CSE-6040 - Computing For Data AnalyticsFor information on how to best prep for the exam, please refer to the Exam Prep page. If you have questions that weren't answered here, please check out the FAQ page.
Exams are open-note, open-internet, timed assignments, similar to notebooks with unlimited submissions, but with a limited time in which you can access and complete them. You will be proctored, but will be able to use most resources that don't involve collaborating with other people. You will also not be allowed to ask for help or clarification from TA's.
Please spend time reading this entire page. You are responsible for understanding the test rules and procedures for resolving issues. We are unable to grant exemptions or make accommodations due to a misunderstanding of the rules and/or failure to follow the provided issue resolution steps.
A lot of this will be repetitive and may sound overly verbose, but this is written based on experience administering these tests for the past few semesters. Everything below corresponds to a question asked in the past in some form, so please trust us when we say this is all important.
You are expected to understand all of the rules and exam policies listed in this document. The exam guide page has a list of the most important things to help guide you. Hopefully it all makes sense as you read through it, but if there is something that surprises you then it's very important that you take note of that. We don't want you to lose out on exam time, get deducted points, or otherwise have your experience hampered because of a misunderstanding.
Summary: you should submit after every exercise and confirm that the autograder awarded you points.
The exam grades are handled just like the notebooks, except with a much shorter time period during which you can submit. The below policies are the same as notebooks, but in this case you won't have multiple days + an extended deadline to resolve the problem and get points. Once your test ends it ends, no exceptions.
The autograder is the final arbiter of grades. This means that if your code doesn't pass the autograder, you will not receive credit. Note: 'passing' is indicated by the grade card on the right, seeing a 'passed' below a cell doesn't guarantee points. It is important that you understand this distinction.
Error text: "the process runtime may have reached the allocated threshold of x second(s)"
If the autograder times out you will receive no credit for that submission. This will be visible to you when you look at the grade report after submission--it will clearly state the above error message and the grade card on the right won't be updated. This is a common issues and something you should aware of. If you fail to submit after every exercise and only submit after the exam ends, you may end up with 0 points.
There are multiple reasons why this is good, but the takeaway is that you need to submit after every exercise. There is no reason not to, it should take a few seconds to hit submit. You don't need to wait for it to complete, but you should go back and check on it 30-60 seconds later to confirm you were awarded the points. This might be the most important tip in this entire document.
The autograder is not complicated, it simply runs your code in a clean environment, in order from top to bottom. It should be nearly identical to you restarting the kernel and running from top to bottom. There are only a few differences:
The code in the testing cells is sophisticated because it imports other code we wrote that more thoroughly tests your code and generates the output cleanly. Therefore, while you probably won't be able to deconstruct the test code during your time window, you will still see an error traceback as well as the generated variables to show your generated solution vs. the real solution (see practice midterm 1 problem #26). This is more useful than us simply printing this out for you, because you can use the variables to view the data however you want and more dynamically compare if you choose. You can even print these out if you want to compare visually, just be careful that it's 1) not too large, and 2) that you don't go down a rabbit hole trying to visually compare 100+ characters.
The exams will usually have a scoring cap that is announced as part of the exam release notes. This scoring cap means that your score will be [# pts]/[scoring cap]. For example, if there are 15 possible points and the scoring cap is 12, your score of 9 points would get you the grade of 9/12 = 75%. The cap on the grade is 100%, so there will be no extra credit unfortunately (therefore you may keep working after you reach the scoring cap, but will not receive any extra credit).
We do not do manual grading under any circumstances. If you believe your code should've passed but failed due to a bug, see the section below about bug reporting and follow that process.
There is no 'partial credit' beyond the points awarded at the exercise level.
The rules below are by no means exhaustive, but should cover everything you need to know. If something is unclear, then you need to ask the staff via Piazza before the exam (after carefully reading the below 'Rules' and Exam Rules - FAQ page). To be direct: You must complete this exam within the time limit without collaborating with other people. Any attempts to circumvent this policy will be considered an Honor Code Violation.
These rules pertain to Honor Code violations, which will result in you being reported to the Georgia Tech Office of Student Integrity and likely receiving a 0 on the exam at a minimum.
