Survey of the Game Industry

"What's my current grade, Mr. Emrich?"

It's very simple. You can find your grade by looking to the right of your Student ID Number. The grades to the left of the black vertical line are the ones calculated for your Midterm Grade. The column headings (most of which are hyperlinks where information about those assignments is available) include a title of what was evaluated followed by the maximum possible points that could be earned for it in brackets. These columns include:

• Negative points (if applicable) for tardy / absent attendance (tarde venientibus ossa: "for latecomers, the bones.")
• Four exams [1 - 4]  in bold type
• Your game review article (with screen shots)
• Your Industry Contact Survey
• Two sets of ideas for new games that you believe Atari should publish
• The Graded Course Project (Solo Pitch) broken down into your written material, plus student and teacher evaluations of the presentation
• The teacher's assessment of your evaluations of other student's presentations
• Plus any Extra Credit you've earned.

Survey of the Game Industry

The numeric values [#] in the column headers indicate the optimum possible number of points that can be earned for that assignment.

Attendance is the only category where you want 0 points. Each tardy costs you one point (-1) while each complete class absence costs you three points (-3).

Green numbers indicate assignments that received more points than allotted for that assignment due to extra credit effort.

Red numbers indicate assignments that were received late (and marked down accordingly).

Yellow highlighted boxes with a 'Inc' in them indicate an assignment too late to make up.

If your grade percentage (at the right of the chart) is highlighted in dim yellow, that means you're at or below "C level" and are a prime candidate to receive extra credit questions in class. Come prepared and earn them!

The Final Grade columns are what your Final Grade would be if it were issued today. In other words, this is a snapshot of your current grade, not in percentage form, but as an actual letter grade.

The Statistical Analysis for the entire class at the bottom works this way:

Mean: Think of this as the average class grade. (If you got higher than this number, you're "above average.")
Median: Half of you got above this grade; half got below it. (If you got above this number, you're in the top half of the group; if you got below this number, you're in the bottom half.)
Mode: Answers the question: what is the single most frequently occurring result in this category? (In other words, this is the most commonly achieved score in this category.)
Count %: What percentage of this class even has a grade for this? (The lower this value is from 100, the more of you who are not getting that assignment done!)

The complete course Grading Policies and Methodology can be found here.

Important reminders:

• You must turn in assignments at the beginning of class. If you must miss a class meeting, please contact me in advance to make alternative arrangements for submitting that week’s homework.
   

• No late homework assignment will be accepted after one week. All late homework assignments are worth at least one less point for being late regardless of the reason.
   

• If you miss an exam, attend the next class session 1/2 hour early. You will be given a special make-up exam at that time only. Any other special arrangements for making up exams or homework will be made entirely at the instructor’s discretion.

To contact the instructor about missing or late homework assignments or test, click here to send me an email. Don't delay; the grade being affected is your own!