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Grading
Grade Notification
Attendance
Research Paper Presentations
Team Project
Final Exam
Extensions
Email Rules
Plagiarism
| 4% | Team Formation |
| 6% | Attendance |
| 10% | Research Paper Presentation 1 |
| 10% | Research Paper Presentation 2 |
| 10% | Team Presentation 1 |
| 10% | Team Presentation 2 |
| 30% | Team Deliverables |
| 20% | Final Exam |
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:
| 92% | <= | A | <= | 100% |
| 84% | <= | B | < | 92% |
| 76% | <= | C | < | 84% |
| 68% | <= | D | < | 76% |
| 0% | <= | F | < | 68% |
For the actual formulas used to calculate grades, see the Grade Calculator.
Frequently Asked Questions
I will record your grades for the course assignments, 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.
Attendance is mandatory for everyone in the class during research paper presentations and team presentations as shown on the Course Schedule. I will take attendance in class on those dates. Attendance during presentations is worth 6% of your final course grade. If you attend 7 or more of the 9 presentation sessions, you will earn the full 6%. If you attend fewer than 7 presentation sessions, your grade for attendance will be reduced proportionately. In other words, you can miss up to 2 presentation sessions with no penalty. (I will not take attendance in class during lecture sessions.)
Arriving late to class disrupts the presentation and is discourteous to the presenters. I will cut off the attendance sheet at 2:05pm, five minutes after the start of class. If you have not signed the attendance sheet by that time, I will mark you absent, and this will be reflected in your grade as stated above.
You will read two papers of your choice from the networking research literature. Each paper will be in an assigned topic area. You will analyze each paper and present your analysis in class on the dates shown in the Course Schedule. You will send me the citation of each research paper one week before your presentation is scheduled. For further information, see Research Paper Presentations.
Absences: If you are absent from class when your research paper presentation is scheduled, you will receive a grade of zero for the presentation unless on or before the date of the presentation 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.
Plagiarism: Each research paper presentation must be entirely your own work. I will not tolerate plagiarism. See below for my policy on plagiarism.
The team formation will be due at 11:59pm on the date shown in the Course Schedule. The team formation will be graded pass/fail. If you submit the team information on time, you will get full credit, otherwise you will get zero credit.
The team project deliverables will be due at 11:59pm on the date shown in the Course Schedule. The deliverables will be posted on the team web site.
Team project presentations will be scheduled in class on the dates shown in the Course Schedule. The date and time for each team's presentation will be announced later.
Help with your project: I am willing to help you design or debug your project. 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 your team project presentation is scheduled, you will receive a grade of zero for the presentation unless on or before the date of the presentation 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.
Late team project deliverables: I will not accept late team project deliverables unless you arrange with me for an extension. See below for my policy on extensions. Late team project 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 a two-hour final exam during the Institute examination period, at the date and time shown on the Course Schedule. The final exam will be open book, open notes, open laptops. The final exam will cover material from the entire course. 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.
Absences: If you are absent from the final exam, your final exam will receive a grade of zero unless on or before the date 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.
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, Friday, 16-Oct-2009.
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 the team deliverables?" |
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 investigation, you must obtain my permission before starting to use it.
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