Assessment - CPSC 503 - Fall 2014

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 Assessment

The University policy on grading and related matters is described in the university calendar.

This course aims at providing each student with a research experience under the guidance of a faculty member (supervisor). Part of every research is also the presentation of the results and in general communicating about the research in different stages of the project. The assessment of each student will center around this communication of the research to the outside world, represented by the course instructor.

Research usually starts with a problem and some ideas how to tackle this problem. In theory, this should be enough to write a project proposal that allows the researcher to apply for funding. To mimic this usual process, the first assignment of this class is to write such a project proposal that also provides a first glimpse at the literature in the area of the proposal that the student will read.

At the end of a research project, there are usually two things to do:

From a scholarly point of view, these two things are the most important products, which is reflected by the following table. The following table describes the percentages with which the grades for the deliverables described above will be weigthed to compute the final grade of a student.

Research proposal        20%
Final report        40%
Final presentation        40%

I will grade each of the items above individually (with input from the project supervisor) and then use the percentages to get the final grade. So, if, for example, a student got a B for the research proposal, an A- for the final report and an A for the final presentation, we have: (20*3 + 40*3.7 + 40*4)/100 = 3.68 which will be rounded to 3.7 (i.e. A-).

An A+ will be awarded to every student who gets an A in each of the above components.


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