Winter Quarter 2001
Project Grading
Projects are graded during 15-20 minute in-person grading
sessions. A sign up sheet will be posted in Sieg 228
just prior to the due date for the assignment.
Grading sessions will consist of:
- Each team member giving a demonstration of different portions of
the program, showing that it satisfies the required part of
the assignment and implements an appropriate number of bells
and whistles. This is also the time to show off any great
extensions or enhancements.
- Question and answers: The TA will ask a variety of questions.
Some questions will be open for response from any team member,
but others will be directed at individuals. Each team member is
expected to have a thorough understanding of all required extentions
of the project, and any bells and whistles s/he may have done.
Here is a sample of the kind of questions that might be asked:
- Why did you choose to implement feature X using technique
Y rather than technique Z?
- Describe the steps that you'd have to carry out to implement
new feature X. What new data structures would you need? What
modules would you have to modify?
- Please make the following small change to the program, then
recompile and run it.
The project implementations will be graded on a 10-point scale.
Unlimited extra credit is possible on each project; however, each
additional point of extra credit is twice as difficult to achieve as
the previous point.
Each extra credit item is rated with a nominal value of "bells"
and "whistles". One bell carries the same credit as two whistles. An
actual implementation of an extra credit item may be worth somewhat
more or less than its nominal value, depending on how well it was
implemented.
No extra credit can be earned until ALL of the required parts
of the project are complete. Before beginning work on extra-credit
bells and whistles, have a TA look at your project and sign off that
the required parts of the project are done.
In general, every team member will receive the same project
implementation grade (although not necessarily the same project
knowledge grade). However, we reserve the right to give different
project implementation grades to different students on the team, for
extreme circumstances in which it is clear that one or more members of
the team contributed little or nothing to the project.
Project knowledge will be graded on a 3-point scale, separately
for each team member. Here's a rough breakdown to give you a feeling
for how points will be assigned:
- 1 pt:
-
Almost clueless: Answers
to questions showed a severe lack of understanding. (I don't
expect anybody to get this grade!)
- 2 pts:
-
Answers to questions showed an understanding at only a
superficial level.
- 3 pts:
- Answers to questions demonstrated a thorough
understanding of the project. This is is the grade we expect
to give almost all of the time.
