CS/ECE 374 fa20: Grading Policies

• Graded work
• Regrade requests
• Final course grades

If you have any questions or concerns, please ask in lecture, during office hours, or on Piazza.

Graded work

• Quizzes are graded automatically by Moodle, and you are allowed unlimited number of attempts at the quiz. Quizzes are meant entirely for review and self-study; they will not count toward your final course grade. However, exams might borrow questions from quizzes or follow the same format - do the quizzes it would help you in the course.
• Homeworks are graded by the entire course staff, directly within Gradescope. To keep grading consistent, each numbered problem is graded by 4 graders, under the supervision of one of the TAs, using a common detailed rubric developed within Gradescope. All numbered homework problems are worth the same amount. Under normal circumstances, all homework should be graded within two weeks of submission.
• Exams are graded by the instructors and graduate TAs. Graded exams will be available via gradescope. Under normal circumstances, all exams should graded within two weeks.
• Quiz solutions will be posted immediately after the quiz deadline. Homework and exam solutions will be posted at most a day after the corresponding submission deadline. Homework and exam solutions will include the rubrics used by the graders.

Partial credit

Regrade requests

• Please check that your grades are tabulated and recorded correctly. If you notice a mistake, please use gradescope to ask for a regrade. Regrade period for homeworks/exams is one week after the grade is available.
• Please double-check the posted solutions for correctness. If any posted solution contains a serious error, all students will receive a perfect score for that problem. Yes, really.
• If you do not understand your grade on a homework or exam problem, please discuss your grade with one of the instructors or TAs during office hours. After that discussion, if you still believe that your work has been graded incorrectly, please request a regrade.
• Late regrade requests will be ignored. Homework and exam regrades can be requested within Gradescope.
• All regrade requests must include a brief written justification for the request. Good justifications include the following:
  • My answer agrees with the posted solution, but I still lost points.
  • I lost 4 points for an incorrect time analysis, but the rubric says that's only worth 2 points.
  • You took off points for missing the base case, but it's right here (right here!).
  • My answer is correct, even though it does not match the posted solution. (This happens more frequently if your answer is not even remotely similar to the "standard" solution.)
  • There is no explanation for my grade.
  • The official solution is incorrect; here's a counterexample.
  Regrade requests with poor or missing justifications will be denied.
• You will lose all points on a question if you waste our time by submitting repeatedly unjustified regrade requests.
• We can only grade what you actually submitted. You cannot get a higher grade by explaining what you meant, either in person or in writing; your original submission must stand on its own.
• If you submit a regrade request, we will regrade the submitted problem from scratch. The TAs will regrade homework problems; Instructors will regrade exam problems. Your grade may go down.
• We will readily admit, apologize for, and correct our mistakes if you have been graded unfairly. However, please remember that "unfairly" means your grade is inconsistent with the published grading rubric, or that you were graded more harshly than other students, not just that you think the rubric itself is too harsh. Please also keep in mind that each homework point is worth approximately 0.1% of your final course grade. Don't fight for each point like your life depends on it - it does not!
• You would lose points (and potentially all of them) for long and tedious solutions.

Final course grades

1. Compute raw totals from homework and exam scores. Course work is weighted as follows.
   • Homework is worth 28%:
     • When calculating the homeworks contribution to final grade, we drop roughly the bottom 30% of grades you got for homework problems.
     • Specifically, we will include only the top 21 homework problems scores in computing your final grade. We expect to grade 10-11 homeworks, each with 3 problems. Should for some reason we would grade less homework problems, we will stil use the top 21 homework problems.
     • If you submit everything, this policy is equivalent to dropping three complete homework sets.
     • If you submit less than 16 homework problems you are likely to fail unless there is an overriding excuse.
   • Exams are worth 72%: There will be two midterm exams, each worth 21% of your raw total, and a cumulative final exam worth 30% of your raw total.
   • Exceptions:
     • Forgiven midterm exams will be treated as if they did not exist; the other exams will have more weight in the final grade calculation.
     • We will not drop zero grades that result from cheating offenses.

2. Remove outliers at both ends of the curve.
   • Anyone with a raw total over 95% automatically gets an A+. This rule typically applies to the top 1–2% of the class.
   • We reserve the right to give any student meeting at least one of the following conditions an automatic F:
     • Raw total below 33%
     • Raw exam average below 25%
     • Submitted less than half of the homework problems.
     This rule typically applies to the bottom 2-3% of the class. These are not the only ways to fail!

3. Determine letter-grade cutoffs from the raw totals. Outliers are excluded from the cutoff computation to avoid unfairly skewing the curve. The mean is a borderline B–/C+, and each standard deviation is worth one full letter grade. For example, the B+/B cutoff is 2/3 standard deviations above the mean, and the D/D– cutoff is 5/3 standard deviations below the mean.

4. Compute final letter grades (for non-outliers).

5. Adjust grades upwards at the instructor's whim.

Extra credit

• Being in the top few participants on piazza. (As long as most of your answers are useful and correct [and add to the current discussion {i.e., dont repost others answers just to increase your count}] - a campaign of disinformation on piazza would gain you little.)
• We might give some extra credit for fixing the transcription on class transcribe for the lectures. Details are to be determined.