Homework format and grading
Report format
Each week you will have to submit a pdf report to the gradescope with the solved tasks. Other formats will not be accepted (e.g. html, doc, matlab, excel etc.)
Since R is the default language of the course, we strongly recommend using RStudio and RMarkdown to generate the reports (there are tutorials here and here is a HOMEWORK TEMPLATE). You are allowed to use other languages like Python, but we might not be able to help you with the problems you might have. If you want to use Python we recommend to use Jupyter Notebook.
Report content
There are different kinds of tasks in homeworks. Some require answering questions or discussing some topic, in this case your text should be comprehensive and with full sentences. Please keep in mind that we will actually read your answers, so please, be kind and write understandably. Some tasks involve programming, in this case your report should comprehensively answer the following questions:
- how did you approach and solve the problem (what did you do etc)?
- what were the results?
- what conclusions can you draw from the results?
These questions should not be explicitly written out, but answers should come out naturally from reading your report. Try to make your report and answers to the questions as short and concise as possible while still containing the important aspects.
The explanatins should be accompanied by and based on:
- graphs, plots, tables, numbers or other types of answers that were asked from you
- code has to be provided for all coding tasks unless told otherwise (we prefer if you include your code snippets in the pdf, since they should not be too long for these tasks)
All plots, graphs etc should be accompanied by an explanation what is on them. The plots don't have to look too nice so don't spend too much time on making them pretty, but others should be able to read them and understand what is on the plot. For example don't forget to add axis descriptions etc.
Grading
The main idea is that from your explanation it should be convincing enough for us to see that you did the work and that you have thought about the outcome. They should also be specific enough to help you later study for the exam or help you remind about some topic in the future. This will be also the basis of grading. Even if you didn't get the correct outcome, if we see you have tried and worked on it, you will get the points. We will deduct points if you:
- are late with the submission
- don't follow the submission rules (formats of files etc)
- don't answer to all of the questions asked
- don't explain what you did
- don't explain the outcome
- drawings and graphs are not accompanied by explanations or are not possible to follow
- you haven't included the important code parts in the report
You are allowed to discuss the tasks among yourselves, but the solutions have to be made by everyone individually.
Presentation during the practice session
During the session homework tasks will be presented and discussed. Each task will be presented by a student. You can volunteer to present (karma points for that!) or otherwise you can be selected by the instructor. Everyone will have to present during the course multiple times. If you present nicely the instructor might consider increasing your score for the task if otherwise the report had some problems (for example lacking explanations).
During the presentation you must:
- explain the task
- explain your approach (often also explain the algorithm again etc)
- show and explain your results
- answer to questions from the instructor and audience
You will not have to be correct or be able to answer everything. You just have to try and think along. Don't be scared to answer incorrectly or be wrong.
Your presentation will not be graded (which doesn't mean that you shouldn't do it well) but this is an ideal environment where to practice presenting (you will have to do it in the future a lot!). So use this opportunity to practice your presenting skills in front of your co-students before having to do it before other (more scary :)) people.
Some tips for presenting:
- speak loudly and calmly so everyone can hear and follow
- look at your audience, not the blackboard
- you will be presenting mostly to your co-students, not the instructor, so try to "communicate" with them during the presentation
You do not have to do any extra work for this, if you know what you have done in the homework, then just explain it in a nice way and it's all good! :)
Good that you are paying attention: to get points for EX 1 in HW1, write to your report a few sentences about what you need to do (or what you shouldn't do) to be able to get full points for the exercises.
Feedback
As a rule there will be no individual feedback sent every week to every student. There will be a general feedback email sent via Gradescope, that includes all the comments and common mistakes. So if you lost any points and you are not personally notified about the reason, the reason was either that you didn't follow the submission rules or there was a mistake that is mentioned in the feedback post. So it is in your best interest to read the weekly feedback post and think about if you made any of the mistakes pointed out. There are often also other interesting comments made in the feedback, so read it!
The second place where you will get feedback is during the session by listening to others and asking questions.
Of course, you can at any time ask for personal feedback, and we will comment some more! :)