Grading Philosophy
For many of you, most CS assignments that you’ve had up until this point had clear, crisply defined goals that mapped cleanly to point values. This is impossible in a course that partially relies on design. Simply checking off each of the TODOs on an assignment does not necessarily mean that you’ve created a visualization that is easy and compelling to use. Rather than simply ask “Did you do this?”, there will be the question of “Did you do this well?”. This often translates to “Did you successfully apply the concepts we learned in class to this assignment?”. For example, if you build an app that is functional but breaks many visualization design guidelines or heuristics… that is not a successful application in this class.
Peer Evaluation: Some of the assignments that you complete will include some kind of peer evaluation. We will be critiquing each other’s work throughout the semester using the framing of I Like, I Wish, What If from Stanford’s design school.
Group Work: Group work can be challenging. As a result, in your group project milestones, you will submit a brief assessment of you and your classmates’ work. At the end of the semester, I may use these assessments to reweight the group portion of your grade (either positively or negatively).
Academic Honesty
Emory aims to cultivate a community based on trust, academic integrity, and honor. Students are expected to act according to the highest ethical standards. For information on Emory’s Honor Code, please visit here.
Any student suspected of cheating or plagiarizing on a quiz, exam, or assignment will be reported to the Office of Student Conduct, who will investigate the incident and identify the appropriate penalty for violations.
Unless explicitly stated otherwise, you are expected to complete assignments on your own. It is appropriate to discuss your ideas with others to gain feedback and help with sticky problems. It is not appropriate to find an existing solution online or from your friends, modify them, and submit as your own work. If in doubt, confer with your instructor. It is much easier to ask about these things than handle the consequences of a poor decision.
Timeliness
All assignments are due at the start of class on the day listed in the schedule. You will have a total of 5 “free” late tokens to use for any homework assignments as needed throughout the course. Each token gets you a 24 hour extension on the assignment deadline. E.g., you can use 1 late token for HW1 and 1 for HW3, … These "free" tokens can apply only to homework assignments and cannot be used for group projects. These are for any cases where Institute-approved absences do not apply, and no reason must be given to use them. After the 5 “free” late tokens are used up, any late assignments will receive a 10% per day penalty. Assignments turned in one week or later past the due date will not be graded and given a 0. You do not need to notify the course staff to use late tokens -- they will be automatically applied. Once you use them, you cannot switch them later in the course, so plan wisely. Any unused late tokens at the end of the semester will be added as 5% extra credit per unused token on the lowest homework assignment.
Office of Accessibility Services
Your success in this class is important to me. We all need accommodations because we all learn differently. If there are aspects of this course that prevent you from learning or exclude you, let me know as soon as possible. Together we'll develop strategies to meet both your needs and the requirements of the course.
I encourage you to visit the Office of Accessibility Services to determine how you could improve your learning as well. If you need official accommodations, you have a right to have these met. Students must renew their accommodation letter every semester they attend classes. Contact the Office of Accessibility Services for more information at (404) 727-9877 or email at accessibility@emory.edu. Additional information is available at the OAS website.
Regrade Policy
You can request a re-grade of an assignment within seven days of releasing the grade by sending an email to the course staff. The request should contain a written explanation of why you think that the grade is incorrect. We will look over your work again upon request.
If there is an error, we will of course correct it. However, do not ask for a regrade or a boost simply because you do not like your grade. If your request is based on a rationale of "what's the harm" or "it's worth a try," save your energy. You get the grade that you earn in this class -- no more and no less. Baseless requests for regrades devalue all of your classmates' hard work and waste everyone's time.
Student Support Services
In your time at Emory, you may find yourself in need of support. Here you will find some resources to support you both as a student and as a person.
