Assessment scheme#

The 2017 course assessment consists of the following components:

  • 5 small homework assignments. Combined, these are worth 20% of the final course mark. These will be due in semester weeks 2 though 6 (see schedule further down on this page). In addition to submitting the solution to each homework, students will be required to attend a lab session and answer questions about their submission.
  • 1 larger assignment, accounting for 20% of the final course mark. This will be done over 3-4 weeks in the second half of the semester.
  • A mid-semester written exam, worth 20% of the final course mark. This is planned for semester week 7, but the date may be set differently by ANU central timetabling.
  • Two final exams, held during the end-of-semester exam period. This will be a written exam (worth 25% of the final course mark) and a programming exam (worth 15% of the final course mark).

The assessment scheme may be modified up to the end of semester week 2. After that, it is fixed to what is shown on this page.

Variation for COMP6730 (master) students#

Students in the master-level course (COMP6730) will have to answer some extra questions on each of the written exams. These extra questions are inteded 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 you must score at least 50 out of 100 marks.

A supplementary exam will be offered only to those students who have a final mark of at least 45 out of 100, but less than 50 out of 100.

There will be no scaling of individual assessment components (such as a single homework). However, final marks are moderated in the examiners’ meeting and may be scaled as a result of this moderation.

Deferred exams 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 sit the exam at another time) or special consideration.

Deferrals will be considered only for the exams (written exams and programming exam). For homeworks and assignment, students should instead apply for special consideration.

All applications are made on-line, through https://isis.anu.edu.au/.

For more information, see

Late assignments and extensions#

The homeworks and assignment will have a hard deadline. Submissions made after this deadline without an approved extension will receive zero marks. 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 and sporting commitments are not sufficient grounds for extensions.

Cheating#

The homeworks and assignment can be done in pairs. However, both students in a pair are fully responsible for the submitted solution, and should be able to explain every aspect of it. Collaboration between groups (including, of course, outright plagiarism), submitting solutions that you have found on the web, or enlisting others 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 future transcripts.

Make sure that you have read and understood the ANU policy on academic honesty and plagiarism.

Homeworks#

Each homework assignment will be made available at the start of the week, and must be submitted by the indicated deadline. Deadlines are 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.

Homeworks 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 you submit the correct file. You can submit as many times as you want before the deadline, but please remember that we can only see the last submission that you made.

Homeworks can be done individually or in pairs. If you work together with another student, you must indicate this when you submit.

In addition to submitting the homework solution, you must attend the lab in the following week (as indicated in the schedule below) and answer some questions from the tutor about the assignment and your submission. If you work together with another student, both of you must attend your respective lab sessions, and both of you must be able to answer any question about it. To say “I don’t know, my labmate did that part” is not an acceptable excuse. It is not necessary that both of you are in the same lab group.

If you do not attend the lab or fail to answer the tutor’s questions, you can receive zero marks for the homework assignment, regardless of what you submitted. If, due to unforeseeable circumstances beyond your control (for example, illness or accident), you are not able to attend your lab session, you can apply for special consideration, following the normal procedure. Remember that you must do this as early as possible, and that you will be required to provide supporting documentation.

Note that although we give you a week 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#

  • Homework 1

    Available from Monday the 31st of July.
    Due date: 9am Monday the 7th of August.
    Assessed in lab: During semester week 3 (Aug. 7-11).
    Worth: 2% of final mark.

  • Homework 2

    Available from Monday the 7th of August.
    Due date: 6pm Sunday the 13th of August.
    Assessed in lab: During semester week 4 (Aug. 14-18).
    Worth: 3% of final mark.

  • Homework 3

    Available from Monday the 14th of August.
    Due date: 6pm Sunday the 20th of August.
    Assessed in lab: During semester week 5 (Aug. 21-25).
    Worth: 5% of final mark.

  • Homework 4

    Available from Monday the 21st of August.
    Due date: 6pm Sunday the 27th of August.
    Assessed in lab: During semester week 6 (Aug. 28-Sep. 1).
    Worth: 5% of final mark.

