The provisional results for INM WS 2014/2015 are now available.
The grade for the course will be determined by a series of five exercises and a short multiple choice test.
I sometimes need to make changes to an exercise, to the number of points awarded, or to the deadlines, so make sure that you check back regularly and read the main course newsgroup.
To pass the course, you need to achieve 50% or more of the total points for the course and also get at least two questions out of ten correct in the multiple choice test. I do not fix an exact points-to-grade mapping until we have finished marking everything.
You must take the multiple choice test and get at least two questions correct in order to pass the course. If you fail to take the multiple choice test or get less than two correct questions, you will fail the entire course, regardless of your points for the other exercises. You only get one attempt at the test. You will not be able to retake just the test, even if you get less than two questions out of ten. In that case, you will have to retake the entire course.
| Exercise | Description | Announce | Deadline | Points | Percent |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | Register for Course and Set Up Newsreader | 0 | 0.0 | ||
| 1 | Newsgroup New Thread | Fri 03 Oct 2014 lecture | Wed 08 Oct 2014 18:00 | 25 | 10.1 |
| 2 | Newsgroup Discussion | Fri 03 Oct 2014 lecture | Wed 15 Oct 2014 18:00 | 30 | 12.1 |
| 3 | Email and Web Research | Fri 17 Oct 2014 lecture |
3.1 Wed 22 Oct 2014 18:00 3.2 Wed 29 Oct 2014 18:00 |
15 31 |
6.1 12.6 |
| 4 | Web Site (Polyglot XHTML5) | Fri 24 Oct 2014 lecture | Wed 05 Nov 2014 18:00 Files must remain unchanged until the end of semester. |
46 | 18.6 |
| 5 | Three Style Sheets (CSS3) | Fri 31 Oct 2014 lecture | Wed 19 Nov 2014 18:00 | 50 | 20.2 |
| 6 | Multiple Choice Test | Fri 28 Nov or Fri 05 Dec 2014 * | 50 | 20.2 | |
| 247 | 100.0 |
* You do not get to choose which test date, I will assign you to one of the two test dates.
You may complete the exercises either in English or in German. The questions in the multiple choice test are in English only.
The deadline for an exercise is the latest possible time you can hand in your work. You are allowed to hand in your work before the deadline. Expect there to be technical problems immediately before a deadline, so do not leave everything until the last minute. Instead, aim to complete each exercise well ahead of the deadline.
Late submissions will be dealt with as follows:
Upto 48 hours after the deadline, 50% of the points for that exercise.
More than 48 hours after the deadline, 0 points for that exercise.
Unless you have a very good reason supported by appropriate documentation (doctor's letter, etc.).
At the earliest, we can start correcting your work 48 hours after the main deadline (i.e. after the late deadline), once all the work is in for a particular exercise. It generally takes us 2 or 3 weeks to correct an exercise, including dealing with any special cases and ensuring consistency of marking (at the next meeting of all tutors and me). Also, for the first 3 to 4 weeks of the course, we spend most of our time preparing future exercises, rather than correcting past exercises.
Using our new online grading system (Sapphire), we might just be able to publish the points for Ex 1 and Ex 2 somewhere before the Ex 4 or Ex 5 deadline, but I am not making any promises at this stage.
That said, your tutor will usually be able to provide you with informal feedback, such as "You are doing fine", or "You need to be careful with your .sig".
You can register or unregister from the course yourself until the appropriate deadline in TUGrazOnline (usually a week or so into October). Once the deadline for unregistering yourself has passed, if you break off the course, the policy is as follows:
If all you did was register for the course, but you did not then participate in any of the exercises (no postings or followups in the tutorial groups, nothing), then I will unregister you from the course. It will not show up as an attempt (Prüfungsantritt).
If you did participate in any of the exercises, then your partial work for the course will be graded, and you will get the grade you get. If you break off the course, then most likely that will be a grade 5 (fail). In this case, it will show up as an attempt (Prüfungsantritt).
Ex4 will require you to repurpose material you wrote for Ex1 and Ex3 (you have to mark it up as XHTML). If, for some reason, you did not complete Ex1 or Ex3, then you will have to catch up and do Ex1 and/or Ex3 after the event, so that you have the necessary material for Ex4.
You do not have to post your Ex1 to the newsgroup after the event, or hand in your Ex3 after the event, just create the materials.
For the vast majority of students, who conscientiously complete the exercises each week, the decision to re-use material from Ex1 and Ex3 in Ex4 reduces the overall amount of material they have to create. The alternative would be to keep the exercises independent of one another, but then everyone would have to create new material for each exercise.
If you are re-taking INM and have already written some text last year (say a new topic for Ex1 or some text for Ex4), it is OK in principle for you to re-purpose your own material for use this year. However, be aware that the exercises do change from year to year, and you must follow the current instructions.
It is, of course, never OK to re-use someone else's material and claim it to be your own.
INM is currently offered every winter semester. If you fail the course, the next chance to repeat the course is the following winter semester.
Some students pass INM, but would like to repeat the course to improve their grade. The situation as I understand it, is that if you pass a course, you are allowed to retake it within 6 months. However, since INM is only offered once a year, this is not possible.