Blackboard Assignment Submission Guidelines

1. File Formats

Blackboard readily supports grading of Microsoft Word and pdf documents. Submit files in one of these
two formats.

In general submit all parts of a week’s assignment in one file that follows the format indicated in
Sections 4 and 5 below. A week’s assignment often involves more than one R script.

Occasionally a week’s assignment scripts may call for producing one or more pdf files and the
Blackboard assignment or the script may indicate that these files can be submitted separately.
Blackboard supports submitting multiple files.

2. Due date

The blackboard assignment indicates the date due. In general there is no credit for a late assignment.
There are two special cases. 1) The instructor determines there is good reason to move back the due
date for the whole class. 2) There is a special circumstance, such as the student is in a hospital.

3. Number of submissions: 3

When an assignment is submitted more than once, the last one before the due date and time will be
graded.

4. Assignment document format

As indicate above, put the items due for the week in one file unless specified otherwise.

The submitted assignment must start with your name. The assignment document may contain R scripts,
plots, comments about the plots and answers to questions. The assignment R script name should
precede the results based on that script. The section number should precede the items due from that
section. The R scripts should appear in the order listed in the Assignment.

5. Script and section labeling in the assignment document

The structure sketch below is for an assignment involving two R script files. Centering your name, the
script names and the section labels is okay. If a Section has question and/or an opinion question put
the answer below the section at the end of the section label. Opinion questions are indicated as such
and marked as being correct as long as a reasonable opinion is provided. Deductions for opinion
questions are rare and almost away based on not answering the question.

Name: Your Name

Script Name: Intro to ggplot2

Section 4:
 Plot
Your comment about the plot
(Answers if any)
Section 9:
Plot
Your comment about the plot
(Answers in any)

Script Name: Dow Jones Dot Plot

Section 2:
Plot
Your comment about the plot
(Answers if any)

7. Answers to opinion questions

Typically these are mark as being correct as long as a reasonable opinion is provided. Deductions are
typically for not answering the question.

8. Content Limitations

Avoid including material extraneous to the assignment items due. It is okay to include the R script that
produced the plot for the items due.

Some students use the markdown language to produce word or pdf file with embedded graphics for the
whole assignment R script when only a fraction of the material is due. This may be great for student
records. However, the extra material slows grading. Just include what is due.

9. Feedback and sharing interest areas and ideas

I may be very interested in your questions and interest areas. Please communicate these by email or in
person. Hopefully assignment questions can be answered in the class before the assignment is due. I
may able to show class examples related to your interest areas.