Co-requisite: COMP9021. That is, you must have completed an introductory programming course such as COMP9021, or be concurrently enrolled in COMP9021.

Teaching Rationale

Teaching Strategies

1. Lectures provide a detailed description of the material covered by the course, in an environment that provides a chance to ask questions and listen to the answers to other students' questions. Because the lecturer can see the students' reactions, the lecturer can gauge their level of understanding, and expand on technical material that seems to need further explanation;
2. Textbooks and reference books provide supplementary material, and/or a slightly different point of view on the technical material;
3. Programming laboratories (weeks 2-5) provide an opportunity to learn basic Prolog programming skills necessary for completing the three programming assignments (see below). Lab demonstrators are present so that students who get stuck on some point can ask a demonstrator for help, and have the difficulty rapidly resolved;
4. Exercise sets allow you to test and extend your understanding of the lecture materials by tackling problems based on those materials. Some of the questions in the exercise sets might be similar to questions later used in the final examination;
5. Programming assignments provide:
   • a chance to test and strengthen your understanding of lecture material by coding it in Prolog;
   • practice for your programming skills (which will be tested in the final examination).
   If you can code an AI algorithm from scratch, then you almost certainly understand it well. You cannot learn to be a programmer just from a book. You have to learn this skill by practice.
6. The sample examination gives students a chance to test themselves on the material of the course in a format similar to that of the final examination;
7. Consultation sessions give students an opportunity to ask the lecturers, one-on-one, specific questions about any of the course material that they might be uncertain about;
8. Other students - your classmates - are there to help you, too. Because they have just gone through the same learning processes as you, on the material of COMP9414/9814, they are in a way best placed to know what the difficulties are, and explain them. By explaining them, they too will benefit, by reinforcing their own learning. The only limit on this is in relation to the programming assignments: you can get ideas for the programming assignments from other students, but you must write the program yourself (see plagiarism).
9. The final examination: nobody I know enjoys examinations (either sitting them or marking them) but they do provide a focus and a deadline to make sure you revise the material covered in the course. Revision can be an important part of learning.

Assessment

Assessment Information

The assessment for this subject will consist of:

• 3 hour final exam (70%)*
• 1 Prolog programming assignment (10% - due week 5)
• 1 Agents programming assignment (10% - due week 8)
• 1 Natural Language programming assignment (10% - due week 13)

The assignment marks are added together and scaled to give a mark out of 100, called asstotal. The final exam total is also scaled to give a mark out of 100, called exam. The assignment total and the final exam total will be combined using a harmonic mean formula, weighting the final exam as 70% (0.7) and the assignment total as 30% (0.3):

final mark = min(100, Δ + asstotal*exam/(asstotal*0.7 + exam*0.3))

The weighted harmonic mean penalises uneven performances: getting 100% (30/30) for the assignments and 30% (21/70) for the exam would allow a pass if marks were simply added together, (i.e. if the weighted arithmetic mean were used) but under the harmonic mean formula, it results in a final mark of 38%. The effect of the Δ term is to ensure that, on average, the class is not penalised by the use of the harmonic mean. Those with very different assignment totals and exam totals will still do worse, but those with moderate differences will not do worse, and those with even performances will do better than if a weighted arithmetic mean had been used. Typical values of Δ have been around 1.5 to 2.

If you run the program ~cs9414/bin/passmark9414 in most of the School's labs, it will allow you to enter a total assignment mark out of 30, and then it will print the minimum exam mark (as a percentage, and out of 70) that would be needed to pass the subject if you obtained the assignment mark you typed in.

More on harmonic means.

Criteria by which marks will be assigned

Procedure for submitting assignments

Policy on Late Submission

Late submission of assignments: Assignments submitted late are subject to the following penalty: the maximum mark obtainable reduces by 10% per day late, up to a maximum of 50%. Thus if the assignment is marked out of 10, and students A and B hand in assignments worth 9 and 7, both two days late, then the maximum mark obtainable is 8, so A gets min(9, 8) = 8 and B gets min(7,8) = 7. Assignments handed in over a month late, or after (if) a solution has been released, will normally receive no marks.

Rationale for Each Assignment

Warning about High Assignment Marks

Be aware that marks in some COMP9414/9814 assignments are likely to be high. The assignments are designed to provide experience with the concepts being studied, and assessment is as much formative as summative. In the past, some students have thought that their high marks in the assignments meant that they did not need to study much for the exam. This is not wise. Take a look at the 2011s1 mark distribution statistics. You will see that, for example, while at least 57% of students scored in the HD range in each assignment, only 15% scored in the HD range on their final result (i.e. composite mark ≥ 85).

We (the lecturers) understand that this may make the final exam rather stressful, and we have considered other assessment models. However, we take the view that end of semester is the best time for most of the assessment weighting, as by then you have had as long as possible to understand, and revise, the course material.

The self-administered feedback quizzes (where available) allow you to monitor your progress: they don't count towards the assessment, but they do allow you to decide whether you understand the lecture material.

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