Lab Assignment Policies

Each type of assignment is worth a different number of points as given in the table in the course syllabus and are grouped based upon the associated experiment number.

  1. The lowest lab experiment grade will be dropped.
  2. The experiment grade will be all of the assignments due for a particular experiment (i.e. worksheet; Achieve, Smart Worksheet, review and report section; or Achieve, Smart Worksheet and report). On Canvas, the experiments are combined already into the individual Modules.

 

Canvas Quizzes

PlayPosit Videos

Achieve Quizzes

Achieve Pre-lab assignments

Peer Review Draft Reports

Achieve Smart Worksheet

Final Lab Reports and Screenshots

Lab Exams

PlayPosit Videos

PlayPosit questions are designed to help keep students engaged when watching videos associated with this course. This will range from answering questions related to material on the screen, analyzing information across the video as a whole, to work problems with the instructor. You may even be asked to catch some typos.

  1. PlayPosit pre-lab videos are due at 5:00 PM ET the day before your lab is scheduled to meet. This is because the pre-labs are designed to help prepare you for when you go to lab.
  2. PlayPosit videos are accepted late, with no late penalty.
  3. You have only one attempt to answer each question, however, you may re-watch the video as many times as you would like.
  4. You can rewind the video, however, once the question appears, you cannot go back and watch the video again.

Achieve Quizzes

Quizzes will be completed on Achieve. Additional instructions and information will be posted there.

  1. The due dates for quizzes are given in the schedule. There are no make-up quizzes. All quizzes are due at 5:00 pm on the due date.
  2. Late quizzes will be accepted up to 24 after the original due date and time and will receive a penalty (25% points for quizzes per question answered after the due date). Quizzes will not be accepted after 24 hours.

Achieve Pre-lab assignments

Pre-lab assignments will be completed on Achieve. Additional instructions and information will be posted there.

  1. Pre-lab assignments are designed to help you prepare for lab. They are required to be completed before your lab session starts. Failure to do so will result in your TA asking you to leave, as not being prepared for lab is a major safety hazard.
  2. All pre-lab assignments are due at 5:00 PM ET on the day BEFORE your lab is scheduled to meet. Exact dates are given in the course schedule.
    1. This is based upon student self-enrollment. To access our Achieve course, you must log into the course Canvas site and click on any of the Achieve assignment links.
  3. Any late submission of work on the pre-lab assignments will receive a 25% point deduction per question submitted late. No submissions will be accepted more than 24 hours late.
  4. Due date extension: To receive an extension for an assignment, you must provide a legitimate, documented excuse that is consistent with University policy. This excuse must explain why you could not work on the homework for a week prior to the due date. Homework extensions are rarely granted. The documentation must be turned in to the lab supervisor within one week of the homework due date. Extensions will not be granted after you have viewed the solutions.
  5. Gradebook: Achieve automatically syncs with the Canvas grade book.
    1. When you first open an assignment, the score will begin passing to Canvas.
      1. This means, if you open an assignment to look around before entering any work, a “0” will show up in Canvas.
      2. Once you begin submitting responses, your score will update in both Achieve and Canvas.
      3. Allow up to 24 hours for Canvas to update the scores.
      4. Check your grades from time to time to ensure that you are receiving credit for your assignments.
      5. If you find an error, contact the lab supervisor.

Using Achieve

  1. Log in to Achieve for each homework assignment.
    1. Upon entering the course site, you will see a list of resources, contact information for technical support and a list of materials and assignments for each unit.
    2. You should look at all items listed for each unit.
    3. The items listed will change from week to week. Check back often.
    4. There are several videos and training activities to help you learn how to use the system. Their use is STRONGLY encouraged. Some of the training activities will receive a grade for completion, however those points will not count toward your final course grade.
  2. Assignments are listed in green and have a due date next to them.
  3. Click on an assignment to open it and follow the directions to complete it.
  4. The grading policy for each assignment is displayed on the right side of the screen once you open an assignment. Multiple choice questions may have fewer attempts depending on the number of answer choices.
  5. There is NO penalty for using hints.
  6. You lose partial credit for each incorrect attempt at a multiple-choice question.
  7. Enter answers to all questions on the page (if there are more than one).
    1. Click “Check Answer” to check your work.
    2. Choose “Next” to move to the next problem or “Try Again” to enter a different answer.

