WARNING: The exact day and times of release and due dates are still being decided. Only the rough week of due dates are accurate on this page. Exact day and times will be confirmed by week 1 and we will make an announcement before the first homework.
Assessment scheme#
The 2023 Semester 1 course assessment consists of the following components:
- 5 small homework assignments. Combined, these are worth 15% of the final course mark. These are due at 11.55pm Saturday in semester weeks 2, 3, 5, 8 and 11 (see schedule further down on this page).
- 1 larger project assignment, accounting for 30% of the final course mark. This will be done over ~3 semester weeks (after the teaching break, and additionally the entire teaching break). A proportion of the assignment marks will be assessed in a viva exam held in week 10 labs. You must attend the viva as it is partially for academic integrity validation purposes, none attendance may result in your assignment marks being made 0.
- A final exam held during the end-of-semester exam period, worth 50% of the final course mark. The final exam may be in one or two parts, depending on scheduling and technical constraints.
- 5% worth of participation marks for labs. From attending the lab you signed-up for and engaging in the lab material each week that labs run.
Note that any submitted work may be subject to an additional oral examination. If the course conveners deem the outcome of the oral exam to be unsatisfactory, the assessment mark may change and further action may be taken if appropriate.
Variation for COMP6730 (master) students#
Students in the master-level course (COMP6730) will have to answer some different or extra questions in the final exam. They may also have an additional question to answer on the project assignment. These different/extra questions are intended to demonstrate a deeper conceptual and theoretical understanding.
Final mark#
Your final course mark is the sum of your marks on all assessment components. To pass COMP1730/6730 you must score at least 50 out of 100 marks.
A supplementary exam will be offered to those students who have a final mark of at least 45 out of 100, but less than 50 out of 100.
Generally, there will be no scaling of individual assessment components (such as a single homework). However, final marks may be moderated in the examiners’ meeting and may be scaled as a result of this moderation.
Deferred examination and special consideration#
If you are unable to attend a scheduled assessment (such as an exam) because of serious illness or other misfortune, you can apply for deferred examination (that is, permission to take the assessment at another time).
All applications are made on-line, through https://isis.anu.edu.au/.
For more information, see
- http://www.anu.edu.au/students/program-administration/assessments-exams/deferred-examinations
- http://www.anu.edu.au/students/program-administration/assessments-exams/special-assessment-consideration
- http://www.anu.edu.au/students/program-administration/program-management/late-withdrawal
If you have attended an assessment, but you think that due to some unforeseeable and unavoidable circumstances (such as serious illness or other misfortune) you were unable to do as well as you would have done under normal circumstances, then you can apply for special consideration. The application is made on-line through https://isis.anu.edu.au/. Please note that special consideration will never result in a change of your mark for a specific assessment item. It may be taken into account when determining the final course mark, particularly if it is close to a boundary (such as pass/fail).
Late assignments and extensions#
The homework and assignment have a hard deadline. Submissions made after this deadline without an approved extension will receive zero marks.
If you want to apply for an extension, you must do so before the deadline.
Extensions can only be granted in unforeseeable circumstances beyond your control, and will require supporting documentation (e.g. serious illness supported by a medical certificate). Work or other extra-curricular commitments are not sufficient grounds for extensions.
We cannot give an extension beyond a few days (up to the day of the lab that week). If you believe you have grounds for a longer extension than that, you should apply for deferral instead.
Return of marks and appeal of marks#
We aim to return assessment marks within two semester weeks of the final deadline (the due date for the assignment or the final lab group for homework). However, it is not always possible to achieve this aim.
We do not remark exams (or any other assessments). What we will do is correct errors in marking. An error is one of two things:
- The question has a unique, unambiguous answer, and the marking is not consistent with that answer. (For example, if the answer to a question is “no” and you have answered “yes” and we’ve given you marks for that, then that is clearly an error.) Any question that involves describing, explaining, or where the marker has to make a judgement of the quality and/or clarity of your answer is by definition not unambiguous.
- Your answer is identical to that of another student, but we have marked the two of you differently.
In either case, you must demonstrate that an error has occurred (for example, by providing the name and University ID of the student whose answer is identical to yours).
Cheating#
The homework are individual. You must write your own homework submission, and you are expected to be able to explain every aspect of it.
Collaboration (including, of course, outright plagiarism), submitting solutions that you have found on the web, or enlisting others (AI included) to work for you on assignments, are all forms of cheating, and will be reported. If you are found to have cheated, this will be recorded on all your transcripts and further action may be taken in line with the severity of the offense and ANU policy. In serious cases you may even have your enrollment at ANU terminated.
