General Policies

Grade ID's

During the first few days of classes you will receive a three digit grade ID. You must memorize it and place it in the upper right hand side corner of every exam or assignment you turn in (every page included). You will not be assigned a grade unless you use this ID to identify your work. You must also include your name. You must keep your grade ID confidential as it will be used to access your grade via the WWW. Grading of work without grade IDs will be delayed until the end of the semester. (See also Regrades below)

Exams and Due-dates

Due dates and exam dates are not to be changed unless you have a major medical reason. No recovery exams or homeworks will be given. Midterm and final exam dates are provided to you during the first class of the semester, if you foresee conflicts either with your personal plans or other classes you must register in another section. Generally, Quizes will be announced in class, at least one class before they are given. Sometimes, a surprise Quiz may be given.

Grades

Grades will be assigned as described below.

Due Dates for Homeworks and Projects

All homeworks and projects assigned in class are due one week after they are assigned unless stated otherwise. Late turnins are UNACCEPTABLE and will get NO CREDIT at all. Although previously late turnings will get some credit (but not all), some students---even the ones that benefit from the rule---complained about other students having an UNFAIR chance to catch up with their grades.

Web-site/Electronic Bulletin Board Notices

You are fully responsible for checking the class web-site or electronic bulletin board for news and announcements. You should do this at least once every two days. Important notices regarding your class will be posted there and you need to be up to date on these. Examples of the type of notices posted there include: exam schedule changes, quiz announcements, homework announcements, and others. If you miss an exam, homework, quiz, etc because you did not check the web site regularly, you will not be entitled to a new exam, homework, quiz, etc scheduled just for you.

No Extra Credit Policy

There will be no extra credit assigned during this class; although I have given extra credit assignments in the past I will not do so in the future due to the fact that some students tend to complain even when the extra-credit could benefit the complaining students: the reason for the complaints being that other students had an UNFAIR chance to catch up with their grades.

Regrades

If you think there has been a mistake in the grading of your exam you need to return the exam to me on the same day the exam is returned to you with a highlighted note explaining the grading mistake. Once you take the exam home no regrade is possible. This rule has the goal to prevent students from taking exams home and rewriting them to claim a higher grade. When you ask for regrade you must be reasonably sure that the regrade will benefit you: during a regrade I will usually go over the whole exam/homework and there is a chance that your grade may also be reduced. If you do not identify your assignment properly (i.e. with GID) you are implicitly waiving your right to a regrade or revision.

Grade Weights

Percentages of grade assigned to each class assignment are provided to you at the begining of the semester and they will not change. Although in the past I have implemented selective grade weight swapping, which will only be effective if it benefits the student to whom it is applied I will not do so anymore. Even students that benefit from this grade weight swapping would complain claiming that it gives other students an UNFAIR chance to catch up with their grades. These students would claim they would rather a lower grade if that will keep grades of other peers even lower than theirs.

Web Site Availability

At some times the web site for the class may become unavailable. You are responsible for printing hardcopies of any information/homework/project/quiz solution in a timely fashion. If you procrastinate and wait until the day before the project/homework/reading is assigned to get access to the material and the material happens to be not-accessible you are still liable for not turning the assignment on time, unless the material was unavailable since it was assigned.

Material Covered in Exams and Quizes

By default, a quiz or exam will include all the material covered up to the class before the exam or quiz is held unless stated otherwise in class.

Attending to Class

Coming to class is a fundamental part of this course. If you skip classes or come in late you may miss important details that will diminish your likelyhood of obtaining a good grade. Some times surprise quizes may be given, homeworks may be assigned and if you are unaware of those you will miss the percentage of your grade assigned to these assignments. So keep in mind that when you skip or miss class without an important reason you are throwing away part of your grade.

Homework Presentation

You must turn in computer printouts for every-homework assignment. No hand-writen turn in will be accepted. Rational: although some of you have excellent handwriting skills, others use some ancient scripts that I am unable to understand; hence to increase my understanding of what you turn in and your likelyhood of obtaining a higher grade, this rule was established.
Juan Carlos Gomez
Last modified: Thu Dec 16 11:28:45 PST 1999