AD1 Assignments, Labs, Lessons, & Supplemental Instruction

• Submission and Deadlines: All solutions, with mandatory cover information and declarations, must be submitted via the course manager (instructions), whose clock may be different from yours. A solution may only be submitted by email or hardcopy upon prior written permission by the oracle assistant, upon reporting a convincing case of force majeure; the permission is only valid for that assignment. Submission deadlines are soft but become hard 48 hours later, except in cases of force majeure, with a 10 point penalty for submission during the first 24 hours and a 20 point penalty for submission during the next 24 hours. Re-submission deadlines (see below) are also soft but become hard 48 hours later, except in cases of force majeure, but with a 5 point penalty for re-submission during the first 24 hours and a 10 point penalty for re-submission during the next 24 hours. Grading will only start after a deadline becomes hard, so you can submit multiple times until then.

• Grading: The grading of an assignment will normally be finished on the Tuesday before the lesson for that assignment; otherwise you initially earn a Z (pending) grade on that assignment. The content of the lesson may reflect the correct or incorrect aspects of your particular solution. An acceptable solution has 70 to 100 assignment points (before penalty deductions) and earns a G (good) grade. An unacceptable but serious solution (there is a reasonable attempt to answer each sub-question) has 30 to 69 assignment points (before penalty deductions) and earns a K (completion) grade. A missing (see the definition under Teamwork below) or non-serious solution has 0 assignment points and earns a U (failure) grade.

The acceptability and seriousness thresholds are at the discretion of the main instructor and the assistants. The acceptability threshold is higher than at the exam, as the aims are to learn something and to prepare for the exam. The acceptability threshold includes at least a high degree of correctness, completeness, and compliance with the coding convention (English version) of this course, plus full spell-checking, even of source code. Non compliance with the coding convention will result in 0 assignment points, without anyone reading the rest of your solution, even if it is correct and complete.

• Re-Submission: If you get a K or Z grade on an assignment, then you must attend the lesson for that assignment, in order to reduce the risk that you repeat the same errors. If you cannot attend that lesson in a convincing case of force majeure, then you must let the oracle assistant know the reason by email as early as possible, ideally in advance, and provide written evidence for that reason; otherwise your score is reduced to 0 (zero) points and your grade becomes U. The attendance of a lesson is highly recommended even if you get a G grade on its assignment.

If you get 0 to 69 points for an assignment (after penalty deductions) but not a U grade, then you may submit a second solution until the re-submission deadline of that assignment. Note that the current version of the course manager only allows one resubmission until the resubmission deadline. Grading is as above, and we will use the highest score of both submissions, but the maximum score is 70 assignment points (after penalty deductions).

In summary, for a given assignment, letting S in [0..100] be the score on your first solution, letting PS in {0,10,20} be the penalty on your first solution, letting R in [0..100] be the score on your re-submitted solution, and letting PR in {0,5,10} be the penalty on your re-submitted solution, under the convention that R = 0 = PR if you choose not to re-submit, the following decision table gives the number of points for that assignment:

Score	Lesson Attendance	Lesson Attended?	Assignment Points
S=0	recommended	yes / no	0
S in [30..69]	mandatory	no	0
S in [30..69]	mandatory	yes	min(70,max(S-PS,R-PS-PR))
S in [70..100] but S-PS < 70	recommended	yes / no	min(70,max(S-PS,R-PS-PR))
S-PS in [70..100]	recommended	yes / no	S-PS

• Teamwork: Every solution must be prepared by a team of two students, both being first-time students or both being non-first-time students of this course. A solution may only be submitted solo upon prior written permission by the oracle assistant, upon reporting a convincing case of force majeure; the permission is only valid for that assignment. Teams can under no circumstance comprise more than two students. Teams may change between assignments. Do not use the group submission feature of the course manager, but submit two identical copies of the solution and clearly indicate inside who the students are. A random solution copy of a team will be graded, so make sure they are identical. The lateness penalty, if any, on a solution of a team is determined by the time of arrival of the last copy of the solution. The solution of a team is considered missing if at least one of the copies is still missing after the deadline becomes hard.

• Ethics: The legislation on cheating (English summary) of the IT department will be rigorously applied, without exceptions. We reserve the right to use plagiarism detection tools and point out that they are very powerful. We assume that by submitting a solution you are certifying that it is solely the work of your team, except where explicitly stated otherwise, and that each team-mate can individually explain any part of the solution.

• Credit Points and Expected Effort: The 1 higher-education credit point (1 hp) for the assignments is awarded, with a godkänd (G) grade, upon collection of at least 280 (of 400) assignment points, provided you get at least 30 assignment points on each assignment.

Note that the whole course is worth 5 hp, which translates into an expected 133 hours of work for the average student, including attending scheduled events (totalling about 45 hours, including the exam), reading and understanding the material, as well as preparing your assignment solutions. In other words, and since the assignments are also meant to help prepare for the exam, the assignments may well be calibrated to take 20 hours each, on the average! This does not clash with other courses you are taking, as university studies are defined to take 400 hours of work over a 10-week-period.

• Former Students: Students from previous academic years who have not yet been awarded the credit point(s) for the assignments should follow the relevant instructions in the FAQ list.

• Failure: The lecture contents, assignment questions, submission rules, or main instructor of a course can change from one academic year to another, and the incremental completion of assignment duties over the years is not a student right: it is best to complete (the assignments of) a course the year it is taken. The current instructor stopped granting that right (see the previous item) as the administration thereof turned out to be more time-consuming than the alternative.

These rules are effective as of 22 March 2010. The instructor reserves the right to modify them at any moment, should special circumstances call for this.