Grading Structure: Your final grade will be based on three hour exams (25% each), five short assignments (25%, 5% each), and the “Syllabus Quiz” (required but no grade).
Grades will be posted on Canvas gradebook. Students should regularly check their grades online. 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 assignment, and exam scores are first posted on Canvas.
Exams: Exams will consist of multiple choice, and true and false questions. All exams are administered via Canvas and will be available for a two-day period (they become available at Noon of the exam day), for a 1hour 30 minute window (~100 questions +/-). Once you have accessed the exam, you HAVE to finish it. You get one attempt at the exam. If you have not completed the exam before the date and time deadline, Canvas will automatically close the exam and count only those answers that you have already provided. Exams are open book and open resources, but you MAY NOT receive aid from another student, peer, or human. Whenever information you might find online disagrees with my answers, my answers take precedent (the internet is full of misinformation and half-truths/lies: rely on your notes and lectures from class instead). More details will be provided just before the first exam.
If you happen to experience a catastrophic internet failure or get thrown out of Canvas while taking the exam, don’t panic. Once you have connectivity, try to re-access the exam. If it doesn’t let you back in, contact me via e-mail and we will get you back on track.
Exams cover materials covered since the previous exams. There will NOT be a cumulative final exam. 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.
Exams (SDAO accommodations): Any SDAO accommodations regarding extra time will be honored on the online exams. To be eligible please be sure to have the Duke SDAO office send me your accommodation letter.
Important Information on Exam Policy: Sometimes students aren’t well while taking an exam and do poorly. I have had multiple requests to retake exams over the years. Know that once you take an exam, you cannot retake said exam and you will not be offered an alternative. If you are not well physically or emotionally, consider a short-term illness form and an online meeting with your Academic Dean BEFORE taking the exam. Do not take exams whilst feeling ill. Reach out to me instead and I will work with you on a solution. I can ONLY do this BEFORE a missed exam or deadline.
Assignments: There are five assignments, answers to which you will turn in using the Canvas Quiz function. These are worth 25% (5% each) of your final grade. Assignments include watching multimedia over YouTube or DukeWarpwire, the use of Google Earth Pro, and other short analysis homeworks. I expect that all of you will do your own work when completing homework assignments.
You will be provided THREE attempts to enter your answers into the relevant Canvas quiz assigned for each homework until the due date and time. Assignments and their relevant quizzes will be available from the second day 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. Late assignments will not be accepted. Canvas WILL cut you off as you enter answers if the deadline is approached. Please note that you might be in a different time zone – Canvas deadlines are on EST. At the end of the class, you will each have a chance to make-up, or retake, one assignment quiz of your choice to improve your score. This does not apply to exams.
Syllabus Quiz: You will read carefully through THIS 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 to familiarize yourself with the structure of the course. Please note DUE DATE on this assignment is Wednesday May 22nd 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
These cutoffs are final. Every semester, a handful of students make their case to me over being rounded-up “just fractions of a point” to get to the better grade. I have a strict policy against such a thing. It is not fair to other students, and because the grade spread is usually very narrow, it simply isn’t feasible. The above cut-offs are final, so please don’t ask, and plan accordingly 🙂
THERE WILL BE ABSOLUTELY NO EXTRA CREDIT, ALTERNATIVE, NOR ADDITIONAL ASSIGNMENTS IN THIS CLASS TO RAISE SCORES.
I would be doing you a great disfavor if I allowed this, since the real world does not do this. Part of your time at Duke is to learn your path to the real work environment. There is no “Extra Credit” in the real world.
Recent Comments