All posts by Dr Kristin Stephens-Martinez, Ph.D.

(In-person) Exam Retakes

This post outlines what the in-person exam retakes will be like.

Tell us you are coming by filling out the retake exam via this form (by Tuesday 12/9; help save paper!)

  • When: Monday 12/15, 2-5 pm
    • Exam 1 Retake: 2-3:15 pm
    • Exam 2 Retake: 3:45-5:00 pm
    • (We will likely have a wiggle room of 5 minutes around these times, but we will not start early)
  • Where: Perkins 217 (usual lecture room)
  • Your exam grade for each exam will be the max of the original and the retake.
  • There are two in-person exam retakes. One for each of the midterm exams.
  • Each retake will cover only the original modules covered by that exam. For that information, see the calendar or the original exam logistics posts.
  • You are allowed one helper sheet per exam. You can only have one out per exam if you bring different ones for each exam.
  • Each exam will be 75 minutes long.
    • If you have an SDAO accommodation, you need to schedule a time with the testing center. Multiply 75 minutes by your extra time and the number of exams you plan to retake. We will handle merging the exam pdfs into a single “exam” retake. If you cannot handle that long of an exam due to your accommodations, email the class email address ASAP.
  • There will be no regrade window due to the necessary turnaround time for submitting grades. If you wish to discuss your grade, you must email Prof. Stephens-Martinez.

Specific information

  • Exam 1 Retake
  • Exam 2 Retake
    • The data set used for this exam is Seaborn’s tips data set.
    • If this is the only exam you are retaking, DO NOT come into the room until after the Exam 1 Retake is done (So aim to arrive after 3:30). Please do not disturb your classmates.
    • See Exam 2 logistics for any other information.

Exam 02 Logistics: Practicum

This post outlines the Practicum 2 part of Exam 2. See the in-person Exam 2 or Practicum 2 Update posts for details on the other parts. Study exams are in the Box folder.

  • Modules: 06 – 08
  • When: Friday 11/14 12:01am to Saturday 11/15 11:59pm
    • There is no class on Friday.
    • It should take you (and your partner) around 3-6 hours to complete, but you can take as long as you want. It must be submitted before the end of the Saturday.
    • NOTE: The expected hours to complete is longer than Practicum 1’s estimate.
  • All other details are the same as Practicum 1’s logistics.

Exam 02 Logistics: In-Person Exam

This post outlines the in-person part of Exam 2. See the Practicum 2 or Practicum 2 Update posts for details on the other parts.

  • Modules covered: 06 – 08
  • When: Wednesday 11/12, during regular class time
  • A calculator is strongly recommended. But if you forget, you will be okay because no exact calculations are required.
  • The formulas you will need are printed on the exam’s front page. See an example on the study exam.
  • Code on the exam
    • The data set used for this exam is Seaborn’s planet data set. We recommend familiarizing yourself with the columns’ meanings.
    • It will have code reading (so know what these functions do), in particular:
      • The results of calling the describe function on a data set.
      • The results of a seaborn function call: groupby and pivot_table
  • All other details are the same as In-person Exam 1’s logistics, including:
    • You will not write code.
    • We will release a study exam and Canvas study quiz.
    • You may bring one piece of paper as a helper sheet and can put things on the front and back.

Grading Scale and Points Allocation

This is the same as Exam 1’s logistics in that problems are graded on an ESNU scale. How many points each rubric level is worth depends on the question. A question’s worth depends on how many questions in the exam are testing the same concept (more questions for that concept means fewer points for each question). The goal is that an exam with only S’s on every question results in a 90% because it indicates a Satisfactory level of understanding of all the concepts the exam is testing, rather than Exemplary.

Exam 02 Logistics: Practicum Update

This post outlines the Practicum 2 Update part of Exam 2. See the in-person Exam 2 or Practicum 2 posts for details on the other parts. Study exams are in the Box folder.

  • When: Thursday 11/20 – Saturday 11/22 Sunday 11/23 (due to typo on the calendar)
    • Wednesday 11/19’s class will cover general feedback on Practicum 2.
    • Friday 11/21’s class is optional and will be for Project consulting or questions on Practicum 2. Prof. Stephens-Martinez will run it over Zoom and will be in her office if you want to ask her in person.
  • All other details are the same as Practicum 1 Update’s logistics.

Exam 01 Logistics: In-Person Exam

This post outlines the in-person part of Exam 1. See the Practicum 1 or Practicum 1 Update posts for details on the other parts.

  • Modules covered: 2 – 5
  • When: Wednesday 10/15, during regular class time
  • Is in-person only
  • Bring a calculator.
  • It is a paper exam taken during class.
  • We will print and provide a reference sheet for you at the exam. See what it is in the exam Box folder.
  • You may bring one piece of standard-sized paper as a cheatsheet and can put things on the front and back.
  • There will be multiple versions.
  • Code on the exam
    • It will have no code writing and focus more on thinking like a data scientist.
    • It will have code reading (so know what these functions do), in particular:
      • The results of calling the describe() function on a data set.
      • The results of a seaborn function call: catplot(), displot(), or relplot().
    • You will not be tested on regular expressions on the paper exam.
    • The data set used for this exam is Seaborn’s planet data set. We recommend familiarizing yourself with the columns’ meanings.

