CPSC 409: General exam information

CPSC 409: General Examination information

Information for the fall 2024 term

Quick summary of exam rules:

Open book exam, some aids (e.g. course text book, notes) are allowed.
- Specific resources that can be used include:
  - the online lecture notes created by the course instructor,
  - any lecture videos provided with the course resources,
  - the recommended course text book (as well as the external resources specifically recommended in the course notes).
    any notes that you have created yourself ("in class lecture notes").
- You should not be using other resources (online or non-online): one example resource (but not the only one) that you should not use for examinations includes tools such as ChatGPT.
The exam must be completed individually, no collaboration is allowed.
Recording of the exam in any form (e.g. video, image grabs etc.) is strictly prohibited. If have a want to ask me about a question during the exam then briefly describe the question or paraphrase the question to me.
Duration: 50 minutes maximum, end time is 4:50 PM (both will be automatically tracked and enforced by D2L).
- The end time takes precedence over the 50 minute duration.
- That means that even is you start writing the exam late (e.g. 4:05 PM and submit after 4:50 PM D2L will flag your submission as late or your exam may be submitted automatically at 4:50 PM).
  - This will occur even if, say, the timer on the clock has not run out yet!
- This is similar to writing an in person exam e.g. if you show up late for a final exam then you need to stop writing when everyone is told to stop.

Exam format

Much (most?) of the exam will consist of multiple choice questions

There should be some non-multiple choice questions as well such as: diagrams (creating them, explaining or interpret them, modifying an existing diagram), matching questions, short answer questions. There is no need to write page-after-page with the latter type of question, you can bullet point your answer so long as your answer is clear and correctly answers the question. (It may seems obvious but one reason that students don't receive full credit is because the answer they provide doesn't match the requirements of the question. Sometimes this occurs when students provide run on answers that don't relate to the question being asked).

More details about the format of each specific exam may be provide prior to the exam.

Method of administering the exam

Since the class delivery is remote the exams also are remotely delivered in the form of D2L quizzes.

How to ask questions:

Don't try asking your questions via email because your message may not get a response during the exam.
I will be available via a my Zoom office time link shown on the [lecture admin. portion] of the course website
Only use email if your having major technical problems with Zoom should you send an email (e.g. the program doesn't start).
Remember that I will utilize the [waiting room] feature so even if connect the Zoom link you may not not be immediately see me depending upon how many people asking questions at that point in time.
Only go into the Zoom link if you have a question.
- Otherwise you will be clogging up the wait room queue.
- And it will waste time when you wait to be let into the room, I ask you what your question is.
- During this time other people will be waiting needlessly so I may not be able answer all the questions.
Since you can't make captures of the exam you will need to briefly describe the exam question.

Here's how the exam Zoom link will work:

Following UC security requirements there is a waiting room enabled.
- Besides "following the rules" creating a waiting room will help avoid problems (receiving a barrage of questions all at once, having students blurt out something by accident etc.) and for sake of privacy only one person will be admitted into the room at once.
Everyone but the current person being served will be in the waiting room for the Zoom meeting.
Try to ask your question using audio (rather than typing it) if you can because it's faster (it's a big class and since I'm only one person I want to be able to get to everyone who has a question) but I will give you a bit of time to type something into the chat.
- If you use text chat start by quickly indicating you are using chat (e.g. "Chat question coming...") so I know to wait for the rest of the question to come rather than me trying to figure out if you are still typing in a long question or you are sorting out technical or user interface issues on the fly.
- Since I need to make a good attempt to answer all questions: Be aware that eventually if I don't hear or see a question I may have to move onto the next person if there are people in the waiting room.
One difference between Zoom Q&A and an in person exam is that you can't see me busy answering questions so if I sense the queue in the waiting room is too long I'll try to send an update message to those people every so often (depending upon how busy I am in the Zoom room of course).
Hopefully I won't receive a huge amount of questions all at once but like a physical exam I will try to get through them as quickly as possible (there are no TAs budgeted to help me with this class) while providing whatever answers I can. E.g. sometimes I can't directly answer student questions that border closely on what that question is evaluating you on.
I will try to provide whatever answers I can. E.g. sometimes I can't directly answer student questions that border closely on what that question is evaluating you (and yes sometimes unknowingly(?) ask a question that is simply a rewording of the question ("Can you explain what this term means?")

The submit feature of D2L:

'Submit' for D2L quizzes is equivalent to you handing in your paper exam in a regular in class exam.

DO NOT submit your quiz until you really are done writing the quiz because, similar to a paper exam, you won't be able to start writing after you have done so.

DO submit your quiz when you have finished. Similar to a paper exam if you don't hand anything in then you shouldn't expect that it will be marked..

In D2L you will see a submit button twice, you need to click on both of them to have your exam graded.
- First time you see it is when (I believe) when you get to the last question in your exam.
- Second time after you click on the first button. This time you will see a warning something to the effect that you are now submitting your work for grading and you won't be able go back to your exam if you do so. Click on the second button when are really done!
#The_submit_feature_of_D2L

Special accommodations for the exam (e.g. you are too ill the day of the exam to write it):

You must make the request for getting special considerations/accommodations before the exam. Ideally your request should come in well before the exam date but it should definitely come in afterward.

A good reason needs to be provided in order for the special considerations to be awarded (example of something when a request won't be granted is having multiple graded components around the examination).

Exam accommodation:

Increasing the weight of the other graded components (there are limits to thus option, typically it can only be done for a single examination. This option cannot be exercised for more than one examination (exams are non-cumulative and moving the grading from more than one examination means that too small a fraction of the course is being evaluated).

Method of requesting an accommodation, don't contact the course instructor. Instead there will be a central link provided by the faculty of science.

Contact information for accommodations:

Link to submit request [https://forms.office.com/r/3hESEf7V7c]

Email (in case you need to contact someone regarding accommodations): cpsc.extensions@ucalgary.ca

Material that you should study

The lecture material: the course notes will provide you with an outline of the topics to be covered. However studying the information just listed on the slides won't be sufficient to do well on the final exam. You will also need to take notes in class and to study and understand those notes. If you have any questions then make sure that you ask me for help and clarification.

The text book: they should be used as another source of material to help you understand the material as you prepare for the exam. I won't however directly examine you on material that is listed in the textbooks that I didn't cover in class.
List of extra resources in the course notes. The comments regarding the course textbook also apply.

Examples of question types

Multiple choice (much/most of the examinations will be composed of this type of question) e.g. the question asks you for the date range (e.g. 1960 - 1969) that an event occurred.
Non-multiple choice questions
- Diagrammatic (possible question types involve: sketching, annotating, describing)
- Short answer (In order to completely and correctly answer these questions it's likely just a few sentences or bullet points should suffice). If you are writing multiple paragraphs then it's likely you are doing something wrong or just being way to wordy.

Back to the course webpage.