CMPE126 Grading and Coureswork Policies -- Spring 2004

Grading: You must turn in ALL homeworks.

Incomplete grades will be given only for reasons of prolonged and serious illness, major family problems, and natural disasters. A supporting medical document from your physician/family members is absolutely necessary and you must make the request before the end of the quarter unless you are incapacitated.

Policy concerning midterm and final projects
There are no excuses for late, nonfunctional, or incomplete projects. Incomplete/non-functional projects will result in No Pass (or F) grades.

Policy concerning homeworks:
I'll hand out the homeworks in lecture and each homework assignment will be due approximately 5-10 days later. Your homework will be graded (though not necessarily corrected). For homeworks that require a demonstration, please show your work to me in the lab before or on the due date. Late homeworks will be penalized 20\% for each day (counting a partial day as a whole) they are late. After 5 days they will not be accepted and you will receive a NO PASS grade.

Design Project:
A complete system (hardware + software) design and verification of a ``digital system'' (TBA) project. In the past, I have assigned the ``tetris'' project.

This is one of the capstone courses. You are doing your senior thesis in this class. This is a class to certify/qualify you to work professionally as an engineer. Most of the time, you should treat yourself, and I will treat you with the behavior and professionalism expected of entry-level engineers. Therefore, the passing criteria of the class are: design competence, promptness or punctuality, reliability, and honesty. Design competence means the ability to perform correct and well-principled digital design, debug digital designs, command of equipment (logic analyzer, oscillocope, multimeter, and signal generators), and to document designs.

Any unprofessional behavior in the lab will lead to immediate disqualification from this class.

Policy on group work:
If the size of the class is large you will team up in groups of two only for the final project. I will let you know in the project handout. Be aware that in the past, students have deserted their partners in the final weeks. So when you pick your partner, make sure that you have the mutual agreement that both of you will work together until the project is complete, because incomplete projects will automatically yield a NO PASS grade.

Policy concerning sharing work:
Other than your partner for the project (if group projects are adopted) all work in this class shall be your own. You may consult with classmates verbally or using a blackboard. However, communication in the form of printouts or files will be considered cheating and result in a NO PASS along with the usual academic discipline penalties. Accessing class files which belong to other students and/or misrepresenting the work of others as your own is also considered as cheating. If you are uncertain about whether something is allowed, obtain permission from me in writing or by e-mail.

Academic Integrity

All course work should be your own work. You may consult with me and other students, verbally and possibly with the use of a board. However you must be able to produce the solution to the problem without any notes from this consultation. It will be necessary to spend some time thinking about a problem before consulting anyone. You must cite any materials (besides the text and course handouts) that you use to solve the problems. I take cheating very seriously. Any cases will be reported to your college Provost or Dean and the assignment/exam/project involved will receive a 0 grade. It is not possible to pass this class with a 0 on either project.


The CMPE126 Web:
Copyright 2004; Department of Computer Engineering, University of California, Santa Cruz.
martine@cse.ucsc .edu