Course Web for CS559 Fall 2015

Final grades are NOT on Canvas.

Final exam grades are NOT on Canvas.

Programming assignment grades are NOT on Canvas.

Exam and programming assignment grades will be (actually, have been) sent to you by email.

We apologize for the inconsistent and confusing use of Canvas. It was a learning experience for us – we had some unrealistic expectations, and tried a few experiments that didn’t work out as we hoped. We reverted to “old fashioned” technology since we knew we could rely on it.

The final exam has been graded, and final grades have been posted.

Some information about it:

Final: The median score was an 82. The mean score was a 79. To map these to letter grades, we first assumed that we made at least one mistake and gave people 3 points. Then it was 90 points for an A, 85 points for an AB, … (so, if you got an 87 or higher you got an A). if you ask us to regrade your exam, we’ll check the whole exam carefully, so you lose those 3 points. This means that half the class got ABs or better. If you want to see your assignment, Prof. Sifakis has them: make an appointment with him.

We gave everybody a few extra points on the midterm too.

Exam Grade: If your final was better than your midterm, it counted for 2/3 of your exam score. If your midterm was better than your final, each counted for half.

Late Penalty: If you were very late more than once, or were very late once and consistently late, we took a small penalty (1/6 of a letter grade) from your project score.

Numerical Grade: If your exam grade was higher than your programming assignment grade, we let it count for 25% of your final grade. If you were better at programming, exams didn’t count. (programming grade factored in lateness).

If you were just below a boundary, we went back to look at your programming assignments. We considered how consistently you did the quizzes. We tried to think of reasons to be generous.

We have completed grading of P14.

Everyone who turned in an assignment received at least a B. We may not be able to send email with scoring details before we complete the final grading.

The people who did not turn in a P14 should have received an email.

There are many assignments on the B/AB border. We will re-consider these when we look at how they influence your final grade.

When we originally posted the practice final, we did not explicitly plan to post a key to solutions. Since then, a number of students asked whether sample solutions could be posted. Although we might still attempt to do so (our primary priority is vetting the actual exam, and providing you feedback on your assignments pending final grading) we cannot promise that a key will be given to you, especially soon enough for it to be helpful. We hope you still find the practice questions useful in testing your familiarity with certain topics that might appear in the final.

That being said, prior to the midterm we witnessed a very nice community effort on Piazza of coming up with answers by sharing individual opinions. If some of you are inclined to start a similar thread, this would be a very nice alternative! (and maybe it would be easier for instructors to contribute short answers/explanations in such a discussion).

To those of you who turned in assignments on time: Thank you. We apologize that we have had to delay giving you feedback because we have been trying to accommodate late assignments.

To those of you who are intending to turn in extremely late assignments:

We had a posting that explained the “final” deadlines for late assignments (it is still here). We were a little more lenient, but are limited.

Unless you have a specific arrangement that has already been made with the faculty (e.g. you’ve already communicated with us by email):

1. We cannot accept assignments before P10 anymore.
2. The hard deadline for P13 was “the last day of class” – we accepted them until this morning. We cannot accept any more.
3. We had said we would accept late P14s up to a week after the last class (with penalty). So this means noon on Tuesday, the 22nd. However, if you intend to turn in an assignment after Sunday night (e.g. on Monday or Tuesday), you need to send email to the staff email account saying so – so that we know to look for your assignment.

P10 grades has gone out. P13 grades should go out this weekend or Monday. We plan to have P14 grades available at the final (or send the morning before).

The following practice final exemplifies some of the focus areas to be expected in your actual test. Although this has been biased towards material covered in the second half of the class, the actual final will be cumulative and may include material from the earlier part of the class.

[PDF]

The final exam is at 10:05am on Wednesday, December 23rd. It is scheduled for 2 hours.

It is scheduled to be held in room 1120 Biochem (the same as lecture).

It will be cumulative (i.e cover everything – including what was on the midterm), although there will be an emphasis on topics not covered by the midterm.

The midterm should have given you a good sense of how we like to make exams.

You will be allowed one or two hand-written, single sided sheets of notes (it can be 2 sides of the same page – but at most 2 sides of a page total). We will require you to turn in your note sheet with your exam.

We will provide you with a practice exam (at least some practice questions) this week (e.g. before the 18th).

Some people were surprised to receive a grade for their programming assignment. And everyone deserves a little explanation. It was kindof hidden in the grading policy (sent this weekend).

We had not given you a grade for your programming assignment – you got a “check” (encoded as a number between 0-4). As we had said in the beginning, the actual grades (above a B) would be determined using more detailed factors. Recently, we decided to more specifically quantify how people did on the assignments, and to provide this as feedback.

You will probably notice that the rubric checks for a lot of things that were not required. Your actual grade is based on an overall assessment of the main pieces (for example, with P4 things like “does the painters algorithm work”). Some things are subjective (creativity in the objects drawn, or movements shown), and if things were on the edge, implementing extra bells and whistles can make the difference.

December 15th is the last lecture for CS559.

Usually on the last day of class, I focus on answering questions. Either things from class that you aren’t quite sure about, or things that we didn’t get to cover that you are curious about. So, please bring questions.

I’ll also talk about image processing – with some more hints on how upsampling/downsampling works, and some better connections to what we have already done in class (like texturing and splines).

I’m sure I could fill the whole lecture talking about image processing, but hopefully people will bring interesting questions.

And please do an online course evaluation. http://aefis.wisc.edu.