Thank you in advance for helping me manage the obligations of the course so that things run smoothly for all. I look forward to teaching and learning with you.
1. There are no makeups for Quizzes.
Quizzes are important in the aggregate. I understand that sometimes you must miss class due to illness or travel. Each quiz is worth 1% of your total final grade. Therefore, missing one quiz will likely not negatively affect your final grade, but missing multiple will (and unnecessarily so, given that good attention in class should easily produce good quiz performance results). It is the accumulation of keeping up with material over the course that will matter in the end. Because the enrollment size of this course makes management of missed quizzes difficult, and because I believe that it is important to give you latitude with your schedule to deal with life as you need, I have set this policy to make course management viable for all of us.
2. There are no makeups for Reading Comments.
As with the Quizzes, keeping up with the readings and annotating the readings with comments are important in the aggregate. It is the accumulation of good performance and keeping with the material over the course that matters. Each reading is worth approximately 1% of your grade. If you are ill, are traveling, or have other commitments and cannot enter the paper comments, you forfeit that 1%, but this will likely not affect your grade unless you miss multiple readings (and quizzes). To help you anticipate workload congestion, we will make the papers available well in advance. I leave it to students' discretion to manage their course loads.
3. Late Individual homework assignments.
1/2 credit will be given to individual homework assignments that are turned in any time after class time on the due date up to midnight one day later. (That is, suppose a homework assignment is due on a Thursday: it needs to be submitted by the time class starts on Thursday. It is late if it is submitted anytime after that time. With a Thursday due date, 1/2 credit will be given up until midnight the next day, which is Friday in this example). No credit will be given after that time. Homework will be submitted on-line.
4. Dealing with extended absence
If you are experiencing extended illness or absence due to other personal reasons, I will require a doctor's note (or equivalent for non-illness cases) to deal with exceptions for project deliverables.