No collaboration of any kind. This includes:
No circumventing exam rules, including misleading TA's about timing or platform issues:
Room/workspace restrictions: The below rules are less strict than the rest, but please try to follow them. All of these will generate flags in the proctoring tool that we will have to review and approve. If what happened won't be obvious to us during review, please make a private piazza post after the exam with a quick note explaining the circumstances (please be brief!).
Environment Package Restrictions
install packageX is not allowed. Vocareum will allow you to install them, but they will not work in the autograder, therefore there is no reason to do this.import packageX is allowed on Vocareum. You can find a full list of installed packages here. Note: if you are working locally, your computer environment will be different. That means if you use import you may be importing a package not in Vocareum, or a different version of the Vocareum package. If you do this locally be prepared to debug issues related to that (or resolve these package issues ahead of time).Now that we got all of the restrictions out of the way, these are resources that you are specifically allowed to have and things you are allowed to do during your exam. This list is not exhaustive--if you are not breaking the above rules and the spirit of the test, it is allowed. No collaboration is still the key.
Resources allowed: The test is open-note, open-book, and open-internet. This means you are allowed to use any resources that don't involve collaborating with another person:
Other things allowed:
For anything not mentioned here or in the above rules area, please make a private piazza post if you want us to confirm yes/no. Generally as long as it doesn't conflict with the "no collaboration" and proctoring/tech requirement rules, it's fine.
Your exam will be proctored using Honorlock (MSA and online MSA students) or Proctortrack (edX VMM students). Both tools can be installed right before you start your exam, but you should budget time to install and test it if there are issues.
Things that Proctoring does:
Go to the practice proctored exam for [current exam] and start it up. If proctoring starts and you are able to get to the exam and see it, then your setup is good. There is no need to go further.
For edX VMM students: The systems will only let you start the exam once, so if you already tested and want to test again, please make a private piazza post with this request and include your edX username.
If you encounter issues your workflow should be: Troubleshoot, Document, Continue working
Bug inquiry: If you think you are encountering a bug where your solution is incorrectly failing a test cell do the following:
CSE 6040 Grading Policy: If you don't take the exam, or misunderstand the exam window (ex: UTC time confustion) and miss it, you will receive a 0 on the exam. There is no flexibility here unfortunately. We won't be able to extend the window for you, nor will we consider alternative grading structures. See exception below
Missed exams (MSA/OMSA only): If you cannot take the exam during the designated period, but you do have compelling and documented justification (e.g., medical condition, family emergency), we can give you an incomplete grade for the course. To document your situation, reach out to OMSA Advising as soon as you can and explain your situation to them. Then, make a private piazza post to all instructors explaining the situation and confirm you're working with OMSA Advising. For your own privacy you will only need to share the specifics with OMSA Advising. You do not need to share that private info with us in your Piazza post.
Assuming OMSA approves and confirms it with 6040 staff, you will then be granted an Incomplete at the end of the semester. This means you will continue working this semester but will receive an "I" at the end, which you can resolve by coming back in a future semester and completing the missing work.
Per Georgia Tech’s policies, incomplete grades are reserved for making up a “small” amount of work only. If your circumstances are more severe, you may need to drop and retake the course. Please refer to GT’s information incompletes for more detail.
Missed exams (edX VMM only): If you cannot take the exam during the designated period, but you do have compelling and documented justification (e.g., medical condition, family emergency), you can reach out to edX support and explain your situation to them. They will then reach out to the instructors and help come up with options. Unfortunately we can't shift the exam window or offer alternative grading structures, so edX will probably offer you the option to re-enroll in the class in the future for free.
Enrolling in graduate courses is a serious commitment. Once you are enrolled in a class you are subject to official Georgia Tech academic policies, meaning that you should assume no changes will be made to the grading structure, withdrawal date, or any rule mentioned in this class or official Georgia Tech documentation. There may be cases where you can make an appeal for special consideration, but you will need to speak to CSE 6040 staff (via private piazza post) as well as with OMSA Advising to go through the formal process. This is by no means meant to stress you out further during serious situations. This is meant to remind you that 1) CSE 6040 staff and OMSA Advising are here to help you, and 2) there are serious policies that we have to follow, so please take your commitment seriously and communicate with the appropriate party as soon as possible.
See Exam Rules - FAQ page