CS 135: Course Requirements and Grading

Course Requirements and Grading:

• In-class Exams: 45%. There will be two midterm exams and an optional final exam.
• The two midterm exams account for 45% of the total. (There will also be an optional "makeup" comprehensive final exam with multiple choice questions held during the last week of classes-- this will allow you to make up part of your exam scores.).
• What about extra credit on exams ?: The exams will have some extra credit points -- you can earn extra credit that will be applied towards your overall course grade.
  
• Quizzes: 10%. There will be seven or eight quizzes. These will be held at the start of the lecture (some quizzes may involve programming) OR at the start of your lab. Late arrival means you will miss the quiz - no extra time will be provided for those who arrive late. The schedule for the quizzes will be announced at least one week ahead of the date of the quiz and the schedule will be posted on the course announcements/info webpage. The five best scores (out of seven) will be taken into consideration for your grade.
• The quizzes are worth 10% of your total (2% for each quiz).
• What about extra credit on the quizzes: if you do very well on all your quizzes, then I will take this into account  if you do not get a very good grade on the exams.
  
• Homeworks and Lab Assignments: 15%.  You must work on these individually -- collaboration, of any kind, will be treated as a violation of academic integrity.
  
• A number of homeworks will be assigned. The goal of the homeworks is to improve your learning of the concepts covered in the lectures.
  
• Lab Assignments: There will be a number of simple lab assignments that you must complete during the lab section.
  
• Team Activities: 30 %. Each student is assigned to a team. (The team composition may change midway through the semester.) You must  abide by the team contract that you will agree to. There are a number of team activities:
  
• In-class Exercises and team assignments: There will be a number of in-class exercises (lecture times or sometimes the lab times), which you will work with your team members.  The exercises will be given out at the start of class. You must work on these with your team members. 
• Projects: There will be a number of programming projects -- typically, the first two require working in teams and the last two require that you work alone with no collaboration. In some cases, the material required to complete the projects will be covered in the lab section. It is possible to earn extra credit on the projects. Once again, this will count towards your overall course score.
• The total of these two components will be 30% of your course grade -- with projects accounting for approximately 20% of the course grade.
• Late Submission policy: For each calendar day after the due date of the homeworks or  projects you lose 10% of the grade until the date that solutions are posted. After solutions are posted you get a zero on the work.
• Grades will be posted on Blackboard -- make sure you check and inform the instructors if you see any disparity between what is posted on blackboard and what you think your grades are.