CSCI399 Assessment
For 2009, there will be five assignments totalling 50% and an examination for 50%. These are individual assignments; collaborative work will be penalized.
Exercsises
There are exercises that should be attempted before the assignments.
Assignments
The assignments cover:
Assignment reports
The assignments typically require you to write several small programs. You are assessed on reports that contain listings of your code together with your own commentary on your code and various supplementary data. These reports should be prepared using a word processor and coverted to PDF format before submission.
The "Resources" for CSCI399 include a driver that can be installed on a Windows machine enabling "printing" to PDF files.
Markers will receive these PDF files to mark. They generate report files that contain your final mark and the reasons that lead the marker to award that mark. The marker should also provide their Unix login id. These report files get mailed back to you once all markers have completed marking an assignment (the mail will appear to come from the lecturer, but is in fact generated by an automatic script). You should contact your marker via email if you have cause to dispute the final mark; the marker will send me an updated mark if appropriate.
Submission via turnin
The CSCI399 subject uses an electronic submission system called turnin.
The commands to submit an assignment are included with each assignment description.
Typically the command will be something like:
turnin -c csci399 -a 2 A2.pdf
The -c csci399 part identifies the subject. The -a 2
part identifies the assignment. The file name must match that specified
in the assignment and defined in the script that controls the turnin
program.
The turnin program is not chatty. You won't receive any emails congratulating you on your successful submission of an assignment. There is simply a terse acknowledgement when the turnin command runs. (The turnout command can be used to check that your files are safely recorded.)
The turnin program uses a disk that is only accessible
by the banshee computer. This means that you must be
logged in on the main CS undergraduate machine banshee.
Workstations, such as the Linux PCs in the laboratories, are independent machines -
they
are not banshee-terminals. If you are using a workstation, you must use
secure shell (ssh) to login to banshee before you use turnin. (If you
use turnin on a machine other than banshee you will get a somewhat
confusing error message about turnin not knowing about the course for
which you are submitting an assignment.)
Late submission is possible with a mark penalty. You do not have to make application to submit late, you just use the late submission facility. Late submission is open for 72 hours. Assignments cannot be submitted once late submission time is over.
If you have reasons for a late submission (health problems etc) you should report these via the SOLS system. Late penalties will then not apply. You cannot extend a submission past the late submission time.
A late submission for assignment 2 would take the form:
turnin -c csci399 -a 2late A2.pdf
The 5th assignment is due on the last day of session - there will be no late submission permitted for A5.
Marks on SMP
The marks for assignments should appear on SMP. (You should also see your mark when you get the marker report mailed back to you.) Check that the data in SMP are correct - these are the data that will be used to calculate your final grade.
Examination
Old examination papers are not usually provided (though it's possible that the 2008 paper is in the library). Hints are not given as to the content of this year's exam.
Examinations are not a good mechanism for evaluating your abilities in a subject like this with a strong practical emphasis. You can never write real code under examination conditions. Your experience with the different technologies is so slight that you cannot write learned essays critiquing their varying strengths and weaknesses. Consequently, the examination is a fairly low key affair with just a series of short answer questons.
There are questions on: