Your course grade for csci-e26 is based on seven assignments, one midterm, and one final exam. The final exam counts 30% of the grade, the midterm counts 20% of the grade, and the assignments count for 45% of the grade. Participation is 5%. All work is based on a 100-point scale.

Homework Deadlines and Late Points

The homework builds on material presented in class and on ideas in previous homeworks, in some cases. Doing your homework on time helps you learn. Also, the teaching assistants can do a better job grading homework if they do a bunch at once.

Each homework assignment has a due date. We will read, comment on, grade, and return your work within a week of the day you submit it (unless you turn it in early, in which case we'll do it within a week of the due date.)

Late homework is charged a 10 point penalty for each day late. The computer program that accepts homeworks adds the late points automatically.

Emergencies and Over-runs

Sometimes things come up and you cannot get a project done on time. Sometimes a project takes a day or two longer than you planned. The grading policy is built with one crisis and a few over-runs in mind.

Drop Lowest Good Faith Effort Your lowest homework score is dropped, providing you made a good faith effort to do it. For example, if you get swamped at work, your kid breaks a leg, or you get married and cannot meet a deadline, then you can do the work a week later or so. That shows a good faith effort, and we shall drop that score from your average. If you turn in a project on time and it does not work and or is a mess and gets a low score, but shows some effort, we drop that one.

If you do not turn in work at all, you get zero for that one.

Four Late Days Included for Free! You get four late days for free. That is, if you turn in all the homework but turn in four of them, each one day late, that is four late days, those four days will not be charged. If you accumulate five late days, then you get charged for one late day. You can take your four late days all on one project or you can spread them across a few.

This means you do not have to ask for an extension. You just get four extension days to spend as you please.

Does Not Apply to Last Assignment The late days may not be used for the last assignment. The due date for final grades at the Registrar's office imposes an absolute limit to when assignments must be graded. Therefore, no late submissions will be accepted for the last project.

What if I need More?

Then you may be taking too many courses, have too many thing going on outside the course, or are not prepared for the class. Please work within this budget; we cannot make exceptions without being unfair to other students or put an undue burden on the teaching assistants.