COMP 675 Fall 99 Grading Policies

This document briefly outlines the grading policies and grading philosophy I will use in the COMP 675 Human-Computer Interface Design course. I believe that in such a course at the graduate level a competency-based evaluation is more appropriate than the frequently used curved evaluation, where a certain percentage of grade levels are to be attained according to statistical distributions.
The competency levels and how they correspond to the grades used are briefly described in the table below.
Competency Level Grade
The student is able to recall the essential principles and methods for human-computer interface design. D
The student can explain the essential principles and methods for human-computer interface design, and recognizes critical issues in practical examples. C
The student is able to demonstrate the application of principles and methods for human-computer interface design. The student can analyze, compare, and criticize the critical issues concering human-computer interface design in the design and realization of practical systems. The student can distinguish evaluation criteria, relate them to critical issues, and examine practical systems with respect to the evaluation criteria. B
The student can compose a design for the human-computer interface of a system, formulate a plan for its implementation based on established evaluation criteria, set up the organizational structure for the implementation, and manage the actual implementation of the human-computer interface. The student is able to evaluate a practical system, compare different system for the same or similar purposes, select the most appropriate interface for a given task, and assess the usability aspects of a human-computer interface design ant its realization in a practical system. A

I will use the criteria above for the evaluation of exams, homework, projects, and presentations in the class. Naturally there is also a reflection in the grades of how well a student performs a particular task. So you might be performing an activity at the "A" competency level, but you might get only a "B" because you're not doing it very well.
Franz Kurfess
Last modified: Wed Sep 8 18:48:01 EDT 1999