This is the Course News Page

by Mike Gleicher on January 4, 2012

This is an archive of the 2012 version of the class. If you are looking for the 2015 version of the class, go here.

You may be looking for the Course Announcement or the Basic Info page.

We will use Piazza as the discussion platform for this class. (at least initially as an experiment)

Most of the discussion aspects of the class should be done on Piazza (which is why commenting is turned off on these pages).

How Project 2 Grades were given

by Mike Gleicher on May 17, 2012

We made a subjective evaluation (based on the writeup and demo, if you had one) that assessed presentation as well as content. We graded things on an A-F scale.

2/5 of the grade was supposed to be for doing the initial phases of the project (proposal, updates, etc.). Everyone did reasonably well at meeting the requirements, so we gave everyone an AB for that phase.

If your final result got an A, you got an A. If your final result got less than an A, it was weighted averaged with the AB (so if you got a B for the final result, we gave you a 3.2). (this can only raise your score).

For assigning final grades, we checked to make sure that raising your subjective grade to the next step wouldn’t effect your grade. The one case where this may have made a difference, and we examined this one closely.

If you are wondering… 13 people got As for their projects, 5 got ABs. Many of the projects graded below that had special circumstances.

We will send individual feedback by email, however, it might not happen until after May 23rd.

How we computed final grades

by Mike Gleicher on May 17, 2012

(there will be an explanation of the Project 2 grading later)

Your grade is the simple average (1/3 1/3 1/3) of:

  1. Project 1
  2. Project 2
  3. Other Stuff

Other Stuff is the simple average (1/3 1/3 1/3) of:

  1. In-class Participation
  2. Assignments (2/5=3 seek and critiques, 2/5=Design Challenge and Redesign, 1/5=Midterm). Since most people did most of the things well, the mean was higher than an AB.
  3. On-line participation

In class participations was half of the “subjective” evaluation you were sent at the half-way point, and half of a subjective evaluation of the second half.

On-line participation was determined by the average of 3 different grades:

  1. The number of required reading postings you completed (e.g. did the posting for). There were 19, 6 people did all 19. 11 people were given As for getting 18 or more.  12 people were given “ABs” for getting 15 or more. Most other people got B’s for 12 or more (one person only did 11).
  2. A subjective evaluation where the TA selected a few posts and scored them based on completeness, connection to text, and connection to other ideas. (3 posts were checked * 3 categories * 1-3 scores). 10 people got As for 24/27 or higher, 11 got ABs, 5 got Bs, and one negative outlier got a BC.
  3. A quantiative assessment of how many postings you made. The median was 34. You got an A for 35 or more, and AB for 31 or more, and a B for 26 or more (26 was the fewest).

Everyone got between a B and an A for online participation.

We will send you email with these basic scores. We will also send detailed project 2 feedback.

Self-Evaluations for P2

by Mike Gleicher on May 14, 2012

One person sent me a P2 self evaluation, which reminded me that I didn’t give you instructions for them.

I will not look at self-evaluations until after we have graded the project (after reading it, we may adjust your grade if you were at a borderline). So, you can turn it in until Wednesday, 5/13 at 5pm.

Using the questions from P1 is fine. They are:

  1. How happy are you with the outcome?
  2. What went right/wrong in your project? What would you do the same/different?
  3. What will you do the same/differently on the next project?
  4. What advice would you give to someone else proposing to do this project in the future?
  5. The cliché is to ask about what you learned from the experience. This is good self-reflection practice, but may already be described above.

However, #3 doesn’t make as much sense. Instead, I would prefer if you consider the following questions:

  1. How happy are you with the outcome?
  2. What went right/wrong in your project? What would you do the same/different?
  3. What advice would you give to someone else proposing to do this project in the future?
  4. If you worked in a group, how did you split the workload?
  5. What could we have done to better connect the class content to projects? What could we (the course staff) have done to have made this project a better experience for you (or students in general)?
  6. The cliché is to ask about what you learned from the experience. This is good self-reflection practice, but may already be described above.

In general, we are really interested in getting feedback on the course. It’s still a work in progress. So if you have thoughts on what we could do better or differently (or what you think works and shouldn’t be changed), please let us know. If you want to do it anonymously, please put a printed page in my mailbox.

SIgnups for Final Project Demos

by Mike Gleicher on May 11, 2012

If you need to give a final demo, please sign up for a time slot on Tuesday, May 15th on the doodle poll at:  http://www.doodle.com/uy2u3e5if5mwhbkc

Each group should sign up for one (and only one) time slot.

Remember, your projects must be handed in by Monday, May 14th, 10am.

Final Project Handin-Plan

May 2, 2012

On Friday, May 4, the “handin plan” is due. The project page says little more than “expect instructions.” Well, this is it. There are two goals here: We need to predict what you will be delivering to us, so that we can figure out how you should transmit it to us. We want to get […]

Read the full article →

Reading 22: 3D

May 2, 2012

One last reading. I was tempted to skip it to let you focus on projects, but I think it’s a really important topic. One Monday, May 7th, we’ll talk about the perception of 3D. We might get to talking about visualizing 3D phenomena, but I am not sure if we’ll get that far. The Piazza […]

Read the full article →

Mid-Term Assignment “Grades”

May 1, 2012

Overall, everyone who submitted something did at least a good job. There was variance. Some are more insightful than others. Some more directly addressed the question (how does the research utilize class concepts), while others critiqued the tool itself. Still others decided to praise the tool (sometimes in ways that didn’t necessarily add). I will […]

Read the full article →

P1 Grades Sent

April 28, 2012

Everyone should get have gotten their P1 grades sent to the email address that my mailer thinks of. Notes on how grading was computed are available here. There were many cool projects. It’s too bad we didn’t have a forum to share them (like presentations). Maybe we’ll do something (optional) at the end. The diversity […]

Read the full article →

How P1 was graded

April 28, 2012

(note: I have assigned grades as of noon, 4/28/2012 – but I have not mailed them to you yet) Project Scoring Rubric: N=5 or 6 (weeks) 1/N – did you do all of the pieces (most people get 100%) 1/N – proposal & revision (lenient scoring – most people get 100%) 1/N – final material […]

Read the full article →

The Week in Vis: Week 14 (April 30-May 4)

April 27, 2012

Wow – we’re getting to the end. Hopefully, your projects are going well (and you sent a project update), and that will be the main focus of your time. But we do have some topics left… Monday, April 30: A lecture of Design. We will have an special guest lecture and interactive activity with someone […]

Read the full article →