Project Policy

Grading Policy:

Projects will be graded on five criteria: correctness, design, style, documentation, and efficiency. This means that turning in a project that "works" but is poorly organized or poorly documented will not receive full credit. An exceptionally good job will receive extra credit.

Projects will also require you to answer a set of questions relating to the project assignment. Your answers will be graded on their technical merits as well as on correct grammar and spelling.

  1. 111 - 125%: An incredibly good job of the type that comes along only rarely. The instructor must approve any instance in which the grader recommends a grade in this range.
  2. 101 - 110%: A project submittal that exceeds the standard expectations. The project must show additional work beyond the requirements or must use especially elegant or advanced methodologies.
  3. 100%: The submittal satisfies all the requirements. A well-organized and well-documented project with good design and implementation.
  4. 80-99%: A submittal that meets the requirements for the assignment but with a few small problems.
  5. 70-79%: A submittal that has many small problems and/or falls slightly short of the requirements.
  6. 50-69%: A submittal that has serious problems and/or falls significantly short of the requirements. Serious problems would include failure to document, poor organization, or incorrect results.
  7. 30-50%: A submittal that has extremely serious problems but nonetheless shows some effort and understanding. An example of an extremely serious problem is failure to compile.
  8. 0-30%: A submittal that shows little effort.

If you feel you have been incorrectly graded on any project, please discuss it with your instructor.

Hints for enhancing your grade:
Do submit partial work for partial credit. A zero grade is much worse than a low non-zero grade.
If you think you should receive extra credit, let the grader know by submitting a file named grader.README that briefly describes why you should get extra credit.
Do check your submittal by using submitls, submitmake, and submitrun. These are explained in detail below.

Due Date:

Every project has a firm due date. You should budget your time to complete your project and submit it by midnight of that date. Since you can submit material multiple times, we use the time of your most recent submittal.

Be careful. If you attempt to submit something after the due date, all previous submittals will be counted as late. The date of the last submittal you make is taken as the submittal date for all your materials. Please don't attempt to submit any files after the due date.

There is no such thing as a late penalty. If your project is late, it will receive a grade of zero.

Extensions will be given only rarely and only in the most dire circumstances. Your chances of getting an extension diminish rapidly as the due date approaches. Only the instructor can give an extension.

Cheating:

Cheating in any form will not be tolerated. Instances of cheating will be reported to the UMBC Academic Conduct Committee in accordance with UMBC policy guidelines. These reports are filed by the Committee and can be used for disciplinary action such as a permanent record on your transcript. Academic honesty is absolutely required of you. You are expected to be honest yourself and to report any cases of dishonesty you see among other students in this class. Reports of dishonest behavior will be kept anonymous.

If you ever have a question about cheating in this course, please ask the instructor about it. Ignorance about the cheating policy is not a defense after the fact.

Your project assignments are to be entirely your own. You may discuss general course ideas with others, but everything you submit must be just your own work.

It is never permitted to copy code from someone else nor to provide code to someone else. This applies to paper and electronic forms of the code.

Here is a general rule for you to follow:

Having someone else's work in your possession, even briefly, is dishonest
Help received from the CSHC, TA, or instructor may be included in your submittals.

You must protect your materials from observation by others. It is your responsibility to maintain your course files so they cannot be read by others. Failure to protect your course files will be considered to be a form of academic dishonesty. In particular, do not store your files in a publicly-accessible directory. If your materials are copied by another person because you failed to protect them, you will be subject to the same disciplinary action as the other person. If in doubt about how to protect your files, ask for help in a UCS lab, at the CSHC, or from the TA or instructor.

We will be using special software to check for cheating. The software is quite sophisticated and can detect most instances of cheating. It will be used to check each and every pair of students for every project, even across sections.

Checking Your Submittal:

You should check that your submittal is complete and works as it should. It's easy to forget to submit a file. Also, you may have an execution situation in which your project works in your directory but not in the grading directory.

There are three tools available that allow you to check your submittal. These are submitls, submitmake, and submitrun. It is your responsibility to use these tools to check your submittal.

Don't waste all that work you did on your project! Make sure you have submitted all the required files! Make sure your submitted project compiles successfully! Make sure your submitted project executes successfully! Use the tools provided to you!

submitls allows you to list the files in your submittal directory. Documentation for submitls is on the web at http://www.gl.umbc.edu/submit/.

submitmake, and submitrun are in the directory /afs/umbc.edu/users/d/e/dennis/pub/CMSC341/. You can use these programs to make or run your submitted projects.

The syntax for submitmake is similar to that for submit: 

submitmake <class> <project>

Example:  

/afs/umbc.edu/users/d/e/dennis/pub/CMSC341/submitmake cs341 Proj1
This makes the project, and shows you the report from the make utility. It cleans up the directory after making the project (removes .o and ii_files), but leaves the executable in place.

The syntax for submitrun involves command-line arguments, if any, for the project.

submitrun <class> <project> [command-line args]

Example:

/afs/umbc.edu/users/d/e/dennis/pub/CMSC341/submitrun cs341 Proj1 chess chsfile

This runs the project, assuming there is an executable named Proj1 (i.e. submitmake was run successfully). In this example, the file chsfile would be in the directory from which you invoke submitrun, not in the submittal directory.