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Grading
Grade Notification
Textbook
Required Reading
Midterm Exam
Final Exam
Team Project
Programming Projects
Extensions
Email Rules
Plagiarism
| 12% | Midterm Exam |
| 24% | Final Exam |
| 4% | Team Formation |
| 16% | Team Deliverables |
| 7% | Team Presentation 1 |
| 7% | Team Presentation 2 |
| 15% | Programming Project 1 |
| 15% | Programming Project 2 |
I will not hand out letter grades during the course, just points. Your final grade will be determined by the total points you earn, weighted as shown above, and converted to a letter using this scale:
| 90% | ≤ | A | ≤ | 100% |
| 80% | ≤ | B | < | 90% |
| 70% | ≤ | C | < | 80% |
| 60% | ≤ | D | < | 70% |
| 0% | ≤ | F | < | 60% |
For the actual formulas used to calculate grades, see the Grade Calculator.
Frequently Asked Questions
I will record your grades for the exams, the team project, and the programming projects, as well as your final letter grade, in a grade file. Each student will have his or her own grade file. Each grade file will be encrypted with a different secret key for each student. The encrypted grade files will be posted on the course web site. Since no one can decrypt the grade file without the secret key, your personal grade information remains confidential despite being posted on the web site.
To decrypt your grade file, you will have to obtain the secret key from me, in person. Come to my office, show me your student ID, and I will give you your secret key. It is your responsibility to safeguard your secret key. If anyone else discovers what your secret key is, they will be able to decrypt and examine your grade file. Treat your secret key as you would your student ID, driver's license, or credit card. If you lose your secret key or suspect someone else has discovered it, see me, in person, to get a new secret key.
When I have finished grading each assignment, I will post an announcement on the What's New page that the grades are available.
For further information, see Encrypted Grades.
Discussing your grades: If you have questions about or want to discuss your grades, you must come see me in person. Either visit me during office hours or make an appointment. I will not answer questions about or discuss your grades via email.
The textbook is: Alan Kaminsky. Building Parallel Programs: SMPs, Clusters, and Java. Cengage Course Technology, 2010. ISBN 1-4239-0198-3. (Errata)
Manuscript copies: By special arrangement with the copyright owner, Cengage Course Technology, students in previous course sections were allowed to use manuscript copies of the textbook with the proviso that they not give copies to anyone else. Now that the textbook is published, Cengage does not permit anyone to possess a manuscript copy of the textbook. If you bring a manuscript copy of the textbook to class, including the midterm exam and final exam, I will confiscate it.
You are responsible for learning, and will be tested on, the textbook chapters listed in the Course Schedule. While I may not cover all the required reading material in class, you are nonetheless responsible for knowing it.
To help you learn the material and prepare for the exams, solutions to Selected Exercises are posted on the course web site. I strongly recommend you do the problems before looking at the solutions, then check your work afterwards.
Accessing the solutions on the course web site requires authentication with a specific username and password. (This is not the same as your Computer Science Department account, and this is not the same as the secret key for decrypting your grade file.) The username and password will be announced in class and will also be listed in your grade file. Please observe the following restrictions:
There will be a one-hour midterm exam in class on the date shown on the Course Schedule. The midterm exam will begin at the start of class. The midterm exam will cover material from Chapters 1-18 of the textbook. The midterm exam will be open book, open notes, open laptops, open tablets, open smartphones. The midterm exam will involve numerical calculations; be sure to bring a calculator.
Exception: You may not bring a manuscript copy of the textbook to the midterm exam. See "Textbook" above.
Absences: If you are absent from class on the date of the midterm exam, your midterm exam will receive a grade of zero unless before the start of the midterm exam you arrange with me to take the midterm exam at another time. I am normally willing to permit this only for absences due to illness or unforeseen personal emergency. However, if you feel you have a valid reason for your absence, please discuss it with me. Appointments, job interviews, career fairs, vacations, trips home, and other scheduled activities are not valid excuses for absence. You have an obligation to this course, and you must schedule other activities so as not to interfere with class sessions.
There will be a two-hour final exam during the Institute examination period, at the date and time shown on the Course Schedule. The final exam will cover material from the entire course. The final exam will be open book, open notes, open laptops, open tablets, open smartphones. The final exam will involve numerical calculations; be sure to bring a calculator.
I will not hand back the final exam. To see how you did on the final exam, you may visit me in my office.
Exception: You may not bring a manuscript copy of the textbook to the final exam. See "Textbook" above.
Absences: If you are absent from the final exam, your final exam will receive a grade of zero unless before the start of the final exam you arrange with me to take the final exam at another time. I am normally willing to permit this only for absences due to illness or unforeseen personal emergency. However, if you feel you have a valid reason for your absence, please discuss it with me. Appointments, job interviews, career fairs, vacations, trips home, and other scheduled activities are not valid excuses for absence. You have an obligation to this course, and you must schedule other activities so as not to interfere with class sessions.
Scheduling conflicts: If you have a final exam scheduling conflict, please refer to the RIT Institute Policies and Procedures Manual, Section D11.0, "Final Examination Policies." You must submit a written request for rescheduling to the head of your home department, with a copy to your instructor, by the last day of the 6th week of classes.
The team formation, including the team project proposal, will be due at 11:59pm on the date shown in the Course Schedule. The proposal will be graded pass/fail. If you submit the proposal on time, you will get full credit, otherwise you will get zero credit. The proposal will be posted on the team web site.
The team deliverables will be due at 11:59pm on the date shown in the Course Schedule. The team deliverables will be posted on the team web site.
Team presentations will be scheduled in class on the dates shown in the Course Schedule. The date and time for each team's presentations will be announced later.
