Project Grading Guidelines

Submitting Projects

Programming assignments are always handed in through the UR's Blackboard system. Do NOT submit materials that need proprietary products. In other words, nothing from Microsoft. No .doc, NO .docx, no .rar, etc. Make sure your code works under linux, make sure your prose submissions are .pdf. If you need help finding the appropriate utilities, see Google(TM), a classmate, or your TA. For instance, zip and tar are OK archive facilities.

The Readme and Program Files

The ReadMe file should be in ASCII: It is a guide to your program or program directory. Its technical purpose is to allow a user (or grader) to run the program and understand its organization. In our case it is also an opportunity for you to point out special features of which you are proud, or limitations you are aware of. Although we do not award a large proportion of points for this file's existence, please note that by using it you can ensure that we award full credit for things the program does, which is a big-point item. So a sloppy, nonprofessional, or missing ReadMe can have serious secondary negative effects on your grade, and a helpful informative one can have large positive effects.

The ReadMe file should contain the following:

Assignment name
===============
Assignment author(s)
Assignment date
Author(s)'s email address(es)
Table of Contents:
Files and contents: List of files, with brief descriptions
User guide: How does the user run the code? What are its inputs and what is their semantics? What outputs should we expect? What do error messages mean? What errors are not caught?

The Report

The report must be in PDF (not .doc).

It should have a section called "Who Did What" that details the contributions of each team member (design, coding, running experiments, writing, research, cooperating, whatever).

Out of 100 possible points, the coding portion is worth 60 and the writing worth 40. In some industrial settings, often the code is "worth" more, but as one advances up the ladder writing increases in importance. In academics, code per se is usually worth nothing except it's what you write about. The current mix emphasizes that aspect on which we expect you'll be spending the most time.

The final grade for the writeup is calculated thus:

Code: 60 Points

Writeup: 40 Points

The documentation and writeup of these open-ended projects is necessarily a significant aspect, since otherwise we won't know what you did (including possibly work that didn't lead to results).

Extra Credit: up to 20 points

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Last update: 1.16.09.