712 Grading Requirements, 2006

This course is designed as a hands-on laboratory to acquaint you with fundamental practices in sequence analysis and bioinformatics. Practice outside of class is essential, but there is absolutely no way you can learn this stuff if you're not at the lab. Consequently, attendance at the labs
(which WILL start on time), will weigh strongly in the assignments of grades. There will be between 3-4 faculty/staff involved in each session and the labs cannot be made up at an alternative time. If professional or personal circumstances necessitate that you will be absent, please have the courtesy to notify Dr. Palmenberg ahead of time and be prepared to document your absence.

It is assumed that an average grade in the course will be "B." This grade will be based on:

1) Satisfactory attendance in the lab (20%)
2) Completion/performance of most homework assignments (20%)

3) Completion/performance on "My Molecule" graphics assignment (15%)
4) Completion/performance of two dataset assignments (end of semester) (15%)
5) Performance on 1-2 in-class quizzes (20%)
6) Instructor assessment (Palmenberg and Sgro) of satisfactory progress and effort (10%)

Enhanced grades (AB or A) may be earned by:

1) Outstanding performance on all homework assignments
2) and/or, completion of extra dataset assignments
3) and/or, instructor assessment of outstanding progress and effort.

 

HOMEWORK TOPICS: INSTRUCTIONS

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At the end of several laboratory exercises is a listing of "Topics for Homework." It is strongly recommended that you complete these exercises for practice and to reinforce the general concepts presented in the formal exercises. As incentive for completion, extra credit towards enhanced grades of A or AB may be earned for each exercise if your work shows especially outstanding effort or creativity.

- Complete all the exercises on the homework page(s) at the end of each exercise or on that week's handout.   The homework sheets at the end of your labbook exercises are also available online as pdf files.

- Turn in your homework sheet and any requested supplemental printouts at the beginning of the next lab period. Please DON'T hand in reams of paper! We want to know that you DID the exercise and understood it.   Note that 1-2 of the exercises may require you to submit a file to a designated location, rather than fill in a sheet.

- You may turn in as many or as few of the homework sheets as you wish, but the more sheets you turn in, the more "enhanced" your possible grade.   Conversely, a consistently substandard effort on the homework sheets may adversely affect your grade.

- LATE sheets will not be accepted for credit. However, even if you decide not to turn in a sheet, it is still a good idea to eventually complete all the exercises just for the practice and experience. No homework exercise should take more than 30-40 minutes and this is a minimum practice time on the computer that you should spend each week, anyway.

Genic can be accessed from your home, office or laboratory computer via the campus network. RasMol, VMD, DeepView, PyMol, Clustal may be downloaded (free) onto any PC or Mac. You don't have to be in the BNMC facility to complete these exercises.