Subject: Carrots and Sticks

A number of students have decided that their time is more profitably
spent on analysing the relative merits of a Friday hand-in with bonus
over a Monday hand-in with penalty than on completing the assignment.
They complain that this analysis is made difficult by the lack of
information on the relative sizes of these adjustments.  Well, here is
my initial proposal; your constructive comments are welcome, and may be
taken into account in setting the final version.

The features I want from the grading formula are as follows:

  1. Excellent solutions should receive excellent marks.  If you spend
     the weekend polishing your solution, you will not be penalised.
     Excellent work submitted on time is worthy of a high bonus.

  2. A poor solution submitted late will be taken to mean that th3
     assignment was not started until the weekend.  Such work
     will be penalised heavily.

  3. In borderline cases, the marks should not differ by more than 5%

These factors lead be to suggest the following system of adjustments:

                           On-time   Late
        Excellent (80%+)   + 10%      0%
        Good (60-80%)      + 5%      -5%
        Poor (<60%)        + 0%      -10%

-- 
-- John Hamer                                Email: J.Hamer@cs.auckland.ac.nz
-- Department of Computer Science            Phone: +64 9 3737 599 x8758
-- University of Auckland                    Fax:   +64 9 3737 453
-- Private Bag 92019, Auckland, New Zealand.