Peer Review Drafts

  1. Peer reviews are completed in your lab. Peer reviews are conducted on Canvas and your draft report must be submitted by 5:00 PM ET the day before your lab meets. Canvas will distribute reports to students at 8:00:00 AM, the day of your lab.
    1. Work submitted to the “Comments” box will not be graded.
  2. Late draft reports submitted for peer review will be accepted until 8:00:00 AM ET, the day your lab meets. After 8:00:00 AM ET, late peer review draft reports will not be accepted and will receive a zero.
    1. Late peer review drafts will receive a 5 point late penalty.
    2. The Canvas time stamp will be used to determine whether or not a report for peer review was submitted on time or late.
    3. Canvas marks items late, starting at 5:00:00 PM, not 5:01:00 PM.
    4. Canvas requires you to submit a paper before you will be assigned work to review. If you do not submit a draft report, you will not receive feedback from your peers and will receive a zero on the assignment.
  3. If you are not physically present in lab, your report will not receive points for the peer review.
  4. It is expected that you turn in your own work for this assignment, as it is treated in the same manner as a final report and subject to university policies in regards to academic offenses.
  5. Peers will review each others work and provide feedback to each other on Canvas.
    1. To provide your peer’s with feedback, Canvas requires you to use the grading rubric provided in the assignment. The rubric should be completed in addition to any comments left in the comment section to your peers.
    2. Canvas uses the rubric to track who has provided peer feedback.
    3. The grading rubric is the same rubric as will be used by your TA to grade the final lab report.
    4. Scores on the assignment are determined based upon the average of your 10 peers’ feedback (20 pts).
    5. All scores must be submitted to Canvas before you leave the lab or by the 5:00 PM deadline. Failure to submit peer review feedback will result in you receiving a zero on your assignment.
  6. Remember, the scores from your peers will be averaged together, so if one is low and others are high, it will be reflected in the average. It is important that all students take this process seriously and provide reasonable feedback following the grading rubric.
  7. If you miss lab on a peer review day, you will need to submit the proper documentation for an excused absence to the lab, following the procedures given in the “Policies – Attendance” section below.
    1. If you have an excused absence for the day a TA/Peer Review is done, you have one week to submit the draft report to Canvas. Do not provide your report to a friend to Peer Review outside of the lab period. I suggest that you submit your report to Canvas before your request is approved. Once your absence is excused, your TA will record your score for the peer review.
    2. If your absence is unexcused, you will receive a zero for the Peer Review.
    3. Peer Reviews in any form or fashion are not to be completed outside of lab.
  8. Students must be present in lab to receive a grade for their peer reviewed report.
  9. Some notes on Canvas’s Peer Review process:
    1. You must submit a report to review reports.
    2. Assignments must be submitted prior to the report distribution time of 8:00:00 AM.
      1. Reports submitted at 8:00:01 AM will not be distributed to your peers.
      2. Canvas does not allow instructors to force a report to be sent out to other students.
    3. If you do not submit a report, we cannot assign you reports to evaluate.

Achieve Smart Worksheets

  1. Smart Worksheets are a website-based computer program used to grade your calculations as part of data analysis and serves as the data section to your lab report.
  2. Most of the issues students have with using the Smart Worksheets result from failing to read all of the instructions on the website. This includes items related to calculations and the appropriate number of significant figures.
  3. All Smart Worksheet assignments on are due at 5:00 pm on the date given in the schedule.
  4. Late Smart Worksheet assignments will be accepted up to 24 hours after the original due date and time and receive a 25% penalty when submitted late. Assignments will not be accepted after 24 hours except in the case of an excused absence when the student is given an extension.
  5. Correctly calculating answers does not indicate that you determined the TRUE experimental value. Often times you will be asked to compare your value to the literature or accepted value and is an indicator of your success at the experiment. While emphasis not on “getting the right answer” in an experiment, a small number of “Quality of Data” items are graded on how close you are to that literature value or how small your deviation in measurements are. It is these items that truly reflect how successful your experiment was. Errors can be minimized by working slowly, paying attention to detail, keeping your glassware clean and being attentive to your work. A formal error analysis of things you KNOW went wrong with your experiment is to be included in your Discussion section of your lab report.
  6. Gradebook: Achieve automatically syncs with the Canvas grade book.
    1. When you first open an assignment, the score will begin passing to Canvas.
      1. This means, if you open an assignment to look around before entering any work, a “0” will show up in Canvas.
      2. Once you begin submitting responses, your score will update in both Achieve and Canvas.
      3. Allow 24 to 48 hours for Canvas to update the scores.
      4. Check your grades from time to time to ensure that you are receiving credit for your assignments.
    2. If you think an item was graded incorrectly, please complete the Regrade Request Form.

