CSE logo University of Washington Department of Computer Science & Engineering
 CSE 326: Data Structures, Autumn 2003
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Overall course grade

Your overall grade will be determined as follows (approximate):

  • Assignments: 30%
  • Midterm: 20%
  • Final: 30%
  • Best of above three: 10%
  • Participation and quizzes: 10%

If you find an error in our grading, please bring it to our attention within one week of that item being returned.

Late policy

  • Written assignments: Due promptly at the beginning of class, late assignments will not be accepted.
  • Programming assignments: Electronic turnin will be due at 11 p.m., followed by hardcopy turnin at the next class or section. Once per quarter you may use your "late day" to buy an extra 24 hours for the electronic turnin, with hardcopy turnin at the following class or section. You must email your TA before the deadline to specify that you will be using your late day. We will make special arrangements for you to turn in your work after the deadline.
If you contact the instructor well in advance of the deadline, we may show more flexibility given exceptional circumstances.

Computing environment

The course labs are Allen 002, 006 and 022. Labs have Windows machines with X servers to access the instructional Unix server attu.cs. All projects will be graded on Unix. You may use tools such as J++ or BlueJ on other operation systems but make sure you test under Unix.

Grading guidelines for programming assignments

See also the "Programming Guidelines" at left. Approximate grade breakdown:
  • Program correctness, compilation -- 40% of total grade
  • Architecture/design, style, commenting, documentation -- 30%
  • Writeup/README -- 30%

The reason why "so few" points are allocated towards program correctness and error-free compilation is because students who have gotten past 143 are smart enough to know how to get their code to compile and run against the general input (although testing "boundary conditions" is a skill which students should aim for), so program correctness and error-free compilation is neither a fair nor discriminating measurement of project quality.

The two biggest discriminating factors among 326 students are program design (such as style and architecture) and analysis (the README/writeup), which is why these factors are weighed a little heavily. Also, 326 is a course about data structures and the tradeoffs made during algorithm/data structure design, so putting additional weight on program design, and questions about program analysis and weighing tradeoffs is more in keeping with the course goals.

Putting weight on the design and writeup aspects for projects is also useful because it doesn't penalize students who "have the right idea" but couldn't get their code to compile because of a last-minute code change.

Point Allocation: For each of the above three categories, we have the following point allocation:

  • 5 pts -- "Excellent": no errors, hiccups, or conceptual misunderstandings whatsoever.
  • 4 pts -- "Very good": one (or two) minor error(s) or misunderstanding(s). Most grades should fall in this category.
  • 3 pts -- "Good": three or four minor errors or misunderstandings, or perhaps one major misunderstanding.
  • 2 pts -- "Fair": two or three major misunderstandings
  • 1 pt -- "Poor": major misunderstanding of underlying principles, or complete misunderstanding but significant effort.
  • 0 pts -- "Very Poor": Complete misunderstanding of underlying principles, and little to no effort.
In addition, we will keep track of any extra features you implement (the Above and Beyond parts). You won't see these affecting your grades for individual projects, but they will be accumulated over all projects and used to bump up borderline grades at the end of the quarter.


CSE logo Department of Computer Science & Engineering
University of Washington
Box 352350
Seattle, WA  98195-2350
(206) 543-1695 voice, (206) 543-2969 FAX
[comments to cse326-staff at cs.washington.edu]