Coursework and grading

Homework (60%)

There will be about seven programming assignments. In figuring this part of your final grade, I'll drop your lowest homework grade. Instructions for submitting homework and individual homework assignments will be posted on the Assignments page.

Project (40%)

You will submit a programming project at the end of the semester. Ideally you will collaborate with one other student in the class on the project.

Topics

• See Mike about your project topic sometime in the first five weeks.
• Three progress reports on projects will be due, roughly in the sixth, ninth and twelfth weeks of the semester.
• Example topics
  • Modify the Smarts reinforcement learning program so that the Critters have audition and learn to respond to signals emitted by other Critters, for example, when they find food or detect predators.
  • Implement a simple model (for example, a feedforward neural network) of some data you have.
  • Implement an experiment to be run on the web.

What you're expected to turn in

Code

It should of course be documented. If it's a joint project, also indicate who wrote which class (it should normally be possible to divide the work up this way).

Written report

This is a programming project, so the report can be pretty simple, no more than 2 pages or so. It should have three parts.

• Goals
  Describe what the program is supposed to do and (very briefly) how this fits into cognitive science.
• Program
  Describe the organization of the program, emphasizing what would not be obvious from the comments in your code.
• Evaluation
  Say how well you succeeded and what you learned from doing this.

Oral report

Summarize what's in your written report. Give this some thought; don't just plan to come in and talk about your project or read your written report. (On the other hand, don't spend more than an hour or two preparing.) If you use overheads, make them easy to read (large font, not too much information on each one); don't just copy sections of text from your written report. If this is a joint project, divide up the work, for example, having one person talk about the program, the other about the goals and evaluation. Plan to talk no more than 15 minutes.

Grading

Grading procedures

Late submission

I will not accept late assignments. Please don't come with excuses for late homework assignments, progress reports, or projects, however valid, unless you are asking for, and believe you qualify for, an Incomplete in the class. Excuses end up being discriminatory because some students are more likely to use them than others, who have equally good reasons, so, in the interest of fairness, I prefer to ignore them altogether. Remember that one of your homework assignments will be dropped, so even if you miss one entirely, you can get an "A" in the course.

Incompletes

The policy towards Incomplete grades in this course is the university's own policy. The following is from the IU Academic Handbook.

CIRCUMSTANCES PERMITTING INCOMPLETES
The grade of Incomplete used on the final grade reports indicates that the work is satisfactory as of the end of the semester but has not been completed. The grade of Incomplete may be given only when the completed portion of a student's work in the course is of passing quality. Instructors may award the grade of Incomplete upon a showing of such hardship to a student as would render it unjust to hold the student to the time limits previously fixed for the completion of his/her work.

Probable grading breakdown

© 2004. Indiana University and Michael Gasser. www.indiana.edu/~gasser/Q530/coursework.html 30 Aug 2004