Physics307L:Grading

Components of overall course grade

Component	Percentage of final grade
Final formal report	20%
Oscilloscope and Lab 1	0% (practice grading for Labs 2-6)
Labs 2 - 6 (graded on written work and oral defense)	75% (each lab equal portion)
Attendance, completion of assignments, helpfulness and demeanor in the lab	5%

Course Goals

1. Gain experience in writing a research paper
   • Measurable: Producing a complete report on a lab experiment, written in the style of a research paper.
2. Demonstrate diligence in keeping an electronic lab notebook
   • Measurable: Koch or Hjelm able to read notebook on OWW and clearly follow everything that was done.
3. Gain experience in setting up and debugging experiments
   • Measurable: Able to fix an apparatus after Koch or Hjelm come over and mess it up
4. Demonstrate ability to properly use other's work and give credit
   • Measurable: In formal report, all necessary references included
   • Measurable: In wiki lab notebook: record of all important conversations and who did what ("Koch said ..." "Devon showed me ..." "It didn't work until a classmate (___) showed me how to wire up the capacitor in parallel...")
5. Gain experience in taking high quality data
   • Measurable: Able to orally defend quality of data and explain possible sources of error.
6. Gain experience in analyzing and processing data
   • Measurable: Able to electronically fit a line to data (least squares, maximum likelihood); others important (TBD)
7. Gain experience in how to report measurements meaningfully
   • Measurable: All final measurements reported with error bars.
8. Experience the excitement of measuring fundamental physics quantities
   • Measurable: Able to explain orally how these measurements were first obtained, and what new information was revealed at the time.
   • Measurable: Able to explain orally and in writing how the experiment uses fundamental physics to reveal some parameter (such as e/m ratio for an electron). Memorizing formulas not necessary.