Help with your project: I am willing to help you with the design of your project. I am willing to help you debug your project if the code isn't working. However, for help with design or debugging issues you must come see me in person. Either visit me during office hours or make an appointment. I will not help you with design or debugging issues via email.
Absences: If you are absent from class when one of your team project presentations is scheduled, you will receive a grade of zero for the presentation unless before the start of the class when the presentation is scheduled you make an alternate arrangement with me. I am normally willing to permit this only for absences due to illness or unforeseen personal emergency. However, if you feel you have a valid reason for your absence, please discuss it with me. Appointments, job interviews, career fairs, vacations, trips home, and other scheduled activities are not valid excuses for absence. You have an obligation to this course, and you must schedule other activities so as not to interfere with class sessions.
Late team deliverables: I will not accept the team deliverables late unless you arrange with me for an extension. See below for my policy on extensions. Late team deliverables will receive a grade of zero.
Plagiarism: The team project must be entirely the team's own work. I will not tolerate plagiarism. See below for my policy on plagiarism.
There will be two programming projects to be written in Java. These projects are individual effort (not part of the team project effort). Each project will be assigned on the date shown in the Course Schedule. Each project will be due at 11:59pm on the date shown in the Course Schedule. Each project will be submitted via email in the form of a Java archive (JAR) file. The date and time at which your email message arrives in my inbox will determine whether the project meets the deadline. Details of each project, including submission requirements and grading criteria, will be provided when each project is assigned.
The first programming project will require you to write a program to run on a shared memory multiprocessor (SMP) parallel computer, using the shared memory parallel programming features of the Parallel Java Library. The second programming project will require you to write a program to run on a cluster parallel computer, using the message passing parallel programming features of the Parallel Java Library.
Help with your projects: I am willing to help you with the design of your project. I am willing to help you debug your project if the code isn't working. However, for help with design or debugging issues you must come see me in person. Either visit me during office hours or make an appointment. I will not help you with design or debugging issues via email. If it's the evening of the project deadline and I have gone home, you are on your own. Plan and work ahead so there will be plenty of time for me to help you if necessary.
I will answer general questions about the project via email, such as requests to clarify or interpret the project requirements.
Late projects: I will not accept a late project unless you arrange with me for an extension. See below for my policy on extensions. Late projects will receive a grade of zero.
Plagiarism: Each project must be entirely your own work. I will not tolerate plagiarism. See below for my policy on plagiarism.
Resubmission of projects: If you so choose, you may submit a revised version of your project after you have received the grade for the original version. You are allowed to make one and only one resubmission of each project. However, if the original project was not successfully submitted by the (possibly extended) deadline or was not entirely your own work (i.e., plagiarized), you are not allowed to submit a revised version. Submit the revised version via email in the same way as the original version. I will accept a resubmission up until one week after the grades for the original version are released. The resubmission deadline will be announced on the What's New page and in the Course Schedule. I will grade the revised version using the same criteria as the original version, then I will subtract a number of points equal to 10% of the maximum possible points as a resubmission penalty. The revised grade will replace the original grade, even if the revised grade is less than the original grade.
The rules for extensions are:
| If you request an extension: | You will receive an extension of: |
| 3 days before the deadline date | 3 days |
| 2 days before the deadline date | 2 days |
| 1 day before the deadline date | 1 day |
| On the deadline date | 1 day |
| When asking for an extension, I would appreciate some basic courtesy. Too many students send me a rude message like "I need an extension." The polite way to ask for an extension is, "May I please have an extension for Project 1?" |
The intent of this policy is not to give everyone an automatic 3-day extension for every assignment. The intent of this policy is to accommodate students who plan and work ahead on the assignments but experience an unforeseen last-minute difficulty, and to penalize students who do not plan and work ahead. If you put off working on an assignment and get sick or suffer a computer breakdown at the last minute, I am not going to give you more time than stated above. You should have been working ahead so you would have been finished before the last minute.
If you receive an extension for an assignment and the extended deadline falls after the last day of classes, then at my discretion I may assign you a grade of Incomplete (I) for the course. The Incomplete grade will be changed after you have submitted the assignment and I have evaluated it.
My email address is ark@cs.rit.edu. To deter spambots, the email address is obfuscated. If you copy and paste my email address from this web site, it will not work. If you type in my email address by hand, it will work.
I apply spam filtering on incoming email. To get your email past my spam filters and into my inbox:
I reply in a timely manner to all emails that get past my spam filters and into my inbox. Emails blocked by my spam filters go into a separate spam folder. I do not reply in a timely manner to emails in my spam folder.
It is your responsibility to format your emails so that they get past my spam filters. This includes assignment submissions and extension requests as well as general questions. If I have not responded to your email within one business day (i.e. not counting weekends), contact me again.
For further information, see "Contacting Me."
You may use any resources you wish to do the assignments, including resources discussed in class and resources you find on your own. You may discuss the assignments at a general level with others in the class. However, each assignment you turn in must be entirely your own work. You are not allowed to collaborate with anyone else on any assignment. You are not allowed to use any other person's work in any way as part of your assignment.
I will not tolerate plagiarism. If in my judgment an assignment is not entirely your own work, you will receive, as a minimum, a grade of zero for the assignment. Plagiarism incidents will result in disciplinary action in accordance with Computer Science Department policy and RIT policy. I expect you to read and abide by the following policies:
These are some examples of plagiarism. These are not the only examples of plagiarism.
There are only two exceptions to the prohibition on plagiarism:
Team Project: For the team project, the above policies apply to the team members as a group. If you wish to use another third-party library as part of your project, you must obtain my permission before starting to use it.
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