to improve understanding and retention of the material among students. Good notes will also help you prepare for the exams.

You are expected to take your own notes. Copying notes from others is NOT permitted and will be treated as plagiarism (see Class Policies for more details).

At the beginning of every class there will a quiz based on the readings and screencasts. These quizzes will test basic understanding of the chapter on which the day's topic is based, such as whether you can simulate the operation of the data structure or algorithms or get the main point of the analyses of their relative merits. Most quizzes will not involve mathematical analysis or proofs: problems requiring deeper thought will be left for the classwork and homework problems.

Solutions will be given in class immediately after the quizzes and will be graded in class. Therefore, it is important that you show up to every class on-time, as quizzes cannot be made up.

All regular classes will include significant time working in small groups on problems that help expose conceptual issues in the material and prepare you to work on the take-home portion on your own. Class problems will require much more thought than the problems given on the quizzes. You turn your work in as a group (a single shared document in Google Docs per group). We will discuss the solutions as you make progress. Although your solutions to the in-class exercises are not graded, active participation in the group discussion is an important part of your learning. You will be graded on your class participation through Instructor's observation as well as through the evaluation from your peers as follows:

Each week in which there is a problem set, each individual in the group will assign points distributed across the other individuals in the group to assess how effectively they collaborated in the group. You should allocate the points according to how well the others worked as team members, including their role in team functioning (e.g., keeping the group focused and organized, or playing another important role), and how much they helped others understand the material (e.g., by explaining what they understood), as well as their contributions to the actual problem solution. Even asking good questions can be a contribution.

Each week you will have 60 points to distribute across all of your peers. You can distribute the points equally, give them all to one person, or do something in between. For example, if everyone participated equally, you would give the same number of points to each person; while if there was one person who did more work and the other who did less you might move a point from the latter to the former.

This is fair under changing group sizes (for any size between 2 and 6 students per group): suppose every student allocates points equally among all members of the group, then no matter the size of the group, everyone gets 60 points.

Some additional rules:

• You need not allocate all the points available to you (for example, if you feel that other group members were not helpful).

• You cannot allocate any points to yourself! Points allocated to yourself will not be recorded.

• You will allocate these points when you turn in your homework assignment. To encourage you to do this, you will be given one extra credit point for each assignment in which you assess your peers.

On 13 of the weeks you will have homework problems in which you do more extensive work following up on the class work. The homework problems will combine the topics of both days of the week. We encourage you to work on the homework problems in groups (can be different from the group during in-class exercises). However, the final write up must be performed individually, in own words, that means copying solution from each other is NOT permitted. Using internet to find solutions to homework is also NOT permitted and will be treated as plagiarism (see Class Policies for more details). Exam questions often are similar to homework problems, so this is your chance to make sure that you understand concepts and can work out problems on your own, not just in a group context.

Homework submission: Homeworks will be due in person at the beginning of Tuesday class period (with the exception of Homeworks 7 & 11, which will be due at the beginning of Monday class period). No Homeworks will be accepted after the instructor starts the class, as the answers to the homework will be discussed during that class period.

The homeworks must be submitted in person. Each problem must be written starting on a separate page. Any problem that does not start on a separate page will be given 0 points. Write down your name on every page, as the problems will be separated for grading and if a page does not have your name we will not know who wrote the solution. Do NOT staple your homeworks.

There will be two midterm exams taking one class period each. Problems will be harder than those on the quizzes, and some may be as hard as those on class and homework problems. Problems will cover both understanding of the algorithms and how to analyze them. They will cover the most recent set of lecture topics, but cumulative “review” questions may also be included. Exams will be closed-book, however, you will be allowed a single double-sided letter-sized sheet of notes. No electronic devices will be allowed.

The final exam will take place at the time scheduled by the university and will be longer than a midterm exam. It will cover the final set of lecture topics, but will also include review of the entire semester. Since the final is longer and is cumulative as well as covering recent material, it is weighted more (25%).