Grade Distribution

Engin 103 Policies, Late Penalties, and Grade Distribution

Home-work	Individual	20%
Class-work	Individual	20%
Projects 0,1,2,3	By teams	60%
Daily log book and final exam	Individual	20%

Projects

1,2,3

Progress report and documentation

70%

Performance

20%

Presentation

(Web page + Discussion)

10%

Required materials

Apart from the required textbooks, each student must have the following materials available at any time:

An active email address

A personal letter-size quadrille notebook* (please number pages consecutively)

A CD-RW, zip disk or box of 3 ¼ floppy disks to store files.

*Available in the campus bookstore

Home-works

Usually announced on Thursdays, due the following Thursday in class. Graded individually.

Class-works

Announced in class, due at the end of the class, on

Textbooks reading. Have the textbooks handy!

Logbook

Logbook ( a learning journal) is emphasized as an important design and learning tool: in an active learning approach, students are presented with activities, after completing these, they are encouraged to extract their own conclusions about the different activities and their interconnections. Guidance is available to extract the right conclusions. These conclusions should be kept in the logbook as their body of knowledge on engineering and its tools is evolving along the course. Each student must keep an individual letter-size quadrille notebook with their names in the front cover, and consecutively numbered pages. Grades will be based on whether a logbook is up-to-date, concise, complete (with sifficient learning conclusions from all course-related activities), with detailed sketches and drawings; Click here to see an example of a

page of a logbook. The logbooks will be collected for grading on specific days (consult the electronic syllabus). In addition, unannounced collection of logbooks will be made in class, grade deductions applied if these are not available, or available

but not updated. Logbooks can be submitted with improvements for re-grading.

Team logs (Optional)

Each team will keep a daily meeting log. These logs are kept in a team folder. At the beginning of each class, the team reporter will get the folder from the instructor, returning it at the end of the class. Click here to see an example of the in-class-team-meeting log. Each team is required to turn in two out-of-class meeting logs for project 0, and three out-of-class meeting logs for projects 1,2,3. Click here to see an example of the out-of-class-team-meeting log.

Projects

Project 0 is short. Projects 1,2,3 will be announced on specific dates (check the course electronic syllabus) usually four weeks before the presentations. The progress reports are due two weeks before the presentations. Project documentations are due the next class after the presentations. Although all team members should participate equally in every project, only the student who wrote the progress report, project documentation, or prepared the team web page should appear as the author. This does not mean the other team members will not receive credits. All member will receive credit for that project according to the Appendix signed and submitted by the team (see below). In order to qualify for a grade, each student should appear at least once as a team Webmaster, and once as the author of a team project documentation. Project documentations will not be accepted without an appendix as follows:

Team members (in print)	Percentage of participation of each member (full is 100%) in the design/building/ analysis/improvements of this project (in print)	Date and signatures (hand writing)

The team web page is due with the project presentation or “competition” (no html knowledge is assumed, all instructions and helps to put up and maintain a web page will be provided). It should include a self-contained explanation of the designs/buildings/analyses/improvements (drawings, graphs, and tables are required elements) leading to the team project. The targeted audience is your classmates. Peer evaluation on these presentations will be made following the “competitions”. Name of the Webmaster(s) for a particular project should appear on the web page.

The recommended team work distribution for a particular project is as follows: all team members must participate in the designs/buildings/analyses/improvements of the project; one member will be the Webmaster for that project, and another member will be responsible for writing the project documentation.

Teamwork

Suppose a team received a grade of 55/60 for the four projects (0,1,2,3), in order for a team member to actually receive this grade, she/he should have

1-Received a 100% of participation in all four projects as listed in the appendix of the team reports (see instruction above). This means that she/he has participated in all team meetings (meeting dates and times are set by agreement from all members), and has carried out the tasks she/he and the team has agreed upon regarding the design/building/analysis/improvements of a project. Please be fair, a 100% participation cannot be assigned if you agreed to do certain tasks but finally failed to do it. If a member fails to do his/her job more than once without a justified reason, the other members may ask him/her to leave the team. In this case there is no guarantee this member can find a team if all teams are filled, he/she might consequently have to work alone (notice that grading criteria will not change, and most project presentations require the collaborations of more than 2 members)

2-Worked once as the Progress Report and Project Report writer

3-Worked once as a Web Master

Due dates and Late Penalties

The due dates for required materials, including project progress reports, projects & web sites, project reports, logbooks, class work, and homework are listed in the syllabus. The following late policies apply**:

-Project progress reports: 20% per calendar day

-Projects and web sites: projects and web sites are due the first of the two days the projects competitions are scheduled. The team project performance during the “competitions” will count 20% towards the project grade. The project documentation counts 70% towards the project grade. The remaining 10% comes from the presentation, and from the team web page.

If a team presents their project and web site for the first time during the second day of the competition, a 50% late penalty will be applied. If a team cannot improve their project performance from day 1 to day 2 of the competitions, a 10% reduction will be applied.

-Project reports: They are due the next class after the second day of the competitions. The project report will not be accepted without the signatures (in hand writing) of all team members next to the percentage of their participation in print. Late penalty is 20% per calendar day.

-Logbooks: They will be collected three times, during the next class after the second day of the three project competitions. A grade will be assigned based on conciseness and completeness (sufficient learning conclusions), detailed sketches, the readability of your handwritings, and whether format and content corrections have been made based on instructor’s previous comments. Logbooks can be submitted with improvements for re-grading. Late penalty is 20% per calendar day. The logbook will also need to be submitted during the final exam.

-Class works: Late penalty waived for the first two late class works. The fourth late class work will receive a 20% reduction per calendar day.

-Homework: Late penalty waved for one late homework. The second late homework will receive a 20% reduction per calendar day.

**Late penalties can only be waived in exceptional circumstances, e.g. when a medical certificate is presented.

Grades

The course grade will be computed with a maximum of 100 points. The estimated average is 80 points (B). An example distribution is as follows

>=	60	64	68	72	76	80	84	88	92
Is a	D	C-	C	C+	B-	B	B+	A-	A

Please notice that the 20 points from home-works and class-works will make a big difference in your final grades, as well as those 20 points from the personal logbook and final exam.

Other Penalties

A big penalty on the final grade (up to 30%) can be assessed without notice for inappropriate use of the computers during class. This includes: checking email, chats, news and other things not related to the course work.

Student Conduct

Students are required to adhere to the University Policy on Academic Standard and Cheating, to the University Statement on Plagiarism, and the Documentation of Written Work, and to the Code of Student Conduct as delineated in the catalog of the undergraduate programs, pp. 44-45, and pp. 48-52. The code is available online at http://www.umb.edu/student_services/student_rights/code_conduct.html