CS 173 [B], Spring 2015

Grading Policy

The graded work includes the following:

• Exams (60%)
  • Bi-weekly examlets worth a total of 45%, and a (non-comprehensive) final exam worth 15%. The tentative examlet schedule is available on the Lectures page. Further details will be announced in class and posted on the Exams page at the appropriate time.
• Homework (20%)
  • We'll drop your lowest scoring assignment in calculating your total over all homework assignments. All bi-weekly homework assignments carry the same weight (100 points). When there are bonus questions in a homework, any points you get from those questions simply add to your total (but your total in each assignment will be capped at 100 points). Collaboration is not allowed: you must work on these problems by yourself. Please find more details at the Homework page.
• Recap Quiz (10%)
  • After we return your graded examlet/homework, there will be a short quiz on moodle, based on the same material. You should not collaborate on this quiz. But you may consult your graded homework and other course material. We will drop your lowest recap-quiz grade when computing your average. Announcements about the recap quizzes will also be posted on Piazza.
• Participation (10%) Grades are assigned to three forms of participation:
  • Score from the pre-lecture quizzes, posted on moodle. We will drop your lowest two pre-lecture quiz scores in computing your average.
  • Lecture participation/attentiveness, as recorded using i>Clicker points. Your actual clicker points will be scaled to 200 and if you obtain a score of 100 or more, you get full credit for this part of the grading.
  • Discussion Section participation, in the form of the work you turn in at the end of the discussion sections. For this part of the grading, more than the correctness, the emphasis will be on effort.

In addition, we have designed weekly problem sets for self-study. While these are not to be turned in, and will not be graded, you are strongly encouraged to solve all of them (well before the examlets, homeworks and recap quizzes).

Grade posting

We will be using moodle for online grade posting.

Letter grades

When we translate your averages into final letter grades, a score of 90 will be at least an A-, 80 at least a B-, 70 at least a C-, 60 at least a D-. We may revise these cutoffs to be more generous as the class progresses. For example, a score of 78 might turn into either a C+ or a B-. In past terms, at least half of the grades have been A's and B's.

What do the letter grades mean?

• We expect A students to have shown consistently strong performance and mature mathematical style.
• A B student should be solidly prepared to take later theory classes.
• A grade of C- or above indicates that a student's grasp of a material makes them adequately prepared for later CS courses, especially CS 225 and CS 374. In particularly, to get a C-, you must demonstrate that you can write straightforward inductive proofs.
• A grade of D-/D/D+ indicates that the student has been doing most of the work but is not adequately prepared for later CS classes. If you seem to be headed for a D-/D/D+ grade, seek help from the course staff.
• Most F's are given to students who have stopped attending, have not been consistently doing homework, or the like. This is typically due to circumstances beyond the scope of this class.

We reserve the right to make adjustments to individual final grades to ensure that grades are appropriate in unusual circumstances, such as illness where it's infeasible to make up all the missed work, disabilities that affect the fairness of the standard grading formula, and so forth.

More Information

Note that your pre/post-lecture quizzes and all homeworks are submitted via Moodle. Moodle will not allow you to submit quizzes late (beyond a small grace-period we may include to allow for technical delays). Moreover, moodle will not let you review answers to an activity that you never submitted. So, make sure to submit at least once before the deadline, even if your submission is incomplete (or even blank). If you were unable to submit a quiz on time for reasons beyond your control, or if you ran into technical issues with your submission, contact your TA for help.

If you have some sort of disability or special circumstances which might impact your participation in the class, please tell us. It's not mandatory, but it will allow us to help you. If you need special accomodations such as extra time on exams, bring us your note from DRES well in advance. These arrangements often require some lead time and careful planning.

Also, please read the academic integrity policy.