Education, Graphic Design, Theory

Course Introduction 01.01: Evaluation Procedures

Jason W. Howell
January 23, 2021

Goal

This goal of this infor­ma­tion is to define the para­me­ters of course assessment.

Attendance Policy

  • The course instruc­tor will take roll as directed by uni­ver­sity pol­icy or preferences.
  • Each stu­dent is respon­si­ble for directly com­mu­ni­cat­ing with the instruc­tor to receive atten­dance credit for the day. Writ­ten, visual or oral com­mu­ni­ca­tion is permitted.
  • Three (3) absences (with­out valid med­ical doc­u­men­ta­tion) are allowed.
  • On the fourth (4) absence, a student’s final grade will be dropped one let­ter (from an “A” to a “B”).
  • Absence totals can be found at vision​.oru​.edu, and will be updated in the grade sec­tion of the course CMS at midterm and after the last class-period of a course.
  • Absences other than med­ical or admin­is­tra­tive will not be con­sid­ered excused.
  • In order to excuse an absence valid med­ical doc­u­men­ta­tion or admin­is­tra­tive excuse is required and must be sub­mit­ted to the appro­pri­ate CMS (D2L/BS) drop­box before the next class period after an absence. 
  • No incom­plete scores (I) will be given except in excep­tional cir­cum­stances, com­plete with writ­ten doc­u­men­ta­tion, and appro­pri­ate peti­tion sub­mit­ted before the final exam period.
  • Leav­ing pre­ma­turely from or exten­sive absences (ie 15+ min­utes) dur­ing class will result in an absence mark being recorded.
  • Exces­sive absences may result in noti­fi­ca­tion to the uni­ver­si­ty’s appro­pri­ate aca­d­e­mic sup­port units for assis­tance or safety checkups.
  • The uni­ver­si­ty’s drop pol­icy will be adopted.

Grades

  • Stu­dents will have assign­ments test­ing your knowl­edge of and cre­ativ­ity with the var­i­ous aspects of media, typog­ra­phy and design. Stu­dents may also be tested on stor­age or archiv­ing dig­i­tal files, project pre­sen­ta­tion pack­ag­ing, var­i­ous appli­ca­tions, black/white and color print­ing, and writ­ten procedures.
  • An equal por­tion of your grade will also be based on class­room par­tic­i­pa­tion, which may include group dis­cus­sions, online and in-class assignments.
  • Stu­dents will be assessed and graded at mid term, with a final grade being awarded at the end of the semes­ter based on a final port­fo­lio of all work com­pleted as part of the course. Stu­dents have the pos­si­bil­ity of improv­ing their grade, but resub­mit­ting work does not guar­an­tee a higher score.
  • The course man­age­ment sys­tem (CMS, or D2L or Bright­space) will deter­mine the offi­cial require­ments, dead­lines and expec­ta­tions. Stu­dents will be expected to use the func­tions of the software.
  • Approx­i­mate grades and gen­eral com­men­tary will be given at the end of each assign­ment. As part of the learn­ing process, it is up to the indi­vid­ual stu­dent to help me iden­tify and improve his/her work as necessary.
  • Quizzes will be graded on a 100 point scale, with all quizzes aver­aged to cre­ate a final quiz score.
  • Grades are cal­cu­lated based on atten­dance and the eval­u­a­tion of all work sub­mit­ted. The final score is cal­cu­lated based on the fol­low­ing ratio: Assign­ments = 70%; Exer­cises, Quizzes, and Atten­dance = 10% each.
  • Work will be graded accord­ing to the fol­low­ing scale: A: 90–100, B: 80- 89, C: 70–79, D: 60–79, F: Less than 60.
  • Work will be graded accord­ing to the fol­low­ing criteria:
  • A: A good atten­dance record is manda­tory. All work is well crafted (straight, sharp, accu­rate, spelled cor­rectly). Con­cep­tu­ally, through the use of brain­storm­ing and sketches, work is appro­pri­ate, unique, inge­nious and dynamic.
  • B: The main dif­fer­ence between and “A” and a “B” is usu­ally the con­cep­tual idea. Work has minor flaws (1−2 errors). Craft is con­sid­ered impec­ca­ble (straight, sharp, accu­rate, spelled cor­rectly). Good attendance.
  • C: Work wor­thy of a C is usu­ally indica­tive of poor atten­dance. Work has major flaws (4+ errors). Craft prob­lems are obvi­ous due to lack of time and effort man­i­fest­ing in spelling errors and sloppy work. Con­cep­tual ideas may be weak.
  • D: D work is also related to atten­dance. Work is incom­plete or did not fol­low direc­tions. If pos­si­ble, pri­vate con­sul­ta­tion will try to cor­rect the prob­lem. Final grades of “D” will be given under con­sul­ta­tion with the entire design fac­ulty. Stu­dents receiv­ing a Final Grade of “D” will have to retake the class.
  • F: F grades are results of atten­dance or fail­ure to com­plete or sub­mit nec­es­sary assign­ments. Stu­dents receiv­ing a Final Grade of “F” must retake the entire class.

Late Work

  • A missed cri­tique or dead­line will result in being dropped up to one full let­ter grade per assignment.
  • Work must be pre­sented both in class (in per­son or remotely) and in cor­re­spond­ing course loca­tion (ie drop­box, dis­cus­sion, quiz etc) to con­sider the activ­ity on time and receive cor­re­spond­ing points. Part points will not be given.
  • Excused absences do not excuse penalty for late elec­tronic sub­mis­sions, only the in class submissions.
  • Stu­dents not present at the begin­ning of a cri­tique will be con­sid­ered absent and there­fore graded accordingly.
  • If work is obvi­ously unfin­ished at a final cri­tique, this will also result in being dropped one full let­ter grade for that assignment.
  • Stu­dents with late or incom­plete work will not be allowed to par­tic­i­pate in cri­tiques and will be asked to leave class for that day.
  • Work is not sub­mit­ted for assess­ment will be awarded an F.
  • Work not sub­mit­ted on time for Final Assess­ment will be given an F (zero points).
  • Please make arrange­ment to turn work in early if you must be absent.

Originality, Citations and Artificial Intelligence

  • The use of arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence pro­grams (Chat­GPT, DALL‑E, Mid­jour­ney, etc) or ser­vices are allowed, and encour­aged, as a tool for the devel­op­ment or pro­duc­tion of orig­i­nal design work.
  • Use of such sys­tems must be clearly doc­u­mented, and should not be used as or implied as gen­er­ated by the stu­dent sub­mit­ting the work, as indi­vid­ual or a group.
  • It is student’s respon­si­bil­ity to obtain rights and abide to the terms of those rights for any con­tent used as part of courses.
  • Stu­dents who do not prop­erly cite images, con­tent, code or other intel­lec­tual prop­erty, as cred­its, code com­ments, bylines or port­fo­lio descrip­tions, could face legal con­se­quences out­side the class­room, espe­cially if the offend­ing work is pub­lished for pub­lic con­sump­tion (ie out­side class­room or class learn­ing man­age­ment systems.)
  • Fail­ure to prop­erly cite ele­ments could result in the work being con­sid­ered for pla­gia­rism, or copy­right infringement.
  • The uni­ver­sity pol­icy on pla­gia­rism will be used if needed.