BCH441 Oral Test instructions
Oral Test instructions
Contents
The oral assessment is a cornerstone of this course since this mode of assessment is far superior to any other type of evaluation to establish the level of your success. In this test I am not looking for you to reproduce facts and knowledge, but we will have a discussion that will allow you to demonstrate your level of understanding and engagement with the material, the intuitions you have developed, and your ability to synthesize information into insights.
Instructions
Scheduling
Oral tests will be scheduled between Monday, November 16 and Friday, November 27, between 17:00 and 20:00.
I will randomly assign test-slots, half an hour each, between 17:00 and 20:00 beginning about a week after the drop-date and inform students by eMail.
If you have a conflict on your scheduled test date, you are welcome to find someone to swap with; both of you must contact me by e-mail at least two days ahead of the first exam scheduled for either of you. (One e-mail with a CC will do).
Preparations
In the test, we will discuss aspects of your chosen Integrator Unit, and you will have the opportunity to demonstrate your understanding of the material. Since this is not a memorize-and-recall type of test, studying for it in the conventional sense will probably not be useful. To prepare: make sure you understand the concepts, the computational aspects, the R code, the results, and how to interpret the results. Questions that have led to productive discussion in the past included: whether all steps are necessary, whether there are ways to improve the workflow, whether the results match your expectations, how those expectations are justified, what you have done to test your tools, and to validate your results etc. I'm looking for your ability to analyze, evaluate critically, and synthesize. Since the test is cumulative, we may also discuss aspects of your previously submitted units and their respective prerequisites.
The Integrator Units all require some preparatory work and this must have been finalized on the Student Wiki by midnight of the day before the test.
The Test
You must be present alone in a quiet room with a stable internet connection, and connect from the computer that you normally use to work on the assignments. Be prepared to share your screen so we can look into some of your project files. (You may want to consider what windows and tabs you have open and what is on your desktop etc.) No other computer (and no mobile device) may be on in the room. Your computer may only have a single monitor. Your cell-phone must be at hand and switched off. You cannot wear headphones for the test and your audio input must pick up room sounds normally. We will need to spend a few moments to confirm this.
Call in to the Zoom conference link you received with your scheduling eMail exactly at your scheduled time.
You need to have your T-card (picture ID) available.
The test will be recorded in case we need to follow up on any irregularities.
(Additional instructions may be required as we collect experience.)
Expect that you will be asked to write a few lines of code. Prepare your computer, have an R-Studio session open, and have the ABC-units project loaded and initialized. (Please be advised that you may lose up to 100% of marks if we can't evaluate your code on your machine where it was written.)
Marking
Please consider the evaluation rubrics. I will tell you your marks at the end of the test.
Things that might go wrong
If you did not finish your preparations in time, you will be evaluated in the context of the work done up to the point before your test. Obviously, in this situation we can't simply apply our usual extension policy. At best, I can take a (documented) reason for incomplete work into consideration, but to be on the safe side, you need to anticipate problems and complete the work well ahead of the deadline. Completing it two days in advance is a good benchmark.
If you are late to your test, but less than 15 minutes late, you will lose a proportional amount of marks, up to 50%. If you are more than 15 minutes late, this will be evaluated as a missed test.[1]
If you miss your test you will receive zero marks. If you have a documented, acceptable reason for missing the test (according to Faculty policies), we will attempt to find a make up slot. It is unlikely that this will be possible before the last day to submit term work. In that case, the mark of zero will become part of your course grade, and you need to petition the Faculty for an alternative evaluation. In all cases, the preparatory work will be evaluated relative to the original deadline, i.e. missing a test will not reset the clock.
In all cases, with all comments and concerns, contact me as soon as possible to work things out. Many students are terrified by oral tests. Understandable. This is the Boss Level. But usually people are surprised that it's actually more fun and satisfying than the abstract, anemic evaluations we usually go through.
Notes
- ↑ Fortunately we don't have to take TTC delays into account, but be sure that you know how to connect to a Zoom session, that your Zoom application has the correct permissions to use your computer's microphone and Webcam, and that you are not competing with your roommate's "The Office" obsession for bandwidth.
