CS173: Missed Work

A variety of situations might cause you to miss an examlet or other work. When the problem is minor (e.g. short virus), it's usually straightforward to make up. Occasionally worse things go wrong.

Missed homework and reading quizzes

If you add the course late, you are expected to quickly self-register on moodle so that you don't get further behind. Ask any course staff member for the password. Contact the instructor promptly to get any necessary extensions.

For homework and reading quizzes, many minor problems are covered by the fact that we drop four reading quiz and two homework grades. If you have an unusual problem, please contact the instructor promptly about appropriate arrangements. This would include, for example, serious or prolonged illness or injury, family emergencies, technical glitches with moodle submissions, and so forth. Depending on the circumstances, we may ask you to provide documentation (e.g. a doctor's note).

Missed examlets: normal situation

Missed examlets can be made up the following week at the normal exam time. Specifically

If you miss examlet 12, you'll make it up at the final exam.

For a single missed examlet, you do not need to tell us that you missed the examlet or provide an excuse.

If you normally take your exams at the DRES Testing Center, schedule your makeups at DRES for dates similar to the above.

Missed examlets: larger problems

The above procedure assumes that you had a relatively minor problem that lasted only a few days. If you have a larger problem, you should contact the instructor promptly with the details and (when available) documentation. The Dean of Students office can help you inform instructors when you can't reasonably do so yourself (e.g. you're in the hospital), and provide confirmation of problems where you might not wish to tell us all the details.

Examples of larger problems would be:

In such cases, we need to know what's going on so that we can arrange a suitable makeup plan for you. Typically we'll use the normal makeup procedure (above) but you might need to take a makeup two weeks after the original examlet date.

Examlets may not be made up more than two weeks after the original date. We will make exceptions to this only in situations involving major problems (e.g. extended illness), with proper documentation. Typically your advisor or DRES or the Dean of Students would be involved.

Missed discussion

If you must miss your assigned discussion, e.g. due to illness or a conflicting obligation, you have two options. You may attend a different discussion. In this case, you must make inform both TAs involved, so they can ensure you receive proper credit. Alternatively, you may make up the discussion as follows:

Makeup discussion problems must be given to your TA within two weeks of the missed discussion. Contact the instructor if you are experiencing major problems requiring additional makeup time.

When you have made up a discussion in any of these ways, make sure to check that your attendance gets recorded correctly on moodle. These unusual situations are the main source of recording errors.

Acts of God

We occasionally have outages in campus networks, power, or CS departmental servers. Weather sometimes disrupts operations and occasionally even shuts campus. We will extend deadlines or make other arrangements when there are long or awkwardly timed outages. The details depend on the exact circumstances. However, we expect that you will download critical documents (e.g. exam study materials) in a timely manner and that you realize that support is very limited at night.

If a weather or other emergency makes travel hazardous, do not travel.

If you live in an outlying area, please keep us informed about issues that may be affecting outlying areas but not central Champaign-Urbana. For example, wind often closes the rural roads even after Urbana streets are plowed and safe.

Piazza is a great way to stay informed and also to keep the course staff informed about issues we might not have noticed.