Evaluation

50% exams (midterm & final); 50% project work.

There are two in-class exams, a 75-minute midterm and a 2-hour final. Exams cover both the readings listed in the course schedule and the material presented in class. The exams are open book and open note, since their purpose is not to test memorization, but rather to test your understanding of concepts and ability to apply these concepts in a problem-solving situation.

The project will be evaluated according to the following criteria. These criteria will be evaluated in the context of the level of difficulty of what was attempted. The idea here is that doing reasonably well on something difficult can be more significant than doing perfectly on something straightforward.

• Design of normalized tables

• Integrity design/enforcement
  
  • Domain integrity
  • Entity integrity
  • Referential integrity

• Implementation
  • Quality from technical perspective
  • Quality from user's perspective
  • How likely is it that the implementation would be successful in real-world use?

• Clarity and Understandability

• Having real users and an actual real-world system that guides and constrains your design.
  
  • This is not an absolute requirement, but it is an evaluation criterion, in order to fairly take into account that, when you are trying to meet the needs of an actual real-world system, most of the steps in the project become more difficult.

Grading scale (out of 100 points possible in the course):
90-100 A
80-90 B
below 80 C

There is no fixed cutoff between B and B+; those near the top of the B range will receive B+.

This scale typically results in a reasonable grade distribution (nearly all A's and B's, with C's being rare), but if it does not, then the A/B cutoff or the B/C cutoff will be adjusted downward as necessary to give a reasonable distribution. Under no circumstances will the cutoffs be moved upward; if everyone earns above 90% of the points in the course, then everyone would get an A.