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Grading Policy
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Please note that, unless announced in class and posted on
this web page, I WILL STRICTLY FOLLOW THESE
POLICIES. Excuses such as ignorance of policies, need to
graduate, unfamiliarity with these grading policies are
not acceptable. In general, students taking the course
for graduate credit will be graded differently (graduate
level work is expected).
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I reserve the right to make minor modifications in the
grading breakups. Any such changes will be announced in
the class. Grades will be determined as follows:
- Class Participation and Paper Evaluations : 14%
- Class participation (8% - 4% for each half)
A primary goal of this course is to encourage
discussion among the class members. Most ideas
in systems are developed through such healthy
discussions. Students are encouraged to ask questions,
suggest new ideas, point out weaknesses and make
general observations. Even though the questions are
expected to be related to the topic, students will not
be judged by the quality of questions that they
ask.
To encourage class participation, I will
randomly pick a student (using a lottery scheme)
and ask their feedback. If you are absent when I
pick your name, I consider that an unexcused
absence. More than two unexcused absences
will result in automatic administrative
withdrawal from class.
- Paper Evaluations (6% - 3% for each half)
This portion of your grade will be determined
by evaluations of research papers for in-class
discussion. The classes will be organized as
follows: I will present few introductory
lectures as a pre-requisite for further
discussions on relevant research materials.
To ensure interactive class sessions and to
test for understanding of the material, students
are required to read and evaluate papers in the
reading list in advance of each class
session. An important research skill is the
critical reading of related research papers. For
each paper, students will submit a 3 sentence
evaluation (1/2 page maximum): listing
- the most important thing the paper says,
- the most glaring problem with the paper, and
- what conclusion you draw from the paper.
Clearly, you may have changed your mind by the end
of the class discussion; that's OK (and even
expected). Evaluations should be entered online,
by clicking on the button next to the paper listed
for each lecture. Before entering your first
evaluation, you will need to register with the
system here
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The evaluations will be graded as follows. Each
evaluation will receive a score on a 0-3 scale
(3 being excellent). The default grade will be a
2. Grading will start off relatively easy but
will become progressively harder as the semester
progresses. You can skip up to 1/3 of the papers
and still receive maximum credit for paper
reviews if your evaluation of the other papers
is satisfactory. Late homework will not
receive credit for any reason. The
homework summaries should reflect your
understanding of the paper. It is not acceptable
to turn in a summary if you have not made an
honest effort to read the paper. It is not
acceptable to quote verbatim from the paper
itself. I reserve the right to ask you to
eloborate on your written feedback in
class.
- Midterm : 20%
- Final Exam : 20%
There will be a open-book, in-class mid term and
final exam. (students registered for graduate credit
will have additional questions)
- Homework Projects : 24% (3*8%)
We will have three individual, home work projects
that will usually take three weeks to
complete. These project will emphasize actual
implementations of ideas that we learn in
class. Each project is due before the beginning of
class on the due date. In general, I am language
agnostic. Please refrain from using Java GUI in your
programs. The projects shall be turned in
electronically. All the programs should contain a
README file describing the programs. The programs
should compile in gemini.cs.uga.edu (or the lab
Linux and FreeBSD machines) without any
assistance. MAKE SURE THAT YOUR PROGRAM WORKS ON
ONE OF THESE MACHINES BEFORE YOU SUBMIT IT. No
credit will be given for programs that fail to
compile/run. Late submissions will not be graded
(late even by a second!!).
- Course Project : 22%
A major portion of this course grade will consist of a
term research project culminated by a public
presentation and research report. (graduate student
projects are expected to be of a higher research
quality)
At the end of the course, I will meet each student
individually for an oral exam, covering topics that we
have learnt in the course as well as detailed specifics of
your project. More details on the course project are
available here
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Re-evaluation Policy - The
Football Penalty Principle |
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In general, I will only re-evaluate your
homework/project/midterm grades for arithmetic errors,
omissions etc. only. If you disagree with any partial
credits, the foot ball penalty principle applies. You
have to give me your work, along with a written statement on
why you think you deserve better grades on the work that
you had turned in originally and how much extra grade
that you think you are deserved. I will evaluate your
appeal. If I agree with you, I will update your scores. On
the other hand, if I disagree with you, I will take away the
grades that you had asked for. For example, for a question
that was worth 10 points, if I had given you 6 points
and you think you deserve 8 points, after a
re-evaluation, if I agree that you deserve extra credits;
you could get upto 8 points. If I disagree with you, I
will downgrade your grade to 4 points. In general,
re-evaluations are not encouraged.
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Late Policy - The Reasonable
Person Principle |
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This principle (which applies throughout this course)
simply states that a reasonable request made in a
reasonable fashion shall be reasonably handled by
reasonable persons. The TAs and instructor are
reasonable people, and we expect that everyone else
involved in this class is as well. Asking to be a
special case to turn stuff in late is not a
reasonable request, barring extreme
circumstances. In general, I do not accept late
submissions (even if you are late by a second). For home
work submissions, I will use gemini.cs.uga.edu as
the reference clock. Please contact me regarding
unforeseen emergencies.
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Academic Honesty - Collaboration vs. Cheating
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Collaboration is a very good thing. Students are
encouraged to work together and some programming
projects will require a team effort with everyone
expected to contribute.
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On the other hand, cheating is considered a very
serious offense. Please don't do it! Concern about
cheating creates an unpleasant environment for
everyone.
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So how do you draw the line between collaboration and
cheating? Here's a reasonable set of
ground-rules. Failure to understand and follow these
rules will constitute cheating, and will be dealt
with as per university guidelines. (UGA Academic honesty policy
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The Gilligan's Island Rule:
This rule says that you are free to meet with fellow
students(s) and discuss assignments with them. Writing
on a board or shared piece of paper is acceptable
during the meeting; however, you may not take any
written (electronic or otherwise) record away from
the meeting. This applies when the assignment is
supposed to be an individual effort. After the
meeting, engage in a half hour of mind-numbing
activity (like watching an episode of Gilligan's
Island), before starting to work on the
assignment. This will assure that you are able to
reconstruct what you learned from the meeting, by
yourself, using your own brain.
The Freedom of Information Rule:
To assure that all collaboration is on the level,
you must always write the name(s) of your
collaborators on your assignment. Failure to
adequately acknowledge your contributors is at best
a lapse of professional etiquette, and at worst it is
plagiarism. Plagiarism is a form of cheating.
In the same spirit, this course organization and policy
rules were adopted from Prof. Carla Ellis and Prof. Amin Vahdat @ Duke.
The No-Sponge Rule:
In intra-team collaboration where the group, as a whole,
produces a single "product", each member of the team
must actively contribute. Members of the group have
the responsibility (1) to not tolerate anyone who is
putting forth no effort (being a sponge) and (2) to
not let anyone who is making a good faith effort "fall
through a crack" (to help weaker team members come up to
speed so they can contribute). We want to know about
dysfunctional group situations as early as
possible. To encourage everyone to participate
fully, we make sure that every student is given an
opportunity to explain and justify their group's
approach
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