Final Lab reports

  1. Lab reports are due at 5:00 pm on the due date given in the course schedule.
    1. Reports submitted after 5:00 pm are considered late.
      1. Please note: Canvas marks assignments late based upon the number of seconds. If you submit your work at 5:00:01 PM, even if the submission reads 5:00PM, then your assignment is marked as late in Canvas, which is the official submission time used for this course. Plan on submitting your work by 4:59:59 PM.
    2. Late final lab reports will be accepted up to 24 hours after the original due date and time and receive a penalty (5 points for reports). Lab reports will not be accepted after 24 hours except in the case of an excused absence. This policy does not apply to make-up labs, due to the tight time frame for determining final grades.
    3. If you have an excused absence on a day a report is due, your due date will be extended to the next lab meeting.
    4. If you have an unexcused absence on a day a report is due, your due date will not be extended.
    5. All work you submit should be your own, based on the data you collected and writing you’ve completed this semester. If you did not come to lab, you cannot complete the lab report, as you have no experimental results to base the report off of.
  2. Final reports are to be submitted electronically on Canvas within each experiment’s Module. Students are responsible for submitting their work to the correct assignment.  Paper or emailed copies or copies submitted to the “Comments” section on Canvas are not accepted.
    1. Files must be *.doc or *.docx file formats. Files which cannot be opened in Canvas Speedgrader or cannot be read will receive a zero.
    2. Files must be named as ExperimentNumber_Last Name_First Name.doc.  Example: 3_French_April.doc
    3. If you experience difficulties submitting your report to Canvas that are not due to having a previous submission, then you need to contact the Canvas’s chat support or UK’s HelpDesk at 218help@uky.edu and include a screenshot of the error you are receiving, an explanation of what you are doing, including the SPECIFIC name of the assignment, full name, course and section number, and cc the lab supervisor on the email.
    4. Instructions for submitting your report through Canvas’s TurnItIn
    5. Instructions on how to view the TurnItIn report
    6. Work submitted to the “Comments” box will not be graded.
  3. Reports are graded by your TA. The Canvas grading rubric is given to you with each assignment and is made available after the assignment is graded by your TA with feedback.
  4. Your grade should be received within one week of the report due date. If it is taking longer than that, please contact the lab supervisor.
  5. If you think your assignment was graded incorrectly, complete the Re-grade Request Form for CHE 111 and CHE 113 form within one week of receiving the graded worksheet or one week from when reports grades are posted on Canvas and submit it to the lab supervisor.
    1. The regrade request must state what specific item(s) was not graded correctly and what about your answer was correct.
    2. The lab supervisor has the authority to re-grade reports and will do so with strict adherence to the grading rubric. You will receive the score determined by the lab supervisor, even if the score is lower than what your TA assigned.

Lab Exams

CHE 111 Final Exam

  1. Exams will be administered electronically on your own laptop or tablet computer, using software which temporarily blocks outside communication and all local resources on your device. You must install Lockdown Browser software on your device prior to the exam.
  2. The lab final exam is comprehensive and may include items based on any assignment or material related to this course.
  3. If you miss the final exam, complete the Request for an Excused Absence form on Canvas immediately and submit your documentation with the online form. Someone will contact you shortly after.

CHE 113 Midterm and Final Exam

  1. Exams will be administered electronically on your own laptop or tablet computer, using software which temporarily blocks outside communication and all local resources on your device.
  2. There is a midterm exam and a final exam in this course. See the schedule for the dates.
    1. The midterm exam will cover material up to and including the lab scheduled for the week of the midterm. As CHE 113 builds on material from CHE 111 & 105 (they are prerequisites for this course), items may be included from CHE 111.
    2. The final exam is comprehensive and will contain material from CHE 111 and material covered prior to the midterm exam.
  3. The format (multiple choice, open response, etc.) and the number of questions will be posted on Canvas before the exam.
  4. Students are expected to apply the knowledge of concepts from the lab in order to answer the exam questions.