Assessment

Assessment

Student performance will be evaluated to determine whether the student has fulfilled the passing requirements. This evaluation comes in various assessment components ranging from written tests (online and offline), group and individual assignments, oral presentations, projects, lab work, etc.  The courses’ syllabi can be found on the learning management systems at http://mylms.dau.edu.sa.

These syllabi contain detailed information about the course contents and assessment methods and components in each course.

 

 

Grades

The minimum passing grade in any UPP course is “D”. All courses will be included in the cumulative grade point average (GPA), except English courses in the elementary level.

 

Class Attendance

Attending classes on-time and for the full period of the class is compulsory.  However, a student who misses a class or part of it for a valid reason which is accepted by the Department of Student Affairs will be excused.

 

Plagiarism

There are many resources, particularly on the World-Wide Web (‘the Web’) that the students are expected to explore and use.  One of the reasons the Web has grown so quickly is that anyone can publish (almost) anything on it.  This raises a number of problems, however, particularly in relation to the issue of copyright.  It is very easy to find information, images, audio and video files on the Web.  Students can easily save these and incorporate them into their own material.  This ease of copying means people often make the mistake of assuming that everything on the Web is freely available. This is not the case and students should be aware of what is acceptable and not acceptable in this approach.

As a general guide, we expect students to use the Web as a resource to find information, and to work together to discuss findings and develop an understanding of issues.  What we do not expect is students to directly copy from the work of others – this is known as plagiarism; it is not acceptable, and will be penalized.  Students will find that there are many pages providing what may seem at first to be ready-made solutions to their assignments.  Teachers are also aware of this, and there are tools which allow us to easily search for phrases from a student’s assignment to see if they occur in other documents published on the Web.

Students need to rewrite in their own words any material they find, in order to demonstrate their understanding.  This is what their teachers will look for.  This does not mean that students cannot quote from others to make a point, but where they have done so, they must clearly acknowledge their sources.