Study Exams

  • Canvas Exam 1 Study Quiz
    • Worth 2 class engagement points
    • Includes randomized question pools for all questions that can be auto-graded of all past exams.
  • Study Exam in exam Box folder
    • You may see a question in here that is duplicated from the Canvas quiz, that’s because part of it is not auto-gradeable and we wanted to ensure you saw what the question will look like on the actual exam.
    • Solutions for the exam in Box will be released on the Friday before the exam. This is to encourage everyone to try the study exams before looking at the solutions.

Grading Scale and Points Allocation

For the questions that do not have a clear correct or incorrect answer or where partial credit is warranted, the following rubric will be used.

  • E (Exemplary) – Work that meets all requirements and displays full mastery of all learning goals and material.
  • S (Satisfactory) – Work that meets all requirements and displays at least partial mastery of all learning goals as well as full mastery of core learning goals.
  • N (Not yet) – Work that does not meet some requirements and/or displays developing or incomplete mastery of at least some learning goals and material.
  • U (Unassessable) – Work that is missing, does not demonstrate meaningful effort, or does not provide enough evidence to determine a level of mastery.

The number of points earned is distributed across the problems based on the number of learning goals they are testing. The rubric will be converted to points as follows:

  • E = full credit
  • S = E_full_credit – some small value resulting in around E_full_credit*0.9
  • N = E_full_credit * 0.6
  • U = E_full_credit * 0.2
  • Blank = 0

Exam 01 Logistics: Practicum

This post outlines the Practicum of Exam 1. See the in-person Exam 1 or Practicum 1 Update posts for details on the other parts.

  • Modules covered: 2 – 5
  • When: Friday 10/17 12:01am to Saturday 10/18 11:59pm
    • There is no class on Friday.
    • It should take around 2-3 hours to complete, but you can take as much time as you need. It must be submitted before the deadline.
  • Study Practicum in exam Box folder
  • This can be done in a pair. See details below regarding logistics, the definition of collaboration, and the consequences of collaboration without proper citation.
  • It is a take-home, open-book, open-note, open-internet, and open-AI practicum.
    • Each question will have a variable you set to True or False to indicate if you used an LLM when answering this question.
  • It is closed to anyone outside you (and your partner if you have one). So, do not ask someone to do it for you or ask on places like stackoverflow.
  • It focuses on coding and interpreting the results of that code.
  • Consists of a Jupyter Notebook and a data set
    • Recommendation: Discuss in advance with your partner (if you have one) how you will create the final submission and who will submit it.
  • At the start of the practicum, a Canvas announcement will be sent with a link to the Box folder containing all the necessary files.
  • The act of submitting or being part of a submission means that you are upholding the Duke community standard that you contributed equally to this submission and only talked amongst yourselves when working on it.
  • Protect the integrity of the practicum and your submission.
    • Take your practicum:
      • In a secure location where only you (and your partner) can see your screen (and only your partner can talk to you).
      • In a place where you will not be distracted or tempted to talk to someone beyond your partner (if you have one).
    • You can do the following only after grades have been published for the Practicum Update. Doing any of these before grades are published will be considered a violation of the Duke Community Standard.
      • Discuss what you did on the practicum.
      • Show your solutions to other students.
      • View other solutions.
  • If you have a question during the practicum, ask it as a private new message on the class forum, in helper hours, or during class time when Prof. Stephens-Martinez will be in the TA helper hours Zoom room.
    • We cannot help you debug your code. If the notebook or autograder appears not to be working, but it turns out your code has a bug, you will be graded according to your submission.
    • We will do our best to always have someone checking the forum. However, we cannot promise that someone will instantly answer your question.
    • The practicum is tested for readability, so the wording should be straightforward.

Collaboration on the Practicum

  • Working in a pair means you collaborated on the Practicum.
    • Collaboration – 2 people have collaborated if one or both have given or received work/help on the Practicum. Notice these are “or’s.” That means if you share your Practicum with another person, even if that person did not give you anything in return, you both are now considered collaborators and should include each other in your notebook(s) as a partner.
    • This also means that if 2 people submit together and then 1 person shares that submission with a 3rd person, who then submits something too similar to have been done in isolation, all 3 are considered collaborators because it is impossible to detect who shared with whom. This collaboration is then considered a violation of the rules and, therefore, a violation of the Duke Community Standard.
  • The NetIds of all those who worked on the notebook must be listed in the notebook. There will be a 0-point test case with two variables for the NetIds of you and your partner. If you are solo, the notebook will state what to fill in for the other variable.
    • If you do not do this and we detect your notebooks as too similar to have been done in isolation, this is considered a violation of the Duke Community Standard.
  • You and your partner may submit notebooks separately or as a single submission. If you plan to submit identical files, you must submit as a single submission. Please help the graders be efficient.

