My policy
about the Mathematica Labs submitted for grading
(last updated 08/25/22)
1. Originality of
submitted work.
You may work alone or with up to two
other students. In either case, for the
purposes of this policy, you will be considered as part of a "group",
consisting either of one person (yourself) or two or three people
(yourself and partner(s)). Groups do not
have to be permanent; they may change from one lab to another. Regardless of
whether you will work alone or with partner(s), your Lab will be graded
out of 100%. Also,
you do not need to
inform me beforehand who your partner(s) will be.
Here is how to reflect the group effort (a.k.a. "Contributions") in your submitted Lab:
- The group needs to submit only one Lab (as opposed
to, say, two if there are two people in the group).
- Into the "Name" box at the beginning of the
Lab, enter the names of all people in your group.
- Into the "Contributions" box, enter a brief
statement reflecting the contribution of each group member (no more
than one sentence per person, please).
Example
1: Alice figured out the idea for Exercise 1 and helped
code Exercise 2.
Bob participated in discussions on Exercise 1 and worked out the idea
of Exercise 2.
Charlie helped code Exercise 1 and ran to grab
coffee for Alice and Bob while they were working on Exercise 2.
Example
2: All group members contributed to this Lab equally.
If the group consists of one person,
that person does not
need to put anything in the "Contributions" box.
- Give the file a name reflecting names of the group
members. For example, Lab 2 submitted by Alice Xavier, Bob Young and
Charlie Zheng can be named math121_lab2_AliceBobCharlie
or math121_lab2_XavierYoungZheng.
Absolutely
no collaboration between groups is allowed. That is, again: no
discussions, no asking questions, nothing. Period. If you
are lost about how to do an exercise and cannot successfully brainstorm
it with your group partner(s) (if any), it suggests that you do not
understand something in the material of the course, or have not read
the Lab's instructions carefully enough. In this case, you should come
to the
instructor (me). It is very likely that during our discussion of your
problem, some gaps in your understanding of Calculus may be uncovered,
and I will try to help you to mend them.
If you cannot meet with me in person, you may (and
should!) send
me your questions via e-mail. In such a case, please attach your draft
of the Lab (not
a screenshot, please), so that I could see your work. Please make
an effort to state your questions to me clearly.
Violations of the no-collaboration rule
will be
considered violations
of academic integrity.
Every instance of a violation,
starting with the first, will be
referred by me to the Center for Student Conduct (CSC). I will follow
the rules described below in recommending to the CSC a penalty to be
imposed onto the parties involved. The CSC ultimately decides whether
to
follow my recommendation or not.
- The
first
time that I detect collaboration on (even part of ! )
an
assignment, the penalty will be between 50 (very unlikely) and 150%
(very likely) of your Lab's
grade;
this decision is left entirely up to me.
- In case of the second
violation, I will
recommend that the student(s) be given an XF for the course.
Both
(or all) groups involved in a collaboration will be given the same
penalty. This rule will not be changed under any circumstances.
Also, if
one of the groups at fault has two or three members,
then by default I will recommend to the CSC that all members be given
the same penalty.
If you disagree with this part of my recommendation, you must petition
the CSC to overrule it and thereby assign different penalties to the
members of the group. Example:
Suppose group 1 involves students A and B, and group 2 involves
students C and D. Suppose student D declares to the CSC that student C
had no knowledge of student D being involved in the violation. Then the
sanctions imposed on students A, B, and D will be the same, and those
imposed on student C (if any) will be decided in a consultation of the
CSC with me.
2. Planning ahead your
work on the Labs.
You will be
able to digest the material presented in the Labs, as well as to relate
it to the material covered in class, most efficiently if you start working on the assigned Lab well in advance of its due date. Please keep in mind that
these Labs are substantially longer
and more difficult than those you did in Calculus I and II.
To encourage the
practice of starting your work on Labs early, I will enforce the
following policy on helping you with
questions that you might have about the assigned Lab:
1) On the day the Lab is due, I will
answer only minor questions about it, but will not
provide any substantial help.
2) One academic (i.e., working) day
before the due date, I will provide help only on the last exercise of
the Lab.
3) 2 academic days before the due date, I
will provide help only on the last 2 exercises of the Lab.
4) 3 academic days before
the due date, I will provide help only on the last 3 exercises of the
Lab.; etc.
5) Also, suppose that the last
exercise is substantially based on the first one, and you ask me about
it one day before the Lab is due, but have not done exercise 1. Then I
will not help you with those
issues in the last exercise that are related to exercise 1.
To
summarize:
Plan
ahead, plan ahead, plan ahead ... Lack of planning by you will not
constitute an emergency for me.