  • Homework 5

    Available from Monday the 28th of August.
    Due date: 6pm Sunday the 17th of September.
    Assessed in lab: During semester week 7 (Sep. 18-22).
    Worth: 5% of final mark.

Assignment#

There will be one larger assignment. It will be available from semester week 8, and due in semester week 11. (The exact date is yet to be decided; we are trying to avoid clashes with other major assessments in courses taken by many students in this course.) This assignment is worth 20% of your final course mark.

Just like with the homeworks 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.

The assignment can be done individually or in pairs. If you intend to work together with another student, you must indicate this at the start of the assignment (a sign-up activity will be put on the course wattle page).

Written exams#

Written exams will mainly test your understanding of the python programming language by asking you to work out or explain what happens when a small piece of code is executed. There may also be some questions that ask you to write code, but generally there will be very little “programming on paper”.

Here are last year’s exams, and this year’s mid-semester exam:

Note, however, that the exams from last year include some material that we do not cover (or do not cover before the mid-semester break) this year. Of course this will not be on this year’s exams.

Mid-semester exam#

  • The mid-semester exam is scheduled at 6.30pm on the 22nd of September (Friday in semester week 7). You should receive an email from the timetabling office with information about the location. Note that because of the large number of students, the exam will be split over several rooms, and each student will be assigned to a specific room. You must attend the exam in the room that you have been told.
  • The exam reading time is 15 minutes and writing time is 2 hours.
  • Permitted material is 1 A4 page with notes on both sides and nothing else.
  • Note that students in COMP6730 will have extra questions to answer on the exam. These questions are clearly marked on the exam paper. Students in the undergraduate course (COMP1730) can not score “bonus points” by answering these questions.

Final exam#

  • The scheduled date for the final written exam is Saturday the 4th of November, at 2pm. You should have received an email from the timetabling office with the details of your exam location.
  • The exam reading time is 15 minutes and writing time is 3 hours.
  • Permitted material is 1 A4 page with notes on both sides and nothing else (same as for the mid-semester exam).
  • Like on the mid-semester exam, students in COMP6730 will have extra questions to answer on the exam. These questions are clearly marked on the exam paper. Students in the undergraduate course (COMP1730) can not score “bonus points” by answering these questions.

Programming exam#

The programming exam will require you to solve a few small programming problems, similar in size and complexity to those you encounter in the homeworks in the first half of the course.

However, the exam will require you to solve them under exam conditions: you must work on your own (with no help from anyone), you will have limited time, and although you will be working on a computer you will have no internet access (so you will not be able to use google, or forums such as stack exchange to find answers). You will be provided with a detailed description of the programming problems, and a testing framework (much like those you have seen for the later homework problems).

  • The scheduled date for the final programming exam is Wednesday the 15th of November. The exam is split over two sessions, one at 9am and one at 2pm, and over many computer lab rooms across campus (not only in the CSIT labs). You should have received an email from the timetabling office with the details of your exam time and location.

  • Some students have asked if they can use pen and paper to sketch/scribble during the programming exam. The answer is yes. However:

    • You must bring your own pen.
    • You can bring your own paper, but it must be absolutely blank. There must be no notes of any kind on any paper that you bring into the exam.
    • We will ask the exams office to provide scribble paper, but they may not agree because the request is late.

Deferred and supplementary exam#

The supplementary exam is scheduled for the 20th of February, 2018, at 6.30pm in CSIT computer lab N115/116. It consists of 15 minutes reading time and 3 hours writing time.

The supplementary exam will contain both parts of the final exam. That means it will have some questions with written answers, and some programming problems. Both types of questions will be answered on the lab computer, which will be in exam mode. Questions of the kind that is trivial to answer with access to a python interpreter (for example, “what is type of the value of expression … ?”) that were on part A of the final exam will not appear in this exam. It will have the kinds of questions that ask you to document a piece of code, describe general characteristics of data structures, etc, like those that were on previous final exams.

Students who have been offered a deferral of either part A or B of the final exam will sit the same exam as those taking the supplementary exam, but will only be required to answer the relevant part. Because each part of this exam is smaller, students taking only one part will have reduced time (not the full 3 hours).

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