Grading Scale and Points Allocation

This is the same as Exam 1’s in-person exam, with the following addition:

  1. For Exemplary – The code is clean and easy to read (see the study exam for examples of what this means).
  2. Unit tests in the autograder for the Practicum will earn you points up to, but not quite, the U level.
  3. How much fewer points an S is worth compared to an E depends on the practicum part. The practicum totals to 100 points. The goal is earning only S’s results in a low A. So, for example, if the Practicum has only 4 questions, an S would lose 2.5 points compared to an E, which means getting all S’s is a low A (90%), but still guarantees an A on the Practicum.

Regrades

The regrade window for the Practicum will open immediately upon release, so you can gain clarification to help you with the Practicum Update. It will remain open for 7 days, in accordance with our usual regrade request policy.

Exam 01 Logistics: Practicum Update

This post outlines the Practicum Update part of Exam 1. See the in-person Exam 1 or Practicum 1 posts for details on the other parts

  • Your group will have the option to update your Practicum after seeing the results of your Practicum grade. If you choose to submit an update, your grade for the Practicum will be as follows:
    • Practicum (original): 15%
    • Practicum Update: 85%
  • When: Thursday 10/23 – Saturday 10/25
    • This is during Module 7.
  • For the update, you will do the following:
    • Update your original notebook as needed.
    • Fill in the template diff cell at the top of the Practicum and list all of the changes you made from your original submission.
      • This is worth 0.5 points per question.
      • We may not grade your update properly if you do not do this.
  • We may grade outside of your changes because the Practicum aims to show your competency level in the material, not your competency + what the graders accidentally miss in the first grading.

Restart and Run All

Here is a guide on how to submit properly formatted .ipynb files for homework and exams.

This is important because a common way to detect bugs that the autograder might find is to first restart the kernel and run everything. Moreover, it is the equivalent of ensuring that you are submitting a polished notebook.

Here is a tool that you can use to  verify whether your notebook is correctly formatted (instructions are in the “How to confirm it is correctly formatted” section):

restart_run_all_verification_tool.ipynb

It is part of the code that we use to verify your notebook and deduct points, in other words, if your notebook pass the tests in this tool, you should expect no penalty.

Steps to restart the kernel and run all

Go to the button labeled “Kernel” at the top of the page.

Click on the “Kernel” button to open this dropdown menu. Now click “Restart & Run All …“.

This box will then appear. Click the red button.

IMPORTANT NOTES:

  • If any code cells encounter errors, the execution will stop, and the remaining cells will not run, which will result in an incorrectly formatted notebook.
  • After all cells have successfully run, make sure to SAVE the notebook before submitting it.

How to confirm it is correctly formatted

With the tool we provided

After setting the file_path variable to your homework notebook’s file path, run the entire notebook. The output of the last cell should indicate whether your notebook is correctly formatted. If it is not, it should provide you with additional information about the first cell it finds with this issue.

On your machine

After following the instructions above, your notebook code cells’ “[#] ” labels will be in numerical order. Make sure to confirm that all code cells are run. This is a properly formatted .ipynb file. 

On Gradescope

After you submit the notebook to Gradescope, you can click the “Code” button to see how Gradescope renders your notebook. This would also be the version that TA will see during manual grading.

Example of an incorrectly formatted notebook

In example 1, the cell following “[1]” is not “[2]”, and it’s clear that the next cell is run multiple times, so it is deemed an improperly formatted .ipynb file.

In example 2, although this .ipynb file below is in numerical order, the first cell in the file does not start with “[1]” and there is no markdown cells before it, so it is deemed an improperly formatted .ipynb file. 

example 1: example 2:

 

Issue with cell numbering broken

If you have correctly followed the above instructions but the cell numbering is still weird, it might be due to some defects in your environment.

As an example, the cell following cell “[6]” should be numbered as “[7]”. However, if there is a markdown cell between these two code cells, the counter unexpectedly counts that markdown cell as the 7th cell due to some environment issue.

Currently, as the libraries are still in development and we might encounter this weirdness unavoidably , we will consider this behaviour as acceptable if you clearly follow the instructions above to create a clean notebook.

If you want to fix this issue, some current suggestions are:

  1. [Recommended] Use the Duke container to re-run your notebook, then download the clean version and submit it. You can find the guide in Resource page.
  2. If you are working on your local machine, you can try to update/re-install Jupyter lab in Anaconda, then re-do the above process. If problem still persists, you can try to re-install the Anaconda distribution.
  3. You can use some other online free resources such as Google Colab.
  4. Additional discussions are listed here: [1], [2].