CIS 4205 Grading and Policies

Grading

Final grades in CIS 4205 will be based on accumulated points from quizzes, assignments, and the course project.
Grades are not assigned based on strict percentages of points, but rather by relative performance within the class.
To ensure a good grade, turn in all the assignments, as most points will be awarded simply for making the attempt.
However, don't expect perfect scores to come easily! The assignments and quizzes are intended to be challenging.

Potentially 144 points are available from three categories, as follows:

• participation in class, 24 points (17%)
• 3 quizzes, 8 points each, total 24 points (17%)
• 5 assignments, 6 to 12 points each, total 48 points (33%)
• 4 milestones in the course project, total 48 points (33%)

Here are the expected milestones for the course project:

• End of week 3 - project proposal, 6 points
• End of week 5 - initial parallel design, 10 points
• End of week 7 - working parallel program, 18 points
  • syntactically correct and functional code: 12 points
  • performance modeling and reporting: 6 points
• End of week 8 - project completion, 14 points
  • fully debugged and improved code: 6 points
  • final 5-minute presentation: 8 points

Assignments are to be turned in via email on the due date. The day is defined to end at midnight.

Late assignments will be accepted with a 15% penalty up to one week after the due date.

Policies

Collaboration:

All assignments that are turned in should represent original work.

• Students should not complete assignments for each other.
• Discussion among classmates in general terms is permitted and encouraged.
• Ideas taken from other sources must be cited appropriately.
• Downloaded or re-used code fragments must be identified with proper attribution.
• Principle: don’t give the impression of inventing or originating something that you haven’t.

Academic Integrity:

Total integrity is expected of all students.

• Pressure is no excuse. Talk to the instructor if you're having trouble.
• Evidence of outright dishonesty will result in a failing grade.
• For more information, see Cornell's Code of Academic Integrity.

Class Computing Account:

The computing account is provided in support of class exercises and projects, only.

• The account is not to be used for production computing for your thesis research, e.g.
• A different account should be set up if more HPC resources are needed or desired.
• Longer runs are fine for proof of principle, performance tuning, or similar purposes.

The resources provided through the computing account should be used prudently.

• Give short time limits to batch jobs so if something goes wrong, resources will not be wasted.
• Likewise, kill jobs that run unexpectedly long; possibly this is due to an infinite loop or deadlock.
• Do use the batch nodes for runs that take longer than a minute or so—don’t tie up the login nodes.

The bottom line is: use good judgment so that you do not abuse the class computing account.