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This textbook was authored for the CIS 642/643 - Software Engineering Project I&II course at Kansas State University. This front matter is specific to that course. If you are not enrolled in the course, please disregard this section.
As an experiential course intended to prepare you for the transition to industry, grading operates a bit differently in this class. We will be employing criterion grading. With criterion grading, your work is either deemed “acceptable” or “unacceptable”. Acceptable work earns a 100%, while unacceptable earns 0%. Note there is no partial credit in criterion grading!
While this may seem harsh at first, it parallels what you can expect on the job. If you regularly turn in “almost-there” work in a professional setting, you can expect to be looking for a new job in short order. Your work must be of acceptable level. Of course, you should strive to do exceptional work rather than just acceptable - so there is a possible 5% bonus on criteria-graded assignments for exceptional work.
Given the use of criterion grading, each Milestone release must meet all of these requirements:
Warning
Remember, you must complete ALL the requirements above to earn points for your milestone. Skipping documentation or testing will result in NO POINTS EARNED even if your program works!
Rather than taking attendance every day, which cuts into our class time, I instead record absences as negative points in the corresponding categories. You can find two assignments in the Absences module:
Note
Given the COVID-19 pandemic and the highly contagious nature of the Omicron variant, the attendance policy will be relaxed this semester. You should contact the instructor directly if you will be absent. However, if you cannot attend in person, please arrange to join your team for these meetings remotely via Zoom, Discord voice channel, or other means. Repeated absences due to illness will be referred to the Office of Student Life for verification.
Not all assignments are criterion-graded. Specifically, the peer review and customer review assignments are based on a survey given to your team members and customers, respectively. This survey asks them to evaluate you on a scale of 1 to 10 across several categories. Instead of translating directly to a grade, we use the following calculation:
Base score = 100 points
-10 points for each category averaging 6 or 7 points
-20 points for each category averaging 4 or 5 points
-30 points for each category below 3 points
This means that a category score of 8, 9, or 10 is “acceptable” and does not impact your grade. However, a score of 8 does suggest you have room to improve in this category, and should strive to do so. Keep this in mind when you fill out peer reviews for your teammates - you can rate them at an 8 or 9 to indicate that you see room for improvement without hurting their grade.