Project Grading

After the final deadline for submitting a project, your project will be graded for correctness, design and implementation, and adherance to CMSC 202 coding standards. After all projects are graded, you will recieve an e-mail from the gradeskeeper. A grade form will be attached to the e-mail. The grade form details the point deductions and penalties for your project.

Once your project is submitted, you should be careful to not change the time and date of any files you submitted (i.e. don't open them and then save them with an editor). The time and date of your files may be critical in resolving some unusual grading situations.

These guidelines are for projects where a good effort to sucessfully complete the project was made. A project which does not show a substantial effort will receive a score of zero.

Correctness - 50 points

Correctness includes the following aspects of your project. The weight assigned to each of these aspects of correctness may be different for each project.

A project which does not compile will receive no points for correctness.

  1. Your project must produce the correct output.
    When tested with valid input, your project must produce the results specified in the project description. The output must conform to the format specified in the project description.
    When tested with invalid input, your project must handle the error(s) in the manner specified in the project description.
  2. Your project must meet all project specific requirements.
    Project descriptions may contain requirements regarding class methods, input values or formats, how data must be stored, etc. Your project must satisfy all such requirements.
  3. Your project may not violate any project specific restrictions.
    Project descriptions may contain restrictions regarding variable definitions, method signatures, etc. Your project may not violate any of these restrictions.

Design and implementation - 40 points

To be successful in this course, your projects must be properly designed and implemented in addition to producing the correct result. An excellent program exhibits proper object-oriented design including encapsulation, code reuse, inheritance, polymorphism and other OOP topics discussed in class. Class implemenations and code written for main should exhibit appropriate top-down design.

An excellent program exhibits clear, straight-forward logic in its algorithms. An excellent program DOES NOT contain long nested if-else statements or for/while loops with convoluted exit conditions.

Your grade for this section will be

  1. 41 - 50 points
    The grader may assign extra credit for a design and implementation that exceeds the standard expectations. The design and implementation must show additional work beyond the requirements or must use especially elegant or advanced methodologies.
  2. 40 points
    A design and implementation that meets all design and implementation expectations but may have 1 - 2 minor problems
  3. 30 - 39 points
    A design and implemenation that has several small problems and/or falls slightly short of the best approach
  4. 20 - 29 points
    A design and implementation that has serious problems and/or falls significantly short of the best approach
  5. 10 - 19 points
    A design and implementation with extremely serious problems, but nonetheless shows some effort and undestanding of OOP and top-down principles.
  6. 0 points
    A design and implementation shows no effort to follow OOP and top-down principles.

Adherance to Coding Standards - 10 points

It is your responsibility to read and understand the coding standards document.

Your grade for this section will be 0, 5, or 10% at the grader's discretion.

Project Grade Changes

Visit your instructor during regular office hours (or make an appointment) to request a project grade change when you think the grader has made a mistake. Come prepared to show your instructor evidence of the grader's specific mistake. Project grades will not be changed just because you think the grader has deducted too many points for a line item on the grade sheet.

Don't waste your time or your instructor's time by asking for a grade change just because you're not happy with your grade.

Remember that if you have a question regarding your project grade, you have exactly one week from the receipt of your grade to speak to your instructor in person.

Project Regrades

In some unusual circumstances you may recieve a low project score because of a single, simple error that results in many incorrect outputs or results in a compiler/linker error. The definition of "simple error" is determined by your instructor. In such cases, your instructor may (at his/her discretion) allow you to fix the simple mistake and have your project regraded.

A 10-point deduction is assessed when your project is regraded.