We realize the stress of the move to online lectures and labs in the wake of the coronavirus. So, dedicated staff will continue to provide support to help students manage their academics and well-being. If you are experiencing anxiety or stress, please reach out to Student Counselling & Development at 416-736-5297 or visit the website (see below) to learn about remote access of services. https://counselling.students.yorku.ca/

Other mental health & wellness resources are available here: https://mhw.info.yorku.ca/resources/resources-at-york/students/.

Monday March 23, 2020. On March 16th, in accordance with Senate rules, we changed the kind and weights to #2 below (no final exam). <hi> This remains in place.</hi>

However, as an alternative, for those students who demand to be graded according to the original grading scheme, we are also offering an online exam (see #3 below) at the scheduled exam time for this course.

In both cases, you are required to submit the Project and the Lab/Assignment(BB) by the stated deadlines.

Work completed before March 16th is indicated with a tick ✓.

• Last date to submit term work Project (as a team) and Lab/Assignment (BB) (individually): Monday April 6.
• The official deadline to submit the Project and Lab/Assignment is April 06, but you may submit until 2.00pm Monday April 13th, without penalty.

Specification for the online exam option (#3): Like any final exam – this will be on all the course materials, i.e. all lectures including video lectures & slides to the end of the course, lab work, required readings etc. It will be a multiple choice online exam, “open-book” (you may consult your course notes, labs, readings, tools etc.) but it must be solely your own individual work (no outside help) in accordance with academic integrity rules. If you login and submit, this is a demand and commitment on your part to be graded using this option. The instructors reserve the right to require that you undertake an additional oral Zoom exam – in which you will be required to explain your answers in order to obtain a passing grade, solely at the discretion of the instructors. Date of online exam: Tuesday April 21, 9am to 12 noon.

March 16. 2002.

<hi>Proposed New grading scheme in the light of University rules for move to Online starting March 16th</hi>. Course Directors are permitted to to make changes to the kind and weight of assignments (including tests and examinations). Labtest6 &7 and the in person exam are cancelled by Senate rules. The proposed new grading scheme is below.

Work completed before March 16th is indicated with a tick ✓.

<hi> Please ensure that you are familiar with academic integrity rules. In the Project, you may only consult with your team member (if there is one) and the Lab/Assignment must be done on your own. Think of this as supervised exam rules. </hi>

• Last date to submit term work Project and Lab/Assignment: Monday April 6.

The main work to be submitted now is the Project and the Lab/Assignment which you can do from home, using resources such as the online lecture videos, online Zoom labs and TA hours, and the forum. Use your EECS login at this wiki to access the various online resources.

• Zoom Online Labs
• Zoom TA hours
• Online lecture videos & slides
• Project

The University has stated that as an alternative, students will be able to write a supervised written exam, deferred until after the crisis has passed and the appropriate resources are in place. In such a case, you may choose to be graded more or less according to the original grading scheme. This is only so, provided you submit this Project and the Lab/Assignment by the due dates for this course. In such a case, the Lab/Assignment will be used for your grade in place of the cancelled Labtest6&7.

update 18 March 2020 from the Senate: “At this time, it is unknown when it will be possible to hold in-person exams”.

Some of the items below are now changed in the light of the Senate rules mentioned above.

• Monday January 6 - Winter Classes Start. You are required to do Lab0 in this week.
• February 15-21 - Reading Week
• Friday March 13 - Last date to drop course without receiving a grade
• Monday April 6 - Last date to submit term work
• Sunday April 5 - Classes end
• April 7-25 - Exams. This is closed book exam, but you may bring one data sheet (US Letter, both sides).

Due Dates (Strict):

• Labtest1 to Labtest7 is held during the last part of the scheduled Lab on Tuesdays
• Labtest/R Tuesday 25 February (during part of lecture and scheduled lab)
• Change of Labtest Dates:
  • No Labtest on Tuesday March 10. Start working on Project as well as complete up to an including Lab7.
  • Labtest6 will be on Tuesday March 17 during the scheduled Lab (up to and including Lab7).
  • Labtest7 will be on Tuesday March 24 during the scheduled Lab
• Project: Due 01 April 2pm

Please report any issues with your grading within one week of receiving your grade/feedback.

• Each week, a Lab assignment will be handed out for you to do in that week (as preparation for the next week's Labtest). Also there is required reading for that week to help you develop competence in the use of the Rodin Modelling Tool.

• You will need to work on most of each Lab assignment on your own time. The Lab assignment is not submitted. Your understanding of the Lab assignment is checked in a weekly Labtest during the scheduled Lab time.

• In the scheduled lab session (every Tuesday 1-2pm)
  • the first part of the lab session is for you to have your questions answered on the previous week's lab, and to start on the new lab
  • the second part of the lab session is for the actual Labtest.

• Labtests may be on all the material covered up to an including the previous week (including lab preparation, lectures and Readings).

You may bring 1 data sheet (US Letter size, written on both sides) of your own notes into the exam. Otherwise it is a closed book exam. You may use the Event-B notation summary which you may annotate.