Make sure that you have read and understood the ANU policy on academic honesty and plagiarism.
If you are unsure about what is required of you with respect to academic honesty, please ask any of the course staff or send an e-mail to the course e-mail address. We would much rather discuss the matter with you prior to something occurring than have to resolve it through the academic misconduct process.
Each student in this course is expected to be able to explain and defend any submitted assessment item. As mentioned above, any submitted work may be subject to an additional oral examination, which may result in a change of mark, and, if there is a significant discrepancy between different forms of assessment (for example, homework and examinations, or submitted assignment and oral exam) this may be treated as a case of suspected academic misconduct.
Lab participation marks#
Lab participation marks are to “encourage” you to attend the labs and engage in the lab exercises. Whilst lectures introduces concepts, labs give you practical exercises and is an opportunity to practice coding more. We have found that those who went through all the lab exercises generally do very well, whilst those who neglected most of the labs have done very poorly. This is why the lab participation mark was introduced this semester.
As long as you attend the lab you signed up for each week and make a genuine attempt at the lab exercises (regardless of if you manage to complete them all, or whether you managed to solve them or not), you will be able to get the full 5% participation marks. We will only nullify attendance for counting towards participation in egregious cases, and we hope we will not have any such cases.
Each week of lab missed without valid reason will result in the loss of 1/5th of your 5% participation mark. i.e. If you miss 5 or more labs without valid reason your participation mark will be 0.
If you are unable to make the particular lab time you signed up for in a particular week, let us know via the course email. We will in most circumstances allow you to attend another lab in that week. It is however important that you let us know BEFORE your lab, not after. We will only accept exceptional reasons if you only let us know after instead of before your lab. Attending an alternative lab without prior arrangement via the course email will count as no attendance.
Valid reasons for missing a week’s lab completely (i.e. without alternative lab as make-up) must be emailed to the course email before your scheduled lab, unless if the reason is sudden illness or other sudden circumstances, in which case you must email us as soon as possible.
Homework#
Each homework assignment will be made available at the start of the week, and must be submitted by the indicated deadline. Deadlines are hard. No submissions made after the deadline without an approved extension will be accepted. Extensions can only be granted in unforeseeable circumstances beyond your control, and will require supporting documentation.
Homework will be submitted through the course wattle page. We will not consider files sent via email or any other means. It is your responsibility to make sure that you know how to submit through wattle and that you submit the correct file. You can submit as many times as you want before the deadline, but remember that we can only see the last submission that you made.
Note that although we give you one week (or sometimes two) to do each homework, these are small problems, and our aim is that they should only take 1-2 hours to complete, if you have followed the lectures and done the lab exercises for the week beforehand. If you start directly with the homework with no preparation, you will probably find it harder.
Homework assignment schedule#
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Available: Sunday of Semester week 1
Due date: 11.55am Sunday of Semester Week 2 (5 March)
Worth: 2% of final mark. -
Available: Sunday of Semester week 2
Due date: 11.55pm Saturday of Semester Week 3 (11 March)
Worth: 2% of final mark. -
Available: Sunday of Semester week 4
Due date: 11.55pm Saturday of Semester Week 5 (25 March)
Worth: 3% of final mark. -
Available: Sunday of Semester week 7
Due date: 11.55pm Saturday of Semester Week 8 (29 Apr)
Worth: 4% of final mark. -
Available: Sunday of Semester week 11
Due date: 11.55pm Saturday of Semester Week 11 (20 May)
Worth: 4% of final mark.
Project assignment#
There is one larger (“project”) assignment. This assignment is worth 30% of your final course mark.
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It is due by Saturday of semester week 9
(6th of May 2023 at 23:55pm, Canberra time).
After submission at week 9, you will have to attend your scheduled lab in week 10 to discuss your assignment with a tutor. This viva will make up 25% of your assignment marks (7.5% of your final course marks). You must attend the viva as it is partially for academic integrity validation purposes, none attendance may result in your assignment marks being made 0.
Just like with the homework the assignment deadline is hard. Submissions made after the deadline without an approved extension will receive zero marks. If you want to apply for an extension, you must do so before the deadline. Extensions can only be granted in unforeseeable circumstances beyond your control, and will require supporting documentation.
Mid-semester examination#
There will be no mid-semester exam this semester.
Final examination#
The final exam will take place sometime in the final exam period. More information will be provided in due course.
Supplementary and deferred exam#
Details of the supplementary and deferred examinations will be made available in due course.
However, they will normally take place in Week 1 of the next semester.