CPSC 330 grading policies

CPSC 330 grading policies#

General guidelines#

  • Assignment grading concerns: All grading concerns and challenges related to assignments must be reported opening a regrade request on Gradescope

  • Exam grading concerns: All grading concerns and challenges related to the midterms must be reported through the exam platform (Prairielearn) during exam viewings, which must be scheduled with the CBTF after each exam. More details about this will be communicated as we get closer to the midterms.

Grading concerns: time limit#

If you perceive a problem with your homework or exam grade, you have one week to raise a concern from the time that your grades were posted. After that, your grade is final.

Reasonable grading concerns#

Grades are not perfect; some randomness in grading is normal, meaning that you’ll generally get more than you deserve in some cases and less than you deserve in other cases. Thus, it is possible to exploit the system by consistently complaining when your grade is too low but not when it is too high. Unfortunately, this takes time away from the course staff which could have been spent on making the course better for everyone. Thus, in my view, students who overzealously contest grades are penalizing their classmates for personal gain.

Sometimes serious grading errors are made, for example when a grader did not see your answer to a question or completely deviated from standard grading practices for some unknown reason. Such situations can be quite frustrating for students, and we want you to feel that the course is fair. In these cases, it makes sense for the student to bring the error to our attention.

Balancing these two sides is difficult. In CPSC 330, we’ll adopt the following policy. If a grade is challenged in a way that is deemed unreasonable, the student will receive a warning. This decision will be made by the instructor. If this happens a second time, the student will lose the privilege to challenge grades for the remainder of the course. Examples of unreasonable requests include extremely minor complaints (e.g. half a mark on an assignment) or repeatedly contesting the same issue once a decision has been reached. This policy applies to both assignments and exams.

Contents