The Exam will be on all the material noted in the course outline, material covered in the lectures, slides and required readings from the textbook, labs, quizzes, labtests and project. The exam is 3 hours.

You can view your marks here.

For each grading unit you are assigned a raw mark score that ranks you in the class. Also, you will be provided with a mapping from your raw mark score to a letter grade. The raw mark score is not a grade as it is merely used to rank you in the class (so, e.g. a raw mark score of 76 might be a C, not a B+, after the mapping is applied). The mapping will be supplied to you at the same time that the grading unit is handed back to you. The final grade is computed from the individual cut-offs as shown in: Examples of Final Grade Calculation using Cuttoffs

On marks and marking

• A raw mark numerical score on a lab, quiz, project or exam is never “out of” anything, in that it is not interpreted or converted to a percentage. It is the sum of scores assigned to questions, occasionally individually adjusted where appropriate. A numerical raw mark numerical score is used to compute the letter grade in cases where there are many sub-questions in a single piece of work.
• Marks are not “belled” or “curved”, in the sense of being adjusted to approximate a normal distribution. They usually aren't normally distributed anyway in statistical terms and I know of no statistical transformation such as normalization which would make the scores more meaningful and/or accurate.
• You can't “lose marks” for anything - you didn't have them to begin with. Letter grades are assigned to raw mark numerical scores on a basis which I feel is both fair and reflects the meaning of each letter grade as determined by the York Senate and published in the York Undergraduate Programmes Calendar and referenced above.
• Only the letter grades have meaning as determined by the cut-offs posted as each assignment unit is handed back.
• Marks are not a judgement on your intelligence or diligence or good intentions; they are just a reflection of the work you handed in. If you were very busy with other work, or recuperating from an illness, or emotionally stressed, it would not be surprising if your mark was lower than under optimal conditions. However, such reasons do not provide a basis for altering the mark, which is a description of what you did, not why you did it.
• Work that is submitted late generally does not receive a passing grade unless there are substantial extenuating circumstances. This is because we attempt to release feedback early so that students can check their work.

GPA and Letter Grades

A GPA (grade point average) is a number between 0 and 9. A 5 does not mean that you got 5/9 = 55%. The meaning of this number is derived by mapping it to the appropriate letter grade. The following is a copy of the York University official grading scheme for translating from a letter grade to a GPA and back again.

A+ GPA=9 or (8.5 .. 9) Exceptional - Thorough knowledge of concepts and/or techniques and exceptional skill or great originality in the use of those concepts and techniques in satisfying the requirements of a piece of work or course.

A GPA=8 or (7.5..8.4) Excellent - Thorough knowledge of concepts and/or techniques together with a high degree of skill and/or some elements of originality in satisfying the requirements of a piece of work or course.

B+ GPA=7 or (6.5..7.4) Very Good - Thorough knowledge of concepts and/or techniques together with a fairly high degree of skill in the use of those concepts and techniques in satisfying the requirements of a piece of work or course.

B GPA=6 or (5.5..6.4) Good - Good level of knowledge of concepts and/or techniques together with a considerable skill in using them in satisfying the requirements of a piece of work or course.

C+ GPA=5 or (4.5..5.4) Competent - Acceptable level of knowledge of concepts and/or techniques together with considerable skill in using them to satisfy the requirements of a piece of work or course.

C GPA=4 or (3.5..4.4) Fairly Competent - Acceptable level of knowledge of concepts and/or techniques together with some skill in using them to satisfy the requirements of a piece of work or course.

D+ GPA=3 or (2.5..3.4) Passing - Slightly better than minimal knowledge of required concepts and/or techniques together with some ability to use them in satisfying the requirements of a piece of work or course.

D GPA=2 or (1.5..2.4) Barely Passing - Minimum knowledge of concepts and/or techniques needed to satisfy the requirements of a piece of work or course.

E GPA=1 or (0.5..1.4) Marginally failing

F GPA=0 or (0..0.4) Failing

GPA vs Percentages

Some instructors prefer using GPA to combine marks and some instructors prefer to use percentages. It is a matter of preference. Because there is a nonlinear (see your linear algebra text) relationship between GPA and percentages, you may get very different answers. There are cases when each is to your advantage. In our case we use the cut-off method (see above).

• If you miss a Labtest then your grade will be an F.
  • unless the York attending physician's statement (July 2017) is filled out in detail and the physician certifies that you were unable to write due to illness at the time of the Labtest. You must inform the instructor immediately you are able to, that you cannot take the Labtest, and you must present the Physician's statement to the instructor the day after the Labtest. Alternative arrangements to take the Labtest will then be made.

If you want your Labtest regraded, then within one week of receiving the feedback do the following:

• Write out precisely and concisely your concerns.
• Staple your written concerns to your feedback document
• Return the above to the instructor within one week of receiving your feedback.

At times (e.g. in the Project) you are allowed to work on your own or in a team of at most two. If you are working with a partner, be sure to create a shared storage area (e.g. a private GitHub repository) where you both have access to the design/code. You will want to ensure that you each understand the other's work. In case a partner withdraws from the course or does not contribute, you are still responsible to ensure that you submit the work for the complete project on your own (with an explanation of the context in which this happened).