Policies
How marks in this course are decided, what counts as submitted, how attendance is counted, and how to get an extension.
The first three rules are the course’s own system applied to you. The fourth is where the course drops the act.
Calibration#
Marks in this course are calibrated. Your tutor proposes a mark for each piece of work. The teaching team then meets without you and fits the proposals to the distribution the school expects. You will not be told what the distribution is. You will be told your mark.
This is how it works where you are going. We would be lying to run it any other way, and the course is about the lie.
Most of you will meet expectations.
Visibility#
Work is submitted in the course forum. Work that is not in the forum by the due time does not exist for marking purposes, however good it was and whoever you emailed it to.
This is week 5 as a rule. You are welcome to find it unfair. Week 12 is where you get to design something fairer.
Attendance#
Each stand-up is worth one mark: half for being in the room when it starts, half for bringing what the page told you to bring. Your best ten of twelve count, so two missed stand-ups cost nothing and need no explanation. The tutor records it in the room, on paper, and does not take questions about it afterwards.
This is week 8 as a rule. Presence is a proxy, and this is the one the course chose, because a stand-up cannot be done from the forum.
Extensions#
Extensions are easy to get and there is no trick to them. If something has happened, message the convenor before the due time, say roughly what and how long you need, and you will get it. You do not need a certificate for anything under a week. Nothing about an extension is calibrated, recorded against you, or remembered by anyone in a room.
Getting help#
The stand-up is the place to ask. The forum is the second place. Direct messages to the tutor are read on Fridays, which is a lesson, but they are read.
If the course itself is the problem, the week 10 material in particular, tell the convenor. It has happened before and the answer is not a rubric line.