Grading Structure: Your final grade will be based on three in-class (1.25 hours long) exams (16% each), five assignments (50%, 10% each), and the “Syllabus Quiz” (2% of final grade).
Grades will be posted on Canvas gradebook. Students should regularly check their grades there. If you are missing a grade on gradebook or have found an error contact the instructors via e-mail right away. You have 3 days to correct grade errors from the time that homework grades are first posted on Canvas. After that, scores are final and cannot be changed.
Exams: Exams will consist of multiple choice, and true and false questions. All exams are administered via the Canvas online quiz menu. Exams cover materials covered since the previous exams. There will NOT be a cumulative final exam, nor will there be any exam during finals week. To see when the third exam is, please see the lecture schedule. If you are excused from an exam, you have 3 days to make-up said exam (those 3 days include two days for weekend)
Assignments: There are five assignments, answers to which you will turn in using the Canvas quizzes and testing function. These are worth 50% (10% each) of your final grade. Assignments include watching multimedia over YouTube or Duke Warpwire, the use of Google Earth, and other short analysis homework. We expect that all of you will do your own work when completing homework assignments.
You will be provided with THREE attempts to enter your answers into the relevant Canvas quiz assigned for each homework UNTIL the deadline. Assignments and their relevant quizzes will be made available from the first week of class (but it serves you well to do them as we cover the relevant background materials). The listed due dates and times for each assignment are final. After you have submitted your answers, sign out of Canvas, sign back in, and check that your submission was successful. Without a valid excuse you are not eligible to make-up missed assignments, however, everyone has the chance to make up or retake ONE assignment at the end of the class (Friday June 20th – Monday, June 23rd) without penalty. Details on how to request these opportunities will be provided near the end of the semester.
Syllabus Quiz: You will read carefully through THIS (you are looking at it) online course website and then take the associated “syllabus quiz” on Canvas. You have an unlimited number of trials to get all the answers correct. This serves familiarize yourself with the structure of the course. The syllabus quiz is due on Friday May 16th, 2025, at midnight.
Final Grade Cutoffs +/-: Final grade cutoffs will follow this distribution (your final percentage will be rounded to the nearest integer):
A+ 98, 99, 100
A 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97
A- 90, 91
B+ 88, 89
B 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87
B- 80, 81
C+ 78, 79
C 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77
C- 70, 71
D+ 68, 69
D 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67
D- 60, 61
F <60
THERE WILL BE ABSOLUTELY NO EXTRA CREDIT IN THIS CLASS
(Extra credit is an odd US idiosyncrasy that solicits embarrassed pity-faces among our international colleagues). There is no such thing as extra credit in the real-world work environment.
Here and here are some interesting perspectives on why extra credit is a bad idea. These do not exactly match my personal views but they come close.
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