Fall 2001
Junior or senior standing and consent of instructor
A central goal of this course is to provide the student with practical experience in making oral presentations on technical topics. In order to accomplish this goal, each student will select two technical topics and make oral presentations on each of the topics. In addition, each student will participate in the evaluation of every student’s presentations (including themselves).
The oral presentations must follow the normal style of conference (use PowerPoint, transparencies, or other media, as appropriate) and must be 15 minutes long. In addition, five minutes will be reserved for questions following each presentation and three additional minutes will be reserved for completing and collecting evaluation forms. The presentation topics may be selected from any area of general interest to computer scientists, including but not limited to artificial intelligence, biologically inspired computing, net-centric computing, distributed computing, computer graphics and animation, vision systems, virtual reality, robotics, parallel processing, or security.
Students will complete evaluation documents for each presentation. The evaluation document includes six categories of assessment, each graded on a range from on through four. If a student delivers a perfect presentation, the score would be 24 points (= 6 categories x 4 points/ category). The grade recorded for each presentation will be an average of the student’s self-evaluation (25%), the average (not including the highest and lowest) of the peer evaluations (25%), and the instructor’s evaluation (50%). Thus, a perfect final average would be 48 (= 2 perfect presentations x 24 points/presentation).
Your final grade will be determined according to the following scale:
Final average Grade
43.2-48.0 A
38.4-43.1999 B
33.6-37.3999 C
28.8-33.5999 D
Less than 28.8 F
The instructor reserves the right, solely at his own discretion, to curve grades.
Incomplete grades are
given only very rarely and only when the student is
-
Otherwise passing
the course,
-
Able to complete
the work of the course entirely on his/her own, and
-
Prevented from
completing the course by verified unforeseen circumstances beyond the control
of the student.
The instructor MUST be
able to certify all three of these
factors to the chair before assigning a grade of "I".
Event Date
Last day to drop (without a grade) Wednesday, August 29, 2001
Last day to withdraw with W Wednesday, October 3, 2001
Regular attendance and vigorous participation in class are expected but not required. However, if you desire the "benefit of the doubt" in any matter related to your grade in the class, you will routinely be present, ask relevant questions, and cooperate with the instructor as well as the course objectives.
If you have a disability and need reasonable accommodation in this course, you should inform the instructor of this fact in writing within the first week of class or as soon as possible. If you have not already done so, you must register with the Office of Disability Services in Westside Hall (ext. 3746) and obtain a copy of your Accommodation Letter. You should then meet with your instructor to make mutually agreeable arrangements based on the recommendations of the Accommodation Letter.
A schedule of presentations will be determined by a random drawing held during the first class meeting. You must make your presentations as scheduled or you may forfeit the privilege of making a significant contribution to your final grade.