Grading Policy for VO+PS "Computational Geometry"

to be examined according to an alternative method if they suffer from a permanent disability which makes it impossible for them to take an examination in the prescribed manner and the other method does not limit the content and standards of the examination.

• The lecture (VO) will be graded on the basis of oral exams that take place in my office and that cover the material contained in my lecture slides and/or taught in class during the VO.
• Please be prepared that the exam is a "closed-book" exam! That is, during the exam you will not be allowed to consult your own notes or other written or electronic resources.
• You should expect the exam to last for about one hour. It will hardly last for more than one and a half hours and will rarely take less than half an hour.

• The PS will be graded on the basis of assignments, and, possibly, written tests at the end of the semester.
• Unless announced explicitly otherwise, after each VO lecture I will post a sheet with new assignments no later than on the subsequent Tuesday.
• These weekly assignments have to be worked out by each student by their due dates.
• All new assignments will be due and will be discussed in the PS unit in the week following the post date.
• Hence, in general you will have about one and a half weeks to work out the assignments. (There might be exceptions to this rule which I will announce clearly.)
• All assigments (given so far) will be available as one PDF file on the homepage of the course.
• Tick-mark registration system:
  • Please use our online check-mark registration system ("Kreuzerlsystem") to mark those assignments that you have solved and are willing to present in class.
  • You can enter (or change) your tick marks until 00:00 (midnight) before the day on which the assignments are due.
  • By marking individual tasks in the tick-mark registration system, you indicate that you have worked out and understood these tasks in such detail that you can present and explain them, and that you can also answer questions about them and related to them.
• Grading:
  • Your PS grade will be based
    • on the number of assignments for which you declared a willingness to present them in class,
    • on the evaluation of your hand-ins (if applicable),
    • on your performance at the blackboard/whiteboard during the presentation of assignments, and
    • on, if applicable, the test(s) at the end of the semester.
  • In addition, I will take notes of other noteworthy contributions of students during class.
  • Grading of the assignments and presentations:
    • In order to get a passing grade on the PS you are required to mark at least MIN assignments as the ones which you are willing to present in class, where MIN is computed as follows:
      • Let X be the total number of assignments posted.
      • Let Y be the total number of different assignment sheets.
      • Let MAX := (X/Y) * (Y-1).
      • Then MIN := 0.5 * MAX.
      • If MIN is a fractional number then it will be rounded down to the next integer.
    • You can get credit for the assignments checked only if you attend the PS personally. If you are not present while one of the assignments is discussed which you had checked then I will delete all check marks entered for that PS unit.
    • Please contact me as soon as it becomes obvious that you won't be able to attend some portion of a PS unit although you checked some assignments. If you get in touch with me well before the start of that PS unit then we can try to come to an arrangement that allows you to keep your check marks even though you are only partly present during that particular PS unit.
    • Please note that marking at least MIN assignments is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for passing the PS!
    • In particular, please note that I will use the quality of your explanations and arguments given during your presentations as a positive or negative weight when determining your final grade!
    • Let A (as a rational number between 1 and 5) denote the average grade on your presentations. (In Austria, 1 means "very good" and 5 means "insufficient/failed".)
    • Your average grade on your presentations has to be strictly better than 4. However, achieving A < 4 is only a necessary but not a sufficient condition for passing the PS!
    • If A < 4 then your point score P on the assignments will be determined by the following formula:
           P := 100 * (K / MAX) * [1 + (2 - A) / 5],
      where K>=MIN denotes the number of assignments marked.
    • Achieving P >= 50 is a necessary condition for passing the PS!
    • Please note that all explanations have to be given relative to the material taught in this course and, of course, basics that can be expected to be known from high-school or undergraduate courses. Any other material is off limits and needs to be explained and proved(!) before it can be applied for solving an assignment! I recommend to get in touch with me via email if you are in doubt whether some lemma or theorem is acceptable as basic knowledge.
