Assignments & Grading

Overview • Peer Grading • Grading

Overview

There are 8 required assignments in this course. Many assignments will have multiple parts. The percentage of your grade allotted to each assignment also includes weekly participation in the online forums for that module's topics.

Assignment Name (Link)

Due Date

 Percent of Grade
Module 1 Assignment Tuesday 1/15 at Midnight 10%
Module 2 Assignment Tuesday 1/22 at Midnight 10%
Module 3 Assignment Tuesday 1/29 at Midnight 10%
Module 4 Assignment Tuesday 2/5 at Midnight 10%
Module 5 Assignment Tuesday 2/12 at Midnight 10%
Module 6 Assignment Tuesday 2/19 at Midnight 10%
Module 7 Assignment Tuesday 2/26 at Midnight 10%
Module 8 Assignment Tuesday 3/5 at Midnight 10%
Module 9 Assignment Tuesday 3/12 at Midnight 10%
Final Project Present in Class 9 or 10 10%

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Participation

Class participation is an important part of any course at this level, but crucial to a successful distance course. The grade for a module includes the quality of postings and the regularity of your involvement in the discussion forum. You are expected to read that assigned materials, complete the exercises and participate in class discussion forums on a regular basis. You are expected to ask questions, answer questions or participate in discussions about the readings, assignments or module topic. Active participation requires one contribution (question, answer, suggestion, or comment) per week to a discussion forum. Commenting on a post with "me, too" does not constitute active participation.

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Peer Grading

"Grading" is actually a fairly loose term used to describe the process designed to verify that each class participant has completed (or made a good attempt to complete) each assigned exercise. Since this is a credit/no credit class, the stakes aren't quite as high as if you all were receiving numeric or letter grades. As a result we don't have to be quite as precise as we might otherwise be in terms of "grading" our partner.

Assignment objectives:

  1. Provide enough exercises to expose you to the technologies we are covering.
  2. Provide rapid enough feedback to be beneficial – while you can still remember the assignment.

Here is the solution that I’d like to propose – keeping in mind that I’m doing this after reading all these emails and I am trying to stop the pain as quickly as possible for everyone involved. I might want to refine it further later.

  1. During the first session, we will discuss the peer review system and then you will select an ePeer partner (or ePeers). It is up to you whether you create an ePeer group with two members (the most common) or three to four - keeping in mind a bigger group means both more feedback but also more assignments you have to review. During the first week one of the partnership will send me an email with the members names. A final option might be to form an ePeer pair and then work with another pair on an ad hoc basis.
    Anyone not joining an ePeer team will be assigned by me on Sunday of week two.
  2. Assignments are due every Tuesday by 11:59 pm of the week following the module discussion and grading comments every Friday by 11:59 pm of the same week. Please exchange assignments with your peer partner by attaching your assignment to an email. If you want to work out another exchange vehicle between you, please feel free. Do not cc me. If you can’t meet the schedule, communicate with your grading peer. You don’t need to involve me. Stuff happens. I’ll leave to you to not take advantage of each other.
  3. Reviewers: Either add your comments to the document and send it back to your partner or just send an email with your comments. If you both agree, this can be done by IM, voice, etc. Do not cc me.
  4. Grading – this is always a big question source – this was not and is not critical to either of the two objectives. The comments are FAR more important, but please include in your comments a numerical evaluation using 0-4 grading. I don’t want you to spend a lot of time on worrying about this – be subjective as in “this looks (or felt) like a 3.8 to me”. If it leads to another exchange between you, fine.
  5. I will send a grading summary (Excel) out shortly. Each grading team will submit I copy to me at the end of the quarter – with both of your module scores. I will be looking primarily to see that you were doing the work.

If a peer group breaks up for whatever reason, please find another team to join OR I’ll ask a group to work with you. Having said this, if two groups prefer they can form one group and get three sets of feedback – your call, you don’t need my permission.

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Grading

This is a credit/no credit class. Although you will not receive a grade, there are a number of requirements.

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Last updated: Sunday, 24-Feb-2008 19:26:19 PST
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