A Progress Report includes both a brief presentation to the class, and a written report submitted to Gauchospace. The presentations will take place during lecture periods, and the associated written reports are due before 6:30pm on the dates of these presentations.
There are eight reports altogether this quarter, scheduled as follows:
| Report number |
Due date (all Wednesdays) |
Presentation order |
Special instructions (if any) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | April 11 | G01-G14 | Special instructions for Progress Report 1 |
| 2 | April 18 | G14-G01 | |
| 3 | April 25 | G08-G14, G01-G07 | Special instructions for Progress Report 3 |
| 4 | May 2 | No oral report today | |
| 5 | May 9 | G07-G01, G14-G08 | |
| 6 | May 16 | G01-G14 | Special instructions for Progress Report 6 |
| 7 | May 23 | G14-G01 | |
| 8 | May 30 | No oral report today | Special instructions for Progress Report 8 |
| June 7 - No report (system demonstration week) | |||
A report may be typed into the text box provided for that report in Gauchospace, or it may be prepared ahead of time and submitted to Gauchospace as a plain text or PDF file. Only files with extendions ".txt" or ".pdf" will be accepted. Even if you plan to use the text box option, we suggest you prepare the text of your answers to the four main questions ahead of time instead of trying to create them in real time. Then you can copy and paste into the form when ready.
Type your Group ID at the top of the report. These Group IDs will be announced as soon as possible, hopefully well before you fill out your first Progress Report.
Then write answers to the following four questions in order, and labelled as described in the "Clarification" section below:
Use the underlined labels in the notes below as section headers in your report. This is important, to help us read (and grade) your reports.
| Of course the first report has no precedent, so be sure to read those special instructions at the link in the above schedule. Similarly, more special instructions links will apply for some future reports - so be sure to check for those in upcoming weeks. |
Late Report Policies - Of course our preference is that you will submit your written reports before the 6:30 pm deadlines, and doing so will earn you the full credit that your report merits. Any late report turned in before midnight the next day is eligible for partial credit as follows: 1st time - subtract 20 percent; 2nd time - subtract 40 percent; 3rd and subsequent times - subtract 80 percent.
This may be done as a whole group, or it may be done by one or more individual members of your group. Whichever way you choose, one person should lead the presentation, and we insist that the presentation leader will change from week to week - so everyone leads at least one presentation over the course of the quarter, and no one student leads too many.
Basically, the presentation should summarize the information you plan to include in the form. The key word in that sentence is summarize. There is no time to present all of the details in a 3-5 minute presentation. Some consideration should be given to making it interesting (or even entertaining) for the class too - so highlight the most compelling parts of your progress report.
The time limits are critical: no less than 3 minutes and no more than 5 minutes is acceptable. Practice your presentation before saying it in class, to be sure it is sharp and fits into the allowable time limits. Stopping to ask the instructor, "Is that enough?" is not the right way to do it - instead know when enough is covered by preparing ahead of time.