    • In any case, if presented with a full line of arguments then I will be much more lenient towards "solutions" that fall apart. On the other hand, phrases like "It seems like..." or "I believe that..." or "This is true!!!" (without any rational why it should be true) simply do not belong to the line of reasoning employed by this course, and I will react harshly to such "solutions". Hopes and fears are an important part of everybody's life, but this course is not about hopes or fears but about rigorous arguments!
    • This means that marking all X assignments but delivering very poor explanations (due to an obvious lack of understanding) whenever I ask you will still result in failing the PS!
    • As a rule of thumb, if you are not convinced that you can outline a full suite of arguments then it is likely smarter not to claim credit for an assignment and have one assignment less to your credit, than to risk being caught by me.
    • If you'd come up with two or more solutions then I'd advise you to focus on one solution and work it out in detail, rather than have several "half-baked" solutions.
    • You are not required to hand-in your assignments, unless explicitly requested for some particular assignments. (However, it seems advisable to work out the assignments in writing since you may use your notes during presentations.)
    • If we'd have hand-ins then your average score on all tasks (to be handed in) of one PS unit will be treated as one grade for a "presentation".
  • Tests:
    • Provided that all (active) PS participants will end up giving at least five presentations at the blackboard/whiteboard, the PS can be graded as explained above.
    • If, however, such a sufficient number of presentations cannot be expected to happen for all participants (that seem to be still active in the PS), two written exams ("test") on the PS material will be held during the last two PS units, during the regular time of the PS.
    • The decision of whether or not we will have tests will be announced about two weeks prior to the first test.
    • Tests:
      • You will have to solve tasks similar in spirit to the ones covered by the PS assignments.
      • For the tests, one sheet of DIN A4 paper (printed on both sides) is permitted as a "reminder" of the material covered in the PS.
      • Other written material (books, lecture notes, ...) is not allowed.
      • No electronic devices (laptop, tablet, smartphone, calculator, ...) are allowed!
      • A total of 100 points can be achieved on each test.
      • The better score on the two tests determines your test score; the weaker score is irrelevant.
      • Achieving at least 50 points on the (better) test is a necessary condition for passing the PS!
  • If we'll have tests then the total point score Q for the PS will be calculated as the arithmetic mean of the scores on the assignments/presentations and on the (better) test. Otherwise, your total point score Q will be given by the score obtained on the assignments/presentations.
  • The total point score Q translates into an actual grade for the PS as follows: Q>=89 yields "very good" (1), 76<=Q<=88 yields "good" (2), 63<=Q<=75 yields "average" (3), and 50<=Q<=62 yields "fair" (4). Achieving less than 50 points results in "insufficient/failed" (5).
• Academic honesty:
  • You may cooperate and discusss the assignments with other students. (Of course, with the exception of possibly a few assignments for which I explicitly request everybody to come up with his/her own solution!)
  • Similarly, you are welcome to consult textbooks or online sources, and even AI tools.
  • Frankly speaking, in general I do not care whether you discuss assignments among your peers, or how you come up with a solution.
  • However, I will not tolerate naive plagiarism: Once you mark an assignment as solved then I expect you to fully understand your solution. That is, if I ask you to explain your solution then you'll have to be able to argue why your solution ought to be correct, and you'll have to be able to answer questions concerning (sub-)problems related to your solution --- without the help of anybody or anything else!

• Attendance is compulsory during at least 70% of the time of the PS.
• A grade will be assigned even if you should decide to drop the PS, with the grading being done relative to your accomplishments achieved up to the time when you dropped the PS. Please note that dropping the PS results virtually always in the non-passing grade "insufficient/failed" (5). This rule does not apply if you should opt out of the PS prior to its third unit.
• An improvement of the grade obtained for the PS is not possible after I entered your grade in PLUSonline.
• The entire PS course will have to be repeated in a later semester if you should have failed!