Rules - Please read all of them!
Grades
The grades will be distributed as follows: assignments = 30%, midterms = 30%, final = 40%. However, all students are required to pass the Final Exam to pass the course, regardless of their lab or midterm scores. In other words, your grade will be determined by the percentages above, unless you fail the final. There is no pre-determined percentage to pass the final exam; the "pass" percentage will be determined at the time the exam is graded.
Letter grades will not be assigned until after all points are in at the end of the quarter. Special pleading at the end of the course will have no effect. Every quarter, a certain number of students who apparently need to pass the class in order to graduate or remain eligible for some sort of aid, or whatever, miss the C- cut-off, or whatever it is that they need. Some of these students are then unable to graduate, or maintain eligibility for something, or whatever. If this is your situation, then you need to make sure you pass the class. We have office hours and are happy to help if you are having trouble with the material; practice exams are available for you to assess your own level of preparation. I and the TA’s are happy to spend time with anyone who needs it to help them get a handle on the material so they can do well on the exams. But it is your responsibility to attend lecture, study the material, and take practice exams, and come to office hours if you need help.
We will not adjust grades after they have been assigned, except in cases where an actual error of some sort has been made. The vast majority of the students in this class work hard and study the material on the assumption that the grade they earn means something. They are depending on me not to give some other student, who didn't work as hard, the same grade, just because this other student did some lobbying after the quarter was over. Every student's grade is determined by the points they receive, including those who miss a grade cut-off by just 1 point. So please please, study, attend lecture, do the practice exams, and ask questions if there is material you don't understand. See me or the TAs if you need help. Don't take a risk by not studying, skipping lectures, or trying to estimate how much you can slack off and 'probably' still pass.
Sometimes, a Lab group will have a “strong” partner and a “not-so-strong” partner. If you are the “not-so-strong” partner, be sure to work extra hard to master the lab material and not rely on your stronger partner to do the work for you. The tests will assume you understand the lab material.
Exams
The exams will be closed book/no calculators. A pencil (and eraser) is all that is required. There will be one midterm, lasting one and one-half hours. I’ll ask you to leave your backpacks at the front of the class while you take the exams. You can pick them up when you turn your exam in. I will grade your exams based on what you write on the page, not on what you “meant,” and it is important that your answer is logical and clear. If you write a bunch of random equations for an “answer” that are somehow related to the question, you will receive little partial credit.
If you are not happy with your grade on the midterm exams, please do the following: write me a simple note, in clear grammatical English, explaining why you think the grade is in error, and what you think the correct scoring should be. Attach this note to your exam, and return it to me within one week of receiving your graded exam. I will look over your explanation, and if I agree with it, I will update your exam grade to the corrected score. I will return the corrected midterm to you on the last class of the quarter or at the final. If your explanation is not polite, and not written in clear, logical, and grammatical English, I will not give you any additional points. Also, please note that any attempt to change your exam after I return it to you, and use this changed exam as the basis of an appeal for a better grade, is a very serious ethical violation and will be treated very harshly. I will not discuss changing a midterm grade under any circumstances other than what I outlined above. Do not return the exams to the TAs for grading. Return them to me.
No make-up exams will be given. If you miss a midterm exam for a legitimate reason, such as serious medical injury or illness, then the points will be made up in the following way: the points that you earn on the other midterm (the one that you didn't miss) will be doubled so that this counts as both of your midterm grades. Legitimate reasons include serious illness with a doctor's note or a death in the immediate family with some proof. Personal travel plans that conflict with the schedule, forgetting about the exam, oversleeping, friends going through a rough patch, your cat dying, etc., are not legitimate excuses, and you will get a zero on the exam if you miss it for illegitimate reasons.
Labs
There will be 7 weekly assignments which, except for the first and fifth, will involve a combination of analysis, simulation, design, assembly and testing. The analysis, simulation, and design can be thought of as a "pre-lab". A report will be required on each assignment. There will be no lab the week before the midterm, but previous exams will be available to aid in studying for the midterm. Lab assignments must be done in groups of two (except for Labs 1 and 5). You may select your own partner. No exceptions – two people per group (If there are an odd number of people in the course, I will allow one three person group).
If you have taken this course before, you may skip the labs this quarter. In this case, I will count the grades of the labs from the previous quarter. However, in order to do this, I need to see a copy of the original lab reports. If you have some of the lab reports, but not all of them, you are also out of luck, because you cannot just join a lab group for only a few of the labs. I will not give you credit for the labs unless I see all the lab reports. If you have lost the reports or misplaced them for some reason, then you are out of luck. You will need to do the labs again this quarter.
Once the group is formed, it is fixed for the duration of the quarter. The first assignment is an introduction to the design tool Matlab, it will not involve assembly of a circuit or testing in the lab. For this assignment each student must return a separate report (only one person per group for the first assignment ). For subsequent assignments reports must be prepared jointly by the group, except for Lab #5, which is also to be done alone. Reports should be clear, concise, and accurate. They should be readable in one forward pass. Place plots, diagrams, tables, etc. in line in the text whenever possible. Reports will be graded both on the quality of the report as well as on the technical contents.
