Grading Policy for Computer Networking I

Grading Policy for Networking Laboratory I

1. Networking Laboratory I / Computer Networking I LEC 4 T R 6:00 7:50PM Kotfila Sage 4101

2. Instructor: Chris Price pricec@cs.rpi.edu Office hours: By arrangement Lally 316 ext. 6476

Teaching Assistants:

Kyle Mackenzie mackek2@rpi.edu Mark Dufrane dufram@rpi.edu Daniel Delaney deland@rpi.edu

Email all of us with your technical questions. One of us is reading email at virtually any hour of the day or night:

kotfid@rpi.edu; pricec@cs.rpi.edu; mackek2@rpi.edu; dufram@rpi.edu; deland@rpi.edu

3. Required texts:

CCNA: Cisco Certified Network Associate Study Guide, 6th Edition (640-802) Todd Lammle ***REQUIRED***

Sybex, Paperback, 6th Bk&CD edition, 1008 pages, ISBN 0470110082

CCNA Portable Command Guide, 2nd Edition (Exam 640-802) Scott D. Empson ***REQUIRED***

Cisco Press, Paperback, Published July 2007, 384 pages, ISBN 1587201933

CCNP Self-Study: Building Scalable Cisco Internetworks (BSCI) 3rd edition Catherine Paquet Diane Teare ***REQUIRED***

Cisco Press, Hardcover, 3rd edition, Published December 2006, 864 pages, ISBN 1587052237

CCNP Building Scalable Internetworks (BSCI 642-901) Lab Portfolio David Kotfila, Joshua Moorhouse, Ross Wolfson ***REQUIRED***
Cisco Press, Paperback, Published December 2007, 700 pages, ISBN 1587132133

Sample Test Questions are required for homework assignments.

4. Grading:

This is a LAB course. The top priority is the ability to configure production networks.

The basic structure of the class is 4/4/4 - 4 hours of class, 4 hours of lab, 4 hours of reading/homework per week. It may be necessary to spend additional time re-reading material depending upon your background. A critical skill for the successful completion of this course is time management skills. We will move through a large quantity of material at a very rapid pace. It is essential that you not fall behind in either reading or labs. There is a lab associated with each class. Go to class on Tuesday. Take ONE of five possible labs. Go to class on Thursday. Take ONE of four possible labs. Class. Lab. Class. Lab. Hearing. Doing. Hearing. Doing.

Sign up for one of these five labs:

32192 CSCI-4970-04 COMPUTER NETWORKING LAB          T       8:00  9:50PM Kotfila               EATON 215

32193 CSCI-4970-05 COMPUTER NETWORKING LAB          W       2:00  3:50PM Kotfila               EATON 215

32194 CSCI-4970-06 COMPUTER NETWORKING LAB          W       4:00  5:50PM Kotfila               EATON 215

32195 CSCI-4970-07 COMPUTER NETWORKING LAB          W       8:00  9:50PM Kotfila               EATON 215

32196 CSCI-4970-08 COMPUTER NETWORKING LAB          R       4:00  5:50PM Kotfila               EATON 215

and for one of these four labs:

32197 CSCI-4970-09 COMPUTER NETWORKING LAB R 8:00 9:50PM Kotfila EATON 215

32189 CSCI-4970-01 COMPUTER NETWORKING LAB M 4:00 5:50PM Kotfila EATON 215

32190 CSCI-4970-02 COMPUTER NETWORKING LAB M 8:00 9:50PM Kotfila EATON 215

32191 CSCI-4970-03 COMPUTER NETWORKING LAB T 4:00 5:50PM Kotfila EATON 215

You start the class with an A. Any of the items below can reduce your grade:

1. Labs - TAs will take attendance at each lab. Failure to successfully complete one lab - no penalty Failure to successfully complete two labs - lose 1/2 letter grade Failure to successfully complete three labs - lose one full letter grade (the highest grade you can get is a B). Failure to successfully complete four labs - lose two full letter grades. Failure to successfully complete 5 labs - automatically fail the course. The intent here is clear. This is a course in which you are expected to demonstrate your ability to configure and troubleshoot a real network.

