Grading
Turning in work and late policy
Late work will receive no credit. However, you have two free "late days" that you can use at anytime during the quarter on a project. Pragmatically, we give you 48 hours of late time total over the quarter that you can use on your projects. The purpose of these late days is to help you deal with unexpected events, including getting sick, going to the doctor, or any other events that might cause you to turn in your homework late.Since we have a formal late day policy that provides students with flexibility, we will not make any other exceptions to our due date policies, even if you get sick or have a doctor's note.
We will track late days automatically, and the autograder will give you a "0" if you submit without any late time left. With each submission we let you know how much late time you have remaining, so keep an eye on this.
Cheating policy
I have a no tolerance policy on cheating, which includes copying from friends and plagarism. If you get caught cheating, you will get an F in this class and I will turn you into the univerisity's academic integrity group.
Grade breakdown
Your grade will be composed of the following items:| Item | Percent | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Midterm | 20% | We will have one midterm this quarter worth 20% of your final grade. |
| Final | 30% | The final this quarter is worth 30% of your final grade. |
| Projects | 50% | You will have four programming projects this quarter that are increasing in difficulty, for a total of 50% of your grade. The first project is on the process abstraction (5%), the second is on system APIs (10%), the third is on threads and concurrency (15%) and the fourth is a distributed file system (20%). |
Adjusting grades for tests and assignments
If there is a test or assignment with an average that is low (e.g., below 75%) we will consider curving it. There are two points during the quarter when we apply curves: after we grade the midterm and after we grade the final. After the midterm, we will apply curves using a root curve to adjust up the average for that test or assignment. We will curve so that the weighted average of the first three projects and the midterm is around 85%. Once we set a curve for a test or assignment, it is fixed for the remainder of the quarter. We repeat this process after the final, looking at Project 4 and the final for potential curving. At the end of the class, our expectation is that the average and median for the class will be around 85% overall.At the end of the quarter, we will set the breakpoints for A/B/C etc after we review all of the grades in the class. We will not make them higher than the traditional 90/80/70 levels, but we may make them lower. We will leave the default breakpoints from Canvas in place until the end, so please don't be surprised if these change after we review all of the final grades from the class.
Our goal with this grade adjustment policy is to be consistent with grading best practices in upper-division classes taught in the CS department here at UC Davis.