MIS 648
Testing, Grading, Participation, Attendance and Assignment Policies;
Policies for Graduate Students
These are the "administrative" aspects of modern university education that are often boring, sometimes nasty to discover, but never uninformative!
Click here for testing policies.
Click here for grading policies.
Click here for participation and attendance policies.
Click here for assignment policies.
Click here for policies concerning graduate students
The purpose of tests is to evaluate the achievement of teaching and learning goals. It is recognized, too, that tests are useful in determining overall grades, used for other purposes not necessarily consistent with either teaching or learning goals. Thus a tension ensues in which grading is conflated with evaluation. The tests are designed around measurement procedures connected with providing the instructor and the student with feedback concerning classroom learning and teaching process. Other purposes are secondary. Hence it is important that students take tests with this criterion in mind.
Because it is assumed that rote learning is not a measure of modern teaching and learning process, the tests do not have rote learning as a focus. Instead tests focus on (1) idea comprehension and (2) application of ideas to real-world situations. "Idea comprehension" is really a shorthand way of speaking about understanding the good ideas (theories, businesses, applications) that researchers and others have. Ways in which this understand is measured include recall of the ideas, of course, but more importantly being able to discuss intelligently (i.e., critically) what the impact and importance of those ideas are (i.e., what these ideas "mean.").
This implies that there might not actually be single right and wrong "answers" to questions about these ideas; instead, well-reasoned and evidence-backed opinion might be an appropriate response (see grading policies below). Application of these ideas means, among other things, coming up with examples that illustrate the ideas, applying theory to situations, or analyzing cases. In general, the testing policies of this course are such that students should be able to judge how "well" they did on a test by their own estimation. It also means, however, that being able to think logically, to write clearly in English, and to be aware of your own biases will stand you in good stead.
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Based on the testing policies, the grading policies reflect the need for appropriate and rapid feedback to students and instructor. Because there are often no single "right" answers to many questions in business, grading is aimed at evaluating how well a student can express and explain. This unfortunately puts a heavy burden on verbal expression (i.e., use of English). Students who anticipate this will be a problem should contact the instructor at the earliest possible moment.
Evaluation is not done on a "curve". However, the realities of evaluation dictate that there are some requirements in the mind of the evaluator, some expectations. In practical fact, most courses end up with a normally-distributed set of grades. Because of the relationship between grading and evaluation of teaching-learning process, these "absolute" judgments will relate to whether or not these goals are being met. A high grade means that learning goals are being greatly exceeded. A low mark means that these goals are in strong danger of not being met.
Third, because grading is serious business, cheating will not be tolerated. However, what is cheating? The following are seriously discouraged and constitute academic misconduct, in the judgment of the instructor: claiming work as one's own when in fact it was done substantially by others, misrepresentation of the facts concerning reasons for lateness or incompleteness of assignments, copying of others' work without citation or attribution, not carrying one's own weight in group assignments, "spoofing" assignments (submitting others' work without their permission). The following, while bearing some similarity to academic misconduct are not, in fact, considered academic misconduct: using others' work if (1) properly cited and (2) constituting a relatively small portion of the claimed work; accepting editing help from others with regard to English usage; asking and using expert advice, if attributed. Students who commit academic misconduct (such as copying others' responses on tests, for example), risk receiving zeroes for the assignment, zeroes in the course, and expulsion from the University. This warning will be repeated towards the end of the course, before final country studies are submitted.
To help guide teaching-learning goal evaluation, students will be supplied with forms that indicate how presentations and papers will be marked. Most marking will follow this pattern (but see a separate section below on weekly assignments):
Content (80%)
a. Organization: was the content well
organized and did it “flow”?
b. Review: How muchand of what quality did we learn about the topic? This
includes completeness, accuracy, clarity
c. Critique: how well done was the evaluation of the potential investment? The
criteria here are logic, honesty, evidence, credibility
Delivery (20%)
a. Interest and Presence: how interesting was the paper or
presentation? what was the quality of the presence of the presenter? For
presentations, this means charisma, friendliness, empathy, emotion, humanity.
In other media this relates to how engrossing, entertaining, stimulating or
creative the product is.
b. Formal elements: was the presentation professional in quality? The focus here
is on grammar, spelling, layout, color, readability or specifics of the
presentation medium.
Here is the general meaning of the grades given on weekly assignments or
quizzes:
100%: Wow! Really stimulates, asks good
questions, perceptive, succinct, challenging in all the right ways; research
quality; could be used in teaching.
90 points: Excellent, clearly demonstrates understanding and potentially
valuable to others to read; highly credible, useful.
85%: Fine response, convincing with extra value
such as insight, a special example very well described, or very
thought-provoking.
80%: Good answer, fully addresses question, convincing,
illuminating
75%: Adequate, but not exciting; answers the
question but does not enlighten
70%: Unimpressive answer, some aspects of the question are
left unexplored or are missing altogether; poorly written, perhaps, or
confusing, unconvincing
60% : Poor answer, ignores much of the question, not
expressive, hard to understand the point, even misleading
Less than 60%: Inadequate, basically unacceptable;
doesn't make sense, not on topic, impossible to understand, wrong or
counterfactual, no attempt to prove anything.