The laboratory facility is located in EBU2 room 333A. You will have 24/7 access to the lab. In order to verify that you did the lab, please take a photograph of your circuit, and include it with the lab writeup. This will take the place of having a TA sign your results. The lab reports will be due on the following Thursday in class, as noted in the schedule. The lab reports don’t have to be typed, but they do have to be neat, grammatically and technically correct, legible and well organized. I suggest that they be no longer than 5 pages. The organization is up to you, but I suggest that it be written like a proper scientific paper, and organized as:
- Introduction (Goals of the project, specifications, etc)
- Theory (Calculations and simulations)
- Measurement Results (how well do the measurements match the theory? Why are there discrepancies?)
- Conclusions (Was the lab a success? Why or why not?)
Legibility, clarity, organization will definitely be part of the Lab grade. If your design does not work, it is not the end of the world. If you have a good explanation why your design doesn’t work, you can still receive a good lab grade. At the same time, if your design works, but you write a disorganized and confusing lab report, you will probably get a low grade.
I cannot accept late lab reports, and a late lab report gets a zero. This is really unfortunate, so make sure it doesn’t happen to you. They are due at the end of lecture on Thursdays. Please don’t attempt to turn the Lab reports in late by sliding them under my office door, or hand them to me when I am walking back to my office after class. I won’t accept any lab reports after I leave the classroom. No exceptions! The typical reason for late lab reports is “the printer broke,” so it is a good idea to print it out several hours early. I can’t accept a late lab report, even if the printer is broken. Another common complaint is that one member of the group comes to lecture, but the other member (who has the lab report) misses lecture for some reason. Then you are both out of luck. Don’t email me the lab report before class – I must have the paper copy.
If you miss turning in one or more labs on time for a legitimate reason, such as serious medical injury or illness, then I will multiply the sum of your other lab grades by (7/(7-x)), where x is the number of labs you miss. Legitimate reasons include serious illness with a doctor's note or a death in the immediate family with some proof. Personal travel plans that conflict with the schedule, forgetting about the due date, oversleeping, friends going through a rough patch, your cat dying, etc., are not legitimate excuses, and you will get a zero on the lab if you miss it for illegitimate reasons. I won’t grade a late lab, even if the reasons are legitimate.
If you are not happy with your grade on the labs, please do the following: write me a simple note, in clear grammatical English, explaining why you think the grade is in error, and what you think the correct scoring should be. Attach this note to your lab, and return it to me within one week of receiving your graded report. I will look over your explanation, and if I agree with it, I will update your lab grade to the corrected score. If your explanation is not polite, and not written in clear, logical, and grammatical English, I will not give you any additional points. Also, please note that any attempt to change your lab after I return it to you, and use this changed lab as the basis of an appeal for a better grade, is a very serious ethical violation and will be treated very harshly (see below). I will not discuss changing a lab grade under any circumstances other than what I outlined above. Do not return the labs to the TAs for grading. Return them to me.
CAD Software
We will use two CAD programs: MATLAB and PSPICE. These programs are on the ACS PCs in EBU2 Rm 329 (aka The PSPICE Lab). However you will find it a significant advantage to have them on your own machine too.
MATLAB is an interpreted scripting language with powerful data analysis capabilities and very good default graphics. We will use it to analyze circuits and plot measurements. It will be useful in many other courses. There are Student versions of MATLAB for WINTEL, MAC, and LINUX. The Student version is a very good bargain. You should also get the Student User's Manual.
PSPICE is a circuit simulator which we will use extensively. There is a free student version of PSPICE, which is limited but sufficient for this course. There are many free clones which you might want to explore such as LTSPICE, and there are many commercial clones too. It will be assumed that you are familiar with PSPICE from ECE65. If this is not true, you should compensate by working on PSPICE exercises from ECE65.
Ethics
Your work in this class must be your own. This means that your Laboratory reports should be written by you and your partner only, and you and your partner must do the work that you take credit for. When the labs are due as individual lab reports, the work must be your own. Do not copy labs from previous quarters. Your work on the exams must be completely your own.
All suspicions of academic misconduct will be reported to the Academic Integrity Office according to university policy. Academic misconduct is not just blatant cheating (e.g., copying off another student during an exam), but what you might have thought of as "minor cheating" in high school, for example: copying other students' papers or homework, or copying or using old papers/reports. The Policy on Integrity of Scholarship lists some of the standards by which you are expected to complete your academic work, but your good ethical judgment (or asking me for advice) is also expected as we cannot list every behavior that is unethical or not in the spirit of academic integrity.
Those students found to have committed academic misconduct will face administrative sanctions imposed by their college Dean of Student Affairs and academic sanctions imposed by me. The standard administrative sanctions include: the creation of a disciplinary record (which will be checked by graduate and professional schools); disciplinary probation; and attendance at an Academic Integrity Seminar (at the student's expense). Students can also face suspension and dismissal from the University; those sanctions are not at my discretion. Academic sanctions can range from a zero on the assignment to an F in the class. The appropriate sanctions are determined by the egregiousness of the Policy violation. Students who assist in or are complicit with cheating could also be in violation of the Policy. Thus, students who become aware of their peers either facilitating academic misconduct or committing it should report their suspicions to me for investigation.