Students must complete labs the week they are assigned to receive credit for the lab. Requests to make up ("cram") labs at the end of the semester will be denied. It is understandable that events occur in life which might necessitate missing a lab (example: illness, family birthday, etc.) For events that are known ahead of time (a family reunion), you must email the TAs before the missed lab. In the event of illness, email the TAs as soon as possible. You must make up the labs within one week of when you are healthy. CC: me on all of these emails. It helps me to do grading at the end of the semester if I have your email: kotfid@rpi.edu

The first lab will be held after next Tuesday's class, and then will follow the posted schedule on SIS. You must sign up for one lab session between the end of Tuesday class and the beginning of the Thursday class. You must sign up for one additional lab session between the end of the Thursday class, and the beginning of Tuesday class. It is the responsibility of students to make sure that the TA sees you in the lab and verifies that (1) you have successfully completed the lab, or (2)worked the entire 2 hours attempting to get the lab to work. Initially, you will be assigned a "pod" of routers. Your goal is to successfully configure these devices so that they are communicating with each other.

Students come into this course with vastly different backgrounds. Some of you have zero networking experience. That's fine. Some of you have extensive experience on production networks. That's fine. "Completing a lab" means working for the two hour lab period. If you lack experience, and it takes you twice as long as other people to complete lab 1, that is fine. Save your configurations and continue to work on lab 1 the next lab period. If you finish lab 1 in 45 minutes, then move on to lab 2. You learn to drive a car by actually driving. You learn to configure complex networks by actually configuring complex networks.

Labs start Tuesday, January 20th, at 8 pm

2. Class Attendance - Class is required but attendance is not taken. >80% of those who attend class pass the course. >80% of those who do not attend class fail the course. Do the math :-)

3. Conceptual Mastery (4 possible grading tracks)

Track 1: CCNP Certification Track - To pass this course, you must successfully pass the official Cisco CCNA, and BSCI exams as well as complete the labs as outlined above. These are administered at Pearson Vue testing centers. You may take these exams as many times as you need to, to pass them. However, the semester is short. Each time you take the CCNA exam it costs $250. Each time you take the BSCI exam it costs $150. Lack of money is not an adequate reason for not retaking the exam, or for not retaking it in a timely fashion. While I am very unhappy about it being this way, you should evaluate carefully whether you have sufficient funds to complete this track.

Because you have to sign-up on your own to take these exams, some students in the past have been under the impression that it is at their discretion as to when they take these exams. This is NOT the case. You MUST take the exams by the posted dates (see homework page). Just like a mid-term and a final exam, it is NOT your choice when you take these. Keep current on your assignments. Take the exam by the posted time. Extended illness or other extraordinary circumstances (death in the family) are legitimate excuses.

Track 1 is the DEFAULT track (unless you notify me otherwise).

Track 2: CCNA Certification Track - About half the students in the class end up not going on to complete their CCNP(which consists of 4 additional exams beyond the CCNA exam). Therefore, while everyone in this track is required to pass the CCNA exam, you are choosing to NOT take the routing exam of the CCNP. These students will be graded upon Cisco Networking Academy exams (on-line). Students who choose this option must take each chapter exam when it is administered, and the final exam. There is no charge for taking the Academy exams. Students who want to exercise this option MUST email me kotfid@rpi.edu by September 30th and indicate their desire to do so. The subject line of the email should be "TRACK 2"

Mathematical formula by which grade is computed: In the second half of the course, chapter tests will count approximately 50% of your grade and the final will count 50% of your grade for this section of the course. These will be combined to form one number. This number will be added to your score on the CCNA exam and divided by two. 86-100 A; 76-85 B; 70-75 C; 65-69 D; 64 and below F.

If you are in this grading track, you must attend classes the second half of the semester in order to take these quizzes.

