CS/ECE 374 (Spring 2020): 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

• 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.

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.
• 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!

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 the bottom 6 9 grades you got for homework problems.
     • As such, if you submit more than 27 24 homework problems, we keep only your top 27 24 problem scores. (We expect to assign and grade 11 homework sets, each with three problems, so if you submit everything, this is equivalent to dropping two 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 2-3% 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.

Alternate grading scheme (added on 4/7)

• As announced on piazza (4/7), we will adopt an alternate grading scheme, and then take the better of the original scheme (above) and the alternate scheme to determine your final letter grade. In the alternate scheme, we simply take the raw total (as computed above) and apply the published cut-offs from Spring 2019. Namely:

  Min	Max	Letter Grade
  0	40	F
  40	42.2	D-
  42.2	46.65	D
  46.65	51.1	D+
  51.1	55.55	C-
  55.55	60	C
  60	64.45	C+
  64.45	68.9	B-
  68.9	73.35	B
  73.35	77.79	B+
  77.79	82.24	A-
  82.24	92	A
  92	100	A+

• Furthermore, as in the original scheme, we reserve the right to give any student meeting at least one of the following conditions an automatic F:
  • Raw exam average below 25%
  • Submitted less than half of the homework problems.

Pass/No-Pass Grading (announced on 4/15)

• As announced on piazza, the class has officially been approved for Pass/No-Pass grading.
• In the end of the semester, we plan to provide you with a signed electronic letter indicating your letter grade (which some of you may find useful for CA applications, grad school applications, etc.).
• Please note that you are required to take the final exam according to university policies (see the bottom of student code 3-201).
• Note that we may choose to exclude more students (as "outliers") when calculating the cutoffs in the original grading scheme if we feel that the final exam distribution is significantly skewed due to the change to Pass/No-Pass. (The above alternate grading scheme will remain unchanged.)