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Participation and Attendance Policies
Class participation is marked. During discussions, students will be asked for comments, opinion, evaluations, and facts relating to the readings assigned. While only a small part of your grade, participation is a large part of your learning experience. Let's face it, you could learn this stuff by reading books, right? Coming to class is the enriching part of university education. Our classes are small enough so that you can make yourself heard; you can even listen to others.
There are four aspects to participation that are extremely important. First is attendance. You are expected to attend every class. If you know you will not be able to attend, you should notify Dr. Licker as far in advance as possible so that he can let you know what you might miss and perhaps provide some assistance so that you do not get far behind. If you are ill, you must provide some documentation concerning the illness. Other reasons for non-attendance may reflect lifestyle decisions you have to make and you may wish to discuss these also with Dr. Licker. If you drop this course prior to a planned presentation, good manners and common sense dictate that you will inform Dr. Licker and anyone who is working with you on a presentation. If you cannot attend a class in which you are to make a presentation and you know about this in advance, please inform Dr. Licker so that he can try to switch groups around (or make similar arrangements yourself). Missing a quiz is an important problem. If you know in advance you will miss a quiz, please inform Dr. Licker to arrange a make up. If you miss a quiz, please contact Dr. Licker asap to see if it is appropriate to arrange a make up quiz.
The second aspect of participation is listening to what is said in class. Because lectures are actually enrichment sessions, there is often much material presented in class that does not appear in the textbook. You are expected to listen to this material, evaluate it, and comment on it, especially when asked by your professor.
Third, the role of critical learner means that you have not only the right, but also the obligation to question material, comments, opinions, etc. that you don't understand, don't agree with, need clarification about or find interesting. This goes not only for the mutterings of your professor, but also what your fellow students say.
Finally, one of the best ways to learn is to practice ideas out loud, receive criticism and evaluate that criticism. Not only is your participation as a presenter required formally in the course syllabus, but your comments in class are subject to evaluation by others. Our goal is not only to accumulate material "under our belts", but also to become and stay intellectually "fit" through debate, discussion, and critique.
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Because of the desire to have rapid feedback, no assignments, papers, etc., will be accepted more than one week late. Assignments that are not handed in (generally electronically) by their due dates will be "charged" at 10% of the mark per day. A paper emailed in three days late, for example, will be marked out of a maximum of 70% (i.e., a maximum score possible will be 70%). Students who are ill or who have legitimate personal reasons for delays (this being an evening course we anticipate that there will be some who will be working and may have economic or job-related reasons for lateness) will be forgiven the penalty so long as acceptable written explanations for lateness are produced, up to one week of lateness. After that the assignment will be ignored for grade computation purposes (again, there will need to be written explanation). Students who wish, still, to have their assignments marked may request that the instructor do so, to obtain feedback.
Good responses contain well-reasoned ideas, well-expressed and pertinent to the question asked. Barely acceptable assignments are seriously lacking in logic, evidence, pertinence, or writing. Papers which appear to lack logic or evidence or pertinence or are not understandable will be given zeroes. Papers which show creativity, originality, or very deep thought on a subject may be given superior scores, assuming that they are also logical, well expressed and pertinent, which are necessary, but not sufficient for a high mark. Papers that are highly creative, but nonsense, will be given a zero.
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Policies for Graduate Students
From time to time here may be both fourth-year undergraduate as well as graduate students in this course. These two groups will follow the same syllabus, but undergraduate students will work with other undergraduate students on country papers and presentations, where possible. Because graduate students should all already have an undergraduate degree, the following evaluation assumptions are made; these will influence grading to some extent.
a. Graduate students already know how to write college-level English and can
produce readable papers.
b. Graduate students already have completed an undergraduate degree in some
field in which they can be considered "expert."
c. Graduate students have more well-defined career and life goals than
undergraduates.
d. Graduate students are probably working full or part-time or have done so in
the past.
e. Undergraduate students are taking an information-systems enriched curriculum
and hence will be expected to be more "technology savvy" than the MBAs, leading
to slightly different evaluation criteria on papers.
The upshot of these assumptions is that graduate students are expected to write better papers, deliver better presentations, have more sharply focused educational goals and hence more well-defined learning needs, often vocationally related. Undergraduates will be expected to have more knowledge of the pertinent technologies and to have a focus on the information systems aspects of their studies. Of course there will be exceptions; many undergraduates have far more career experience than many graduate students and I'm prepared to raise my expectations where warranted!
In addition, although there are going to be exceptions, there is often a need for more flexibility in timing expectations of employed students than those who are full-time students (especially undergraduates). Graduate students expecting such flexibility are urged to contact the instructor about this as quickly as possible.
Not a word of this is said in prejudice against undergraduate students. Because evaluation is an important aspect of the course and because grades are the public face of evaluation, it is important that the equity be maintained in these aspects. Expectations for undergraduates will be at a level of senior electives in information systems.
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This page was last updated on August 11, 2006.