Track 3: Non-Certification Track - These students will be graded upon chapter quizzes and (2nd half of the course)Cisco Networking Academy exams (on-line). Students who choose this option must take each chapter exam when it is administered, and the final exam. There is no charge for taking these exams. Students who want to exercise this option MUST email me kotfid@rpi.edu by January 29th and indicate their desire to do so. The subject line of the email should be "TRACK 3".

If you are in this grading track, you must attend classes the entire semester in order to take these quizzes.

Mathematical formula by which grade is computed: Chapter tests will count 50% of your grade, mid-term exam 25%, and final 25%. These will be combined to form one number. 86-100 A; 76-85 B; 70-75 C; 65-69 D; 64 and below F.

Track 4: CCIE Certification Track - Grading is the same as Track 1. Students have the option, although it is not recommended, to take only the CCIE written exam. Upon passing this exam they receive an A in the course.

Which track? - The advantage of Track 1 is that you do not have to worry about chapter tests. Pass the two certification exams and you receive an A. The course becomes an A/F course. You have the further advantage that you can take the exams over again as many times as you like until you pass (though it costs you either $250. or $150. each time) The disadvantage, if you are not pursuing a career in networking, is that the exams cost money. Track 2 is for those who want some resume credentials but probably are not pursuing a career as network engineers. Track 3 does not cost extra for the exams. The downside is that the chapter tests, midterm and final all count towards your grade and you can only take them once. Note: Students in Tracks 2 and 3 tend to receive lower grades because they tend not to take seriously the in-class tests. Track 4 is for hard core network engineers who know what they want and are willing to pay a high price to be the best.

Incompletes - Only for medical reasons, or extended illness/death in the family. The fact that you do not have enough money to pay to retake an exam is not an acceptable reason.

Late work - will receive a minimum of one grade reduction and may, at the sole discretion of the instructor, not be accepted at all.

5. Labs - Scheduling - Use SIS sign up for 2 lab times each week. Avoid crowded labs as this will give you more equipment to play with :-)

6. Academic Integrity

The corporate environment to which most of you are about to enter is a TEAM environment. That is good news. There is more technical information that needs to be assimilated that any single individual could ever possibly hope to learn. Techies need to understand management. Management needs some understanding of the technology. Within technical groups there will be various specialties. Specialists will have to work across disciplines to get corporate projects completed.

Therefore you are strongly encouraged to help one another in any way that you can. One of you will become an access-list expert but get confused by Lan Switching. Another will really grasp the OSI model in a profound way, but not get dynamic routing. Help each other. Study groups are encouraged!

When you take the official Cisco exams, you will be completely on your own. Cheating will be difficult if not impossible. You will be in a controlled environment in which a computer and a calculator will be provided. You will not be allowed to bring anything else other than a pencil into the testing environment. Some testing centers video tape the testing sessions. Cheating on one of these exams will result in an F for the course.

Hands on exams at RPI will be the work of individuals only (no collaboration) and closely monitored. I have never had anyone successfully cheat on one of these exams (do not take that as a challenge). However, in the event that cheating is attempted you will fail that exam. If cheating is suspected, but not certain, then a re-test will be given. The decision to re-test will be solely at the discretion of the instructor. The first cheating offense on this type of exam will result in a loss of 2 letter grades for the course. The second offense will result in an F for the course.

Routers have various HELP functions built into the Operating System (IOS). It will be possible to use these during the hands-on exams. This HELP function is not available on the standardized Cisco exams.

It would be easy to cheat on the written homework and lab assignments. Cheating on these will result in the loss of one letter grade for the course. The second offense will result in an F for the course.

Using non-approved passwords on networking devices hurts everyone in the class. It prevents other people from using the lab and costs the Director/Instructor/TA valuable time spent in breaking the password. The first offense of intentionally using a non-approved password will result in a grade reduction of one letter. The second offense will result in failure. There is no penalty for accidently ("fat fingering") setting the wrong password. Immediately notify your Instructor/TA so that they can remedy the situation.

7. Semester Reading Assignments