Course Grading Page
CSE 118: Applications in Ubiquitous Computing

This course is graded on two elements: discussion prepration and discussion (50%), project (50%).

Discussion Preparation and Discussion (50%)

This class cannot "run" unless you come to class thoroughly prepared. You will be doing the discussing, not me. Your preparation for class, and your active engagement during class are essential to the success of the course, your learning, and your grade.

Normally I will be judging your preparation based on what happens in class, the discussion (25%). However, I will also be collecting your annotated readings in order to assess your preparation skills and give you feedback, and I'm weighing the idea of using online pre-class mini-quizzes (25%). Participation records will be created during class by your peers (and me and the TA) marking up rubrics. I will allow for 3 class absences (or non-preparations) over the quarter (e.g., for sickness, job interviews). In other words, I will drop the three lowest participation grades. Showing up ready to participate counts for a lot, even if you don't say much. I cannot accept the turn-in of a marked-up paper in lieu of coming to class; they are a package. Finally, participation in the class mailing list counts as participation. The topics allowed here are broad, such as: continuing class discussion, forwarding relevant news items, and reporting your own ubicomp experiences.

In this category, at the end of the course I will be assessing how much you have learned over the course (10%, split across the above components). The fact that you do not know how to read a technical paper or discuss it with peers at the beginning of the course will not impact your final grade. Thus, at the beginning I will be primarily grading effort, but by the end I will also be looking at the results.

Project (50%)

The project will be graded on the following elements: proposal (10%), paper (20%), and final presentation (20%). There is an overlap between the paper and the audio-visual presentation when it comes to assessing the project itself and its results, as opposed to the presentation of the results. The exact formula will be provided later in a rubric, but the percentage may not be as substantial as you'd think. Because we have a large class this year, the project presentations will have to be quite short, perhaps focusing substantially on material that cannot be presented in a paper (e.g., a demo, field video, or interviews with subjects). This would make the two elements rather disjoint.

Finally, we will be using peer evaluations to help with project grading. For each project team member and yourself, you will be asked to assign a few grades in a small number of categories (e.g., effort and team player). These grades may affect your project grade up to 1 letter grade in either direction, up or down.