Submission

The tutorial exercises must be attempted and submitted during the tutorial class in which the student is officially enrolled each week. The exercises will not be made available for assessment at any other time. Each tutorial assesses work that has been covered in previous lectures, with an emphasis on the most recent work. Students are permitted to re-attempt questions that they have incorrectly answered any number of times during the class, but a penalty of 20% will apply to each question, each time that each question is re-attempted (i.e. the maximum available marks from each question decays linearly as the number of attempts increases). The best 10 out of 12 tutorial results will contribute 1% each to the final grade.

What is required to complete the unit satisfactorily

Students must demonstrate satisfaction of the learning objectives assessed in each particular tutorial exercise. Students are welcome to consult reference material during the tutorial, and may discuss the work with other students and the tutor. However, the responses that students submit must reflect their own ideas and work. In particular, students who submit the answers of other students, without making any contribution to the derivation of the answers, will be deemed to have violated the Academic Honesty Policy. Note that tutorial attendance is required. Students who do not attend at least 9 out of the 12 tutorials without being granted Special Consideration may be deemed to have unsatisfactory attendance and consequently be refused permission to continue in the unit and awarded a grade of F irrespective of their performance in other components of the assessment. Students must bring their Macquarie University Campus Card to each tutorial and display it in the holder provided. Failure to display a campus card may result in a student being refused access to the tutorial.

Each homework exercise assesses work covered in lectures up to the submission deadline and contributes 16.667% to the final assessment.

Submission

Each homework exercise will be a web-based task made available on iLearn once sufficient material has been covered in lectures to enable students to start the work. Responses to the homework questions must be submitted via the iLearn interface for the homework task. Each homework exercise may be submitted once only. Shortly following the submission deadline for each homework exercise, a number of students may be required to present a defence of their submitted work. Students who are selected to present a defence will be contacted (at short notice) via their Macquarie University student email account and must attend at the time and place allocated to them. In the defence, the student may be asked to work through similar exercises in the presence of teaching staff from the unit, and may be asked to explain how he or she answered each question. The student may also be asked supplementary questions about the same topics. The student will be assigned a mark for the defence that will override the mark that was awarded for the previously submitted version of the exercise. A student who does not attend a defence that he or she was selected to present will be awarded a mark of zero for that task. Note that students must read their Macquarie University email at least once every 24 hours. Failure to read the relevant email will not be accepted as an excuse for not attending a defence.

What is required to complete the unit satisfactorily

Students must demonstrate satisfaction of the learning objectives assessed in each particular homework exercise. Students will be awarded a numerical mark for each exercise that indicates the proportion of the questions that they answered correctly. It should be noted that the final grade for a student will not be computed simply by summing the marks attained in individual assessment tasks. Rather, the grading process will take into account which questions were answered correctly or incorrectly and what that indicates about the extent to which the student has achieved the learning outcomes of the unit. Many questions in the homework exercises will be quite close to work that has been covered in the lecture program and in tutorials (i.e. they ask the student to do little more than replicate the unit material as presented to them). The responses to these questions will be of most interest in determining whether the student is awarded a grade of P. The homework exercises will also contain several questions that ask students to extend the unit material, or approach it in a way that is in some sense different to what was covered in the lectures (i.e. they seek evidence of learning that goes beyond replication of content). The responses to these questions will be of most interest when determining whether the student is awarded a grade of Cr.

Consequently, while the aggregate mark attained in homework exercises will be broadly indicative of the level of student achievement, there is no exact functional relationship between the total mark and the grade awarded. Students are encouraged to read the grade descriptors in the grading policy and reflect on the extent to which their submitted work corresponds to each of the descriptors. Students are welcome to contact the Unit Coordinator at any time to discuss their work and the evidence that it provides of their learning achievement.

It is intended that students will work on the homework exercises independently. Students who collude or otherwise violate the Academic Honesty Policy will face further action which may result in failure in the unit (with an SNG of zero) and more severe penalties.
 

Each assignment assesses work covered in lectures up to the the submission deadline and contributes 20% to the final assessment.

Submission

Each assignment must be submitted via the relevant links in iLearn prior to the deadline. No other form of submission is acceptable. Each assignment may be submitted once only. Submission instructions and information about the requirements of the assignments will be provided in class and on iLearn. Following the submission deadline for each assignment, a number of students may be required to present a defence of their submitted work. Students who are selected to present a defence will be contacted via their Macquarie University student email account (at short notice) and must attend at the time and place allocated to them. In the defence, the student may be asked to work through the relevant assignment in the presence of teaching staff from the unit, and to explain how he or she completed the assignment. The student may also be asked supplementary questions. The student will be assigned a mark for the defence that will override the mark that was awarded for the submitted version of the assignment. A student who does not attend a defence that he or she was selected to present will be awarded a mark of zero for that task. Note that students must read their Macquarie University email at least once every 24 hours. Failure to read the relevant email will not be accepted as an excuse for not attending a defence.

What is required to complete the unit satisfactorily

For each assignment, students will be awarded a mark that reflects their level of achievement indicated by the grade descriptors and the cut-off marks for the SNG described in the Grading Policy. For example, a mark of less than 50% would indicate a failure to demonstrate achievement of the learning outcomes under consideration; a mark of greater than 84% would indicate the achievement of deep and critical understanding; etc. The primary purpose of the assignments is to assess students for the grades of D and HD. It is not necessary for students to perform well in the assignments in order to pass the unit since they may demonstrate satisfactory achievement of the learning outcomes in the homework exercises. Nonetheless, in cases where inadequate evidence of learning achievement was presented in the homework, it may be possible for the required evidence to be presented in the assignments.

It is intended that students will work on the assignments independently. Students who collude or otherwise violate the Academic Honesty Policy will face further action which may result in failure in the unit (with an SNG